Should We Memorize Catechisms or Scripture?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Well, should we study catechisms or memorize scripture?
00:00:06.400 | It's a really good question that comes to us
00:00:08.160 | from a listener named Sarah in North Carolina.
00:00:11.040 | Pastor John, I'm a stay-at-home mom
00:00:12.480 | with three young children.
00:00:13.600 | We currently homeschool, and I love the opportunities
00:00:16.580 | the kids and I have multiple times a day
00:00:18.560 | to talk about the glory of God
00:00:20.480 | in our adventures and education.
00:00:22.780 | It truly is a joy to point them to Christ every day.
00:00:25.900 | My question is this, what are your thoughts
00:00:28.040 | on teaching children a catechism?
00:00:30.360 | Is it worth the huge amount of time
00:00:31.880 | that we would spend on it,
00:00:33.200 | or would our time be better served
00:00:34.780 | only in memorizing scripture that points to the same truth?
00:00:38.640 | Pastor John, what would you say to Sarah?
00:00:41.160 | - Well, it sounds like a wonderful home to grow up in.
00:00:44.540 | Talking about the glory of God
00:00:46.440 | and concerned about whether scripture,
00:00:49.080 | memory, or catechism is to be chosen.
00:00:51.480 | When we think about the time
00:00:56.000 | that we have with our children,
00:00:57.600 | and I'm talking about a family
00:01:01.000 | where a child's born, grows up, goes away to school.
00:01:05.160 | There are other kinds of families,
00:01:07.680 | but let's just address this one.
00:01:09.800 | When we think about that time with our children,
00:01:13.280 | we need to be realistic and remember
00:01:15.440 | that Bible memory and catechism could start
00:01:18.020 | about age two, say, or three,
00:01:21.020 | until they leave at about 18.
00:01:23.920 | And so we've got roughly 15 years.
00:01:26.480 | So when I pose myself the question,
00:01:28.600 | catechism versus Bible memory,
00:01:30.480 | I say, there's plenty of time here.
00:01:33.800 | We can do this.
00:01:35.000 | We can do both of these.
00:01:37.000 | This is not an either or.
00:01:38.960 | So my encouragement to all families
00:01:42.000 | is that they definitely read the Bible together every day.
00:01:46.480 | Real scripture, real reading, real discussion,
00:01:49.160 | real prayer from the heart,
00:01:51.440 | connected with real life every day.
00:01:53.800 | Yes, Bible has priority.
00:01:56.160 | The question is, what's the role of a catechism
00:02:01.080 | in that process of Bible saturation?
00:02:04.520 | And I would describe the role of the catechism
00:02:07.160 | in four words, interpretation, selection,
00:02:12.160 | organization, and completeness.
00:02:15.600 | And here's what I mean briefly.
00:02:17.560 | A catechism is tremendously valuable
00:02:21.400 | by providing overall interpretation
00:02:25.360 | for the sweep of scripture.
00:02:27.760 | We all need the particularities of texts.
00:02:30.880 | Yes, we do.
00:02:31.720 | I need concrete texts in my mind
00:02:34.600 | in order to fight the fight of faith.
00:02:36.360 | But we also need a sense of what those texts mean
00:02:41.360 | in the larger picture.
00:02:43.360 | And catechisms are one means that God,
00:02:47.740 | over the centuries, has brought about
00:02:51.360 | through the wisdom of the church,
00:02:52.880 | which he's given, to provide interpretation
00:02:57.240 | for how the texts fit together
00:02:59.920 | in a larger, coherent meaning.
00:03:03.720 | Second, catechisms provide help
00:03:08.360 | in selecting what things in scripture to prioritize.
00:03:13.360 | There's thousands and thousands of verses in the Bible,
00:03:17.280 | like 31,000 plus.
00:03:20.440 | Most of us need some help in knowing
00:03:23.560 | which of these 31,000 verses are most important
00:03:28.200 | for knowing God and living a life of faithfulness.
00:03:31.900 | Catechisms are the distillation,
00:03:34.680 | the collective wisdom of the church
00:03:36.640 | as to what parts of the Bible need to be emphasized
00:03:40.780 | for the health of believers.
00:03:43.000 | Third, it really helps the mind of a child,
00:03:47.360 | and adults, I would say,
00:03:50.040 | to have the vast array of ideas in the Bible
00:03:54.640 | brought into some sense of organization.
00:03:58.640 | What is foundational?
00:04:00.160 | What's built on the foundation?
00:04:02.120 | Where's it all going?
00:04:03.380 | Some kind of flow, some kind of order.
00:04:06.440 | Our children can be left in a great confusion
00:04:09.880 | if they only learn random Bible verses,
00:04:13.720 | 'cause that's 10,000 times better than not learning them.
00:04:17.080 | But they can be left in some confusion
00:04:19.960 | if they just learn random Bible verses
00:04:22.240 | that are never brought into any particular order
00:04:25.480 | or sequence or progression of thought,
00:04:27.640 | and catechisms are a great help in this.
00:04:31.420 | And the last function, I would say,
00:04:34.560 | is the idea of comprehensiveness or completeness.
00:04:39.000 | And here's what I have in mind.
00:04:40.480 | When Paul addressed the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20,
00:04:46.760 | he said their blood wasn't on his hands
00:04:51.760 | because he had not failed
00:04:54.920 | to deliver the whole counsel of God.
00:04:59.000 | He uses the phrase in Romans 6.17
00:05:02.800 | that you have all received a type of teaching,
00:05:07.800 | or even clearer, in 1 Timothy 6, verse 20,
00:05:12.360 | he talks about the good deposit
00:05:16.000 | that Timothy should deliver to the people.
00:05:18.840 | So you got these phrases, whole counsel of God,
00:05:21.040 | type of teaching, good deposit,
00:05:23.080 | all of them suggesting that in the bigness
00:05:28.080 | and detail of the Bible,
00:05:31.040 | there is a core, unified, comprehensive body of truth
00:05:36.040 | that we need to make sure,
00:05:40.680 | as a pastor we deliver to our churches,
00:05:42.840 | as parents we deliver to our children.
00:05:46.600 | And I think catechisms are an effort,
00:05:50.560 | no doubt not perfect,
00:05:52.480 | an effort to try to fulfill that mission.
00:05:57.240 | So what I'm saying is don't neglect the Bible reading
00:06:01.040 | and don't neglect Bible memory,
00:06:03.100 | but somewhere along the way in those 15 years,
00:06:06.840 | build the catechism into your instruction.
00:06:09.240 | Maybe she's thinking,
00:06:11.120 | oh, you got to do catechism all of those 15 years.
00:06:13.800 | Oh, no, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying.
00:06:16.840 | Noel and I used a catechism for our kids some years
00:06:21.840 | and not other years, some school years.
00:06:24.300 | That's what we did mainly in the evening.
00:06:27.080 | We did it twice at least,
00:06:29.120 | a little simple one and then a more complicated one.
00:06:32.160 | So I'm not saying it has to have a big part of every day,
00:06:36.280 | of every year of a child's life.
00:06:39.060 | Just somewhere along the way that gets built in.
00:06:42.320 | And I would just mention in closing
00:06:44.960 | a few catechisms to think about.
00:06:46.640 | The Westminster Shorter Catechism
00:06:48.360 | from the Reformed Presbyterian Tradition,
00:06:50.640 | the Baptist Catechism that I adapted,
00:06:54.160 | and that's at, I checked,
00:06:56.440 | it's at the Desiring God website,
00:06:58.560 | 118 questions that I adjusted and put my comments on.
00:07:03.480 | So that's available for free.
00:07:05.740 | There's a little simple one,
00:07:08.520 | a child's catechism I think it's called
00:07:10.120 | or something like that.
00:07:10.960 | It's a little yellow book
00:07:12.760 | and it has like two or three word answers
00:07:15.860 | for little tiny kids, you know?
00:07:17.940 | Like who is God?
00:07:19.800 | Little tiny answers.
00:07:22.100 | And we used that very early for Talith
00:07:24.980 | and shifted over.
00:07:26.640 | And then more recently there's the New City Catechism
00:07:29.680 | that's promoted at the Gospel Coalition website
00:07:33.260 | and it's got its own website.
00:07:35.240 | Just type in New City Catechism and you'll find it.
00:07:37.560 | It's got video helps and lots of things online.
00:07:40.800 | So that's a good one too.
00:07:43.240 | So my answer basically is not either or, both and.
00:07:47.360 | - Excellent, great strategy, Pastor John, thank you.
00:07:49.880 | And I should note that the New City Catechism
00:07:52.120 | and this app, which is really excellent,
00:07:54.320 | it's both adaptable for little kids too.
00:07:57.120 | So the whole project,
00:07:58.320 | what they've done with the New City Catechism
00:08:00.560 | is pretty impressive for its flexibility
00:08:03.320 | to serve really any age demographic.
00:08:05.480 | So grateful to TGC and for their work in it.
00:08:09.040 | And if you want links to those catechisms,
00:08:10.560 | you can find the transcript of this episode
00:08:13.040 | at our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:08:17.720 | There we host the full manuscripts
00:08:19.400 | of every episode of this podcast,
00:08:21.320 | along with links to resources
00:08:22.680 | that are mentioned in each episode.
00:08:24.240 | You can find all those links in those manuscripts.
00:08:27.060 | Well, on Friday we're gonna talk about
00:08:28.080 | Bible translation and missions and literacy
00:08:29.920 | in the realm of frontier missions.
00:08:31.640 | I'm really looking forward to it.
00:08:33.040 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:34.320 | I'll see you on Friday.
00:08:36.200 | (upbeat music)
00:08:38.780 | (upbeat music)
00:08:41.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]