27/4/13
S: Leviticus 26:1 Do not make idols or set up carved images, or sacred pillars, or sculptured stones in your land so you may worship them. I am the Lord your God.
O: I've been reading the Manga Bible series with my 5½-year-old daughter Joni lately, and we just completed Manga Melech and started Manga Messenger.
As we read the stories, it became very clear to Joni that God viewed it very seriously when the people of God abandon the worship of the Immortal Invisible God and start worshipping statues.
At the same time, as we live here in Selangor, Malaysia, we see statues being worshipped everywhere because many of our friends and family belong to religions that use statues in their worship. We also live in a society that is traditionally very racist and religiously-discriminatory, and we want to bring up our children to eschew such bigotry.
My children attend a predominantly Chinese-Malaysian preschool and on one occasion they innocently pick up a racist word from some of their friends and we have been trying to teach them not to use such words. We tell them that is not polite.
But as we teach our children about how seriously God views the worship of statues, we also are concerned that they might then tell their friends in an offensive manner -- friends whose families use statues in their worship.
A: The Bible is very clear about the importance of worshiping the immortal invisible God alone, and not any man-made thing. I wrote an article years ago about this topic, and how Christians should not fear idols.
But now my wife and I are faced with how to teach our children to hold to the truth of scripture regarding idols while being tactful in how we talk about it to our friends who do not share our beliefs. It does not do any good to be offend people needlessly.
P: Father, give us wisdom as we bring up Joni and Hannah in the Lord. Help us to teach them how to balance Biblical Truth and tact. In Jesus' name, amen.
Note: this is using the SOAP method. For more information, see this page (not written by me.)
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