1985 March/April issue Part 4

Questions and Answers

Please share some ideas of how to encourage intellectual pursuits with our children.

A friend who has four boys, the oldest of whom is eight, prints a different hymn and several scripture verses each week and posts them on a large, stiff cardboard in the breakfast nook. The whole family learns the hymn and verses. She has a chart showing each child's chores. This may not sound very intellectual, but the orderly doing of household chores forms habits of an orderly life, and orderly lives and orderly minds go together. This same mother bought a microphone and small public address system. She has each child stand up at one end of the living room, while the others sit in a row like an audience and listen to him recite a verse, a hymn, a poem, or make a short speech. This teaches poise, articulation, the art of speaking up, standing still, keeping
the hands relaxed, etc. The same thing could probably be accomplished with a pretend microphone-an ice cream dipper, for example. Teach your children to memorize! Their ability to quickly pickup anything you repeat often enough is nearly miraculous. Last week I was with my grandchildren for four days. The seven-year-old and the five-year-old learned to repeat the Greek alphabet almost perfectly in that time. I didn't make a federal case out of it, but merely repeated it now and then at odd moments. The five-year-old was quickest to learn it, probably because she thought it was fun while her brother thought it was kind of crazy. Ask questions at the table which will make
children think, e.g., God answers prayer-does, that mean that God always gives us exactly what we ask for? Help the child to find the answer in Bible stories. Read aloud to children. My father did this for us as long as we lived at home. He would bring a book to the table and read a paragraph, or share something in the evening as we all sat in the living room reading our own books. Buy a microscope ora magnifying glass. Study a housefly's leg or the dust from a moth's wing, etc. Have a globe on which they can find any country they hear named in the news or in conversation. Teach them to see illustrations of abstract truth in concrete objects. This is how Jesus taught-by the use of parables.

Boswell tells how when Samuel Johnson was
still a child in petticoats, his mother put a prayer
book into his hands, pointed out the collect for
the day, and said, "Sam, you must get this by
heart." She went upstairs, leaving him to study it.
.By the time she had reached the second floor, she
heard him following her. "What's the matter?" she
said. "I can say it," he replied, and repeated it
distinctly, though he could not have read it more
than twice.
Was he a genius at that age? Perhaps. But I
think it more likely that his intellectual powers
owed much to his parents' expectations and
patient instruction. Expect little and you'll surely
get it.




I've "blown it"-my virginity, that is-do you think it would be wrong for me to ask a girl who is a virgin to marry me? Sometimes I think it
would-doesn't she deserve somebody who
hasn't blown it?

It's heartening to find there's some chivalry left
in the world. I applaud the nobility of your feeling
there is something precious in her virginity, and
your recognition that you've squandered yours.
But I could not say it would be wrong for you to
propose to the girl. If you are both Christians, you
know that to be in Christ is to be a new creature.
In the Corinthian church there were people who
had been fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homo-
sexuals and other things. None of those, Paul said,
would "possess the kingdom of God...... But you
have been through the purifying waters; you have
been dedicated to God and justified through the
name of the Lord Jesus" (1 Cor 6:10, 11 �. The blood
of Christ covers all kinds of sin. In other words,
even though those church members had been
among the sinners Paul names, they were now
pure. He goes on to exhort them to honor God in
their bodies (vs. 20). You can start over once
you've confessed your sin and received God's
forgiveness. "All alike have sinned, and are
deprived of the divine splendor, and all are
justified by God's free grace alone ... He justifies
any man who puts his faith in Jesus" (Rom 3:23,
24, 26 NEBR.