Read the Large Catechism with me.
Ten-minute studies on short readings from the Large Catechism.
Let's do this.
Click on the link below and read the short assigned reading. Then, if you have time, check out what I have to say about it. If not, no problem. Just soak up the goodness of the LC.
The Fourth Commandment Part 3: Click here and read 125 - 133.
The basics:
- God has set parents up in His stead on this earth.
- We all forget how much good our God and our parents have done for us.
- To God, to parents, and to teachers we can never render sufficient gratitude and compensation.
- God has attached a temporal promise to this commandment - That you may live long upon the land which the Lord has given you. Following this commandment is not only pleasing to God, but also for our own physical good.
My thoughts today:
As I was trying to write this, my four-year-old and three-year-old sons were horsing around like they often do. I told them they were not allowed to do flips off the couch.
That, of course, made it a little more exciting to do flips off the couch.
The four-year-old slipped, crashed into his brother, and both fell into the table. Tears and screams abounded. Although I wanted to make sure they were actually physically okay, I had to laugh inside at the timing of such disobedience. Toddlerhood is a great example of God's temporal promise added to the Fourth Commandment. If only my toddlers would listen to me, they wouldn't get hurt so much.
But alas. We all sin. And sometimes our sins are directly responsible for our suffering.
And just like a toddler, I have disobeyed my parents and gotten burned, too.
Sometimes I like to think about Jesus as a toddler. I mean, a sinless toddler, can you even imagine? We serve a God who has so much power over His own flesh that He even controlled it in toddlerhood. As an adult I like to think sinning is so much harder to avoid now, but the truth is sin is unavoidable for every age. It lives in our hearts. It is found spewing from our mouths and our actions. But not from His. And He chooses to stand up and say, "No, it was Me. I paid for that already."
Pretty amazing. We have a God who came here and lived as a toddler who obeyed His earthly parents and heavenly Father perfectly. He lived as an adult who continued to do the same until His last breath as He gave a disciple the job of caring for His mother in His absence. He knew being obedient even until death was something we would not do. He did it for us.
