We take it for granted that they read the word of God, but you’d be surprised how many messianic and Christian kids don’t actually read the Bible or don’t know how to approach reading it.
The focus was on how to read the Bible, how to analyze and understand it, but most importantly we focus on teaching them to love the Bible.
While up in the Galilee and reading the Bible is actually a prophetic act. Yeshua was raised in the Galilee, as well as all His disciples. They were all raised around reading the Bible, it was a big part of the Galilean culture in those days.
Every kid from a very young age would go to the synagogue, which was a house of prayer, as well as a type of community center where people would get together and learn how to read the Bible together.
People didn’t have access to printed bibles like we do today, there were no translations to make it easier to understand, there wasn’t a pocket Bible one could carry with and read when he wanted. We are very blessed today to have the Bible resources we do that make Bible study so fulfilling and enjoyable. In the old days, they only had big Torah scrolls that were kept in the synagogues, so that people would come together as a community and study together, develop a deep love for it as it bound them together. The word of God became a part of their lives, it was in their cultural DNA.
The consensus was that if I am successful in studying the Word of God, if I am careful to love it and live by it, I will be wise, blessed, and will inherit the Kingdom of God. The Bible was in a way the center of their lives back in ancient times.
It needs to become the center of our lives as well, and we need to teach our young ones to read it, understand it and develop a deep passion for the Word of God.
I pray with you today: may God grant us wisdom on how to organize our time and our priorities, so we always find the time to submerge ourselves in the Bible, but also continuously teach our young generation (our physical children, as well as spiritual ones) to read the Bible and build their lives on the Word of God. Because it is the only thing that has the power to transform their lives and lead them to eternal salvation.
Beit Hallel is a Messianic Jewish congregation in Ashdod, led by pastor Israel Pochtar, serving holocaust survivors and the poor and needy locally and throughout the nation of Israel, while building up the body of Messiah in the promised land of Israel.