A Popular Half Truth: More is Caught Than Taught

A common phrase used to communicate how to pass on faith to future generations is this, “Faith is caught not taught.” It sounds spiritual. Unfortunately, it’s unbiblical. The Bible elevates both as important. Faith is caught, which is why we must be able to say to young people, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Faith is also taught. The Bible prioritizes teaching as the primary method of helping future generations know Christ and grow in maturity. Let’s explore a few passages that command parents and grandparents to teach the truth of God’s word to young people.

• Teach these things to your children and your children’s children (Deut. 4:9).
• You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk about them when you sit…walk…lie down…when you rise (Deut. 6:7).
• He commanded our [grand] fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children (Ps. 78:5-6).
• Hear, my son, your father’s instruction and forsake not your mother’s teaching (Prov. 1:8).
• Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).
• Older women…are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands…Older men…urge the younger men to be self-controlled (Titus 2:2-6).

Parents and grandparents are to use the Bible to shapes who a child becomes and how the child lives. This is the pattern and command of Scripture. Parents and grandparents in Deuteronomy were commanded to teach the law of God (ten commandments) to children so that future generations develop an understanding of right and wrong. The father and mother in Proverbs provide an example how to train children to develop a biblical view of life as they instruct their son to make wise choices about friendship (1:10), money (3:9), marriage (5:18), and work (6:6), and more. The grandparents of Titus 2 shape future generations by providing character training and guidance how to be a godly mother and wife.

There is no substitute for living in a manner worthy of the gospel, but also let us commit to verbally teaching biblical truths to the next generation so that they may develop a deep, lasting, Scripture-saturated faith.