Saturating Your Children With Scripture

I remember years ago while attending a Bible conference, one powerful preacher of the Gospel outlined the lives of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, two great patriarchs of Christian history. He said one phrase repeatedly when describing the upbringing of both Jonathan and Sarah, which was:

"....saturated with the Word of God."  Saturated.

Webster's Dictionary defines "saturate" as:
     
sat·u·rate    [v. sach-uh-reyt; adj., n. sach-er-it, -uh-reyt]
  
1. to cause (a substance) to unite with the greatest possible amount of another substance, through solution, chemical combination, or the like.
     
2. to charge to the utmost, as with magnetism.
    
3. to soak, impregnate, or imbue thoroughly or completely: to saturate a sponge with water; a town saturated with charm.
     
To unite with the greatest possible amount....to imbue thoroughly....to soak..... what a picture. Those two lives (and countless more!) were raised being saturated, not with secular culture, mind you, but with the very living, breathing, infallible Word of God. They were not filled with liberal mentalities or philosophies. They were not absorbed in the things of the world. Instead, they were soaked with Scripture. They were not raised simply just being around Christian things and hearing the Bible taught and preached. Instead, they were SOAKED and completely SATURATED with it. And if you study their legacy, you will be amazed to find that their family presents a near-perfect picture of Proverbs 22:6 which says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Thinking upon these things, I have committed to "saturating" my children with the Word of God. A few weeks ago, I began to take Nathan's bath time to instill a Bible verse in his little heart, correlating with what we were doing. I have been reciting Psalm 51:10 to him at every bath time and also will sometimes sing Keith Green's song based upon that passage in Scripture to him as well. I have also been trying to develop a habit of reciting at least one Bible verse at various times of the day, depending on the activity. I recently made a chart, that I will gladly share with you all, that I hope will help me in my endeavour to saturate my children.

As the world grows increasingly sinful and filled with carnal and flesh-filled idols, those who are truly and literally saturated with the Word of God are becoming fewer and farther between. However, as Elisabeth Elliot said, In every generation, there are a few.... My prayer for my little boy (and gracious, for myself too!!) is that he will be soaked in the Word so much so that when this world fades further into the darkness, he will stand out like a lighthouse on a hill. When those his age choose paths of self, lust, and sin, I pray HE will have the Word of God so deeply rooted in his heart that he will be able to aptly combat Satan's fiery darts. When sound doctrine and "the old path" as Jeremiah says, is rejected and even outlawed, I pray he will be so soaked with Scripture that even if his Bible is taken away, he is still able to meditate on the Lord's precepts "all the day long." As parents, we need to take hold of our high calling and USE it wisely. Proverbs tells us that if we train up a child a certain way, he will not depart from it. If we train up our children to simply be good in school, active in sports, or sociable, then that is inevitably the way they will go. And what's more, if that's all we do, we will fail as parents. However, if we train up our children to stand firm upon Biblical doctrine, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to hide His Word in their hearts that they may not sin against our Lord, if we train them up to be warriors in the army of God, then we will succeed as parents AND we will be pointing our children to Heaven's eternity.

Below is the chart I have made for teaching Nathan basic Scripture for his basic activities. I am resolving to recite these to him every day, instilling those Words into his little heart at an early age.

  

Praying for you, parents, as you saturate your children....

*** EDIT ***

Some of you parents have asked for this chart. Click below for the PDF file, free for you to print!

click here to download