Within Evangelicalism, there seems to be a common strain of thought that, while well-intentioned, causes great spiritual harm to our youth. The idea is that, if we give our youth too much biblical teaching, we will somehow cause them to run far away from Christ. The stated argument is that too much exposure to the Word and its teachings will cause the youth to be overwhelmed and want to know nothing about the Lord. We tend to believe that the hard concepts of doctrine and theology are beyond the grasp of young believers and, as such, it is unwise to expect them to learn these essential truths.

This thinking has driven much of our current youth ministry practices. Since doctrine is far too difficult to grasp, and we don’t want the youth to depart the church, we often turn to various forms of entertainment. By making youth groups about games and church lock-ins, we can appeal to kids by showing them we care about how they feel about being at church. If we can sprinkle in some gospel nuggets between pizza parties and gross-out games, we can keep them coming back and maybe, just maybe, they’ll make a profession of faith.

Herein is the problem with the thinking, we already expect our youth to grasp all kinds of big concepts and work hard in other areas of life. How much time do we expect our children to spend doing homework in subjects such as science, languages, history, and math? How many days do they spend practicing baseball, football, soccer, or other sports? Our children can cite movie lines, song lyrics, and television programs by heart. All of these things we willingly allow and support without question. We never argue that doing these things will drive them away from school, sports, or entertainment. In fact, we recognize that a greater commitment results in a greater love and passion for whatever they are working toward. It is only in the arena of biblical education that we erroneously believe that less devotion will magically result in greater godliness.

Now, in all fairness, every person reading this article can attest to how being forced to study a subject in school that they hated didn’t exactly build up a passionate love for the matter. Some of us have painful memories of trying to learn how to apply the quadratic equation, believing we would never use this device of mental torture. Others may remember excruciating hours spent trying to conjugate the verbs of a foreign language, deciding this was all gibberish and everyone just needed to learn English. Clearly, hard work will not always equate to a great love and passion for a subject.

While we would agree that some of us fled these hated classes the moment we were done with them, we can likewise agree that not a single one of us would have absorbed any of the material we learned by mere osmosis. We may not have scored well on the midterms and finals during the year, but we would have utterly failed if we were never taught any of the material, to begin with. Imagine coming into a biology class where the teacher said, “I don’t want to overwhelm you with the detailed explanations of how blood circulation, breathing, and the central nervous system work. I wouldn’t want to scare you away from the possibility that many of you may one day work in the medical and science fields. So, instead of teaching you how biology actually works, we’re going to play some icebreaker games, have pizza parties, and talk about how we think the concept of biology makes us feel.”

I can imagine many of us would have applauded a teacher who never taught us anything and let us goof off all semester. Spending our school hours having gabfests and being able to have more free time in the evenings sans homework would have seemed like Heaven on Earth. But then imagine one more important detail. At the end of the semester, the teacher comes to you with a 20-page final exam. The entirety of your grade is dependent on scoring a completely perfect score. Even missing one question would result in a failing grade. How prepared would you be when faced with such a daunting and detailed test? If your teacher spent all year letting you do little to no work, but then expected you to have mastered the subject in detail, how fair would you believe that scenario to be? Would you not argue that your teacher utterly failed you by doing nothing to teach you all that you needed to know? Does his fear of driving you away from subject seem reasonable when weighed against the outcome of the actuality of test before you? If you have an ounce of rationality, you would have to agree that something is profoundly wrong with a teacher unwilling to prepare his students for what was about to come.

The truth is, this what we are doing in the Church with our youth. We claim that we are actually helping our kids love God by failing to teach them His Word. But there is a final judgment coming that they are woefully unprepared for. The difference is, however, if they get God wrong, they don’t just get a failing grade, they will end up in the fires of Hell. No, I’m not being overly dramatic here. There is only one means of salvation, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is His gospel message – the propitiatory death, burial and resurrection of Christ – that makes a person in right standing with God. There is no makeup exam, there is no extra credit. If a person remains outside of repentance and faith in Christ alone, then they are dead in their trespasses and sins. If someone dies outside the salvific work of Christ, there is no forgiveness for those sins. That means, if our youth go to the grave without Christ, then they are going to Hell. That is fact. That is not being overly dramatic. When we fail to teach our youth the truth of God’s Word, we are actually helping them pave the road to Hell to make the trip more comfortable.

God’s Word is clear that we are to teach our children diligently His word. As they prepared to enter the land of Israel, God spoke to the Jews saying:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Dt 6:4–9, ESV, emphasis added).

The Jews were to make it a constant, daily effort to be teaching their children God’s Word. We are not exempt from this command just because we are in the New Testament church.
In Ephesians 6, the apostle Paul writes:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Eph 6:1–4, ESV, emphasis added).

It is evident that God is very interested in His people rightly bringing up their children to know and obey His Word.

In Proverbs 1, King Solomon writes to his son:

“To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Pr 1:2–7, ESV, emphasis added).

It is the clarion call of the Word that we ought to desire to know and fear the Lord, which comes directly from the study of the Bible.

Repeatedly, we are commanded throughout the Scriptures to make the spiritual and biblical education of our children a priority in our lives. It is only through diligent teaching and study that they can come to know and understand the God to whom they owe their very existence. While Romans 1 makes it clear that all mankind knows God exists through creation and conscience, they can only come to know His direct revelations of Himself through His Word. No person can truly understand the God of the universe, and their desperate need for His forgiveness, outside of the Scriptures that His Holy Spirit moved on men to write. Thus, it is imperative that we make a diligent effort to teach them all that the Scriptures say.

It should also be said that this is a duty that primarily falls to the parents, not solely the Sunday School teachers in our local church building. When we look at the commands of the both the Old and New Testaments, God commands His followers to speak of His Word to their children on a daily basis. This is not to be reserved for one hour, once a week, apart from their families. This is a task that we, as parents, are to make part of our constant instruction and correction in their lives. Consider this: we spend countless hours teaching our children from the moment they are born. We teach them sounds, words, colors, how to walk, how to run, how to dress, how to bathe, how to catch a ball, how to eat, how to be respectful to others, etc, etc. We never consider that those important, daily tasks ought to be delegated to another person. It is our natural inclination to raise them in all these areas. Likewise, their spiritual development ought to be as important to us as making sure they know to check both ways before crossing the street, or to not put a fork in the outlet. We want our children to be safe, so we teach them the dangers that exist which can hurt or kill them. In like manner, there are spiritual beliefs that can kill them for eternity. Their spiritual safety should be as important, if not more so, as their physical safety is to us.

This being the case, we have the opportunity to speak the truth of God’s Word into their lives daily. This does not mean we need to use every spare moment to give our kids a seminary level education on the finest points of doctrine. Rather, we can use opportunities throughout their days to point them back to the fact God’s Word speak authoritatively on all kinds of issues. Sibling rivalry can be a chance to teach that we are to esteem others over ourselves. Struggling with science in school can be an opportunity to talk about how God created everything precisely, which reveals there is a divine Creator, whom we ought to love and obey. Catching our beloved progeny in an act of lying or thievery gives us the moment in which we can talk about sin and condemnation, yet point to the cross of Calvary where there is remission for sins.

If we as parents would spend our days reading, praying, studying and teaching with our children diligently, they would come to know that their Father in Heaven is an amazing God through whom they can find mercy and forgiveness. Yet, He is also a just and holy God who will not withhold His judgment if we do not come to Him in the manner He has prescribed.

Can teaching our children this way cause them to fear God? Yes, absolutely. Might they even flee from a God who will judge their sins? Yes, they may indeed. But if we do not rightly teach them the truth of this God, then something distinctly worse could happen. They may fashion a god of their own choosing in their minds, one not based on what Scripture teaches. This is the sin of idolatry. They may live their lives in a false peace believing this god is absolutely fine with their sinfulness. A god who is good with them the way they are, never making demands of them, letting them live however they choose. Then, one day, they will meet the true God face to face, and find Him saying, “depart from me, I never knew you.” What a horrible fate that would be.

They may also fashion a false image of God, a caricature whom they can cast strawmen in front of that they may reject Him easily. If we do not know of the true God by the diligent study of Scripture, it is easy to fall prey to our sinful arrogance and paint God as someone we have no duty to love or obey. Our children then are free to follow the claims of this world who state that God is mean, spiteful, prideful and worthy only of rejection. While still an idolatrous view of God, it is one that makes it possible to reject Him out of hand, without any real need to examine what He has revealed about Himself. This too will result in their condemnation on the day of judgment.

Only by teaching our children the truth of the Word of God can they rightly know Him. We want them to come to Christ with a right understanding of their sin and His offer of salvation. While the message of the gospel is a simple one, it costs a person everything to obtain the forgiveness it offers. Our youth may reject God even when they know all He has revealed of Himself, there is no denying this. But one cannot be manipulated into salvation by being presented a god and a gospel that does not exist. Any profession of faith that is based on a false view of God is likely to produce only a false convert who will one day fall away. Therefore, it is imperative that we rightly present the true God and the true gospel. Perhaps we may not see an immediate profession of faith, but salvation is of the Lord. He will redeem all who will be saved in His timing, not ours. We must trust that His command to teach His revealed Word in its entirety will produce the result He wants, not that which seem to produce the outcome we want the most quickly.

In summation, less does not equal more. We do no favors to our youth by giving them less doctrine and theology. By denying them the full counsel of God, we will not make them fall more in love with God. The truth is that all we are doing is setting them up to fail before a holy and righteous God who will one day judge them for their sins. If we do not teach them all that is true and to flee from the wrath to come, well, Jesus had a warning we ought to remember: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18: 5-6, ESV).