Though moving along in the car, I saw his corner sign which read, "Boiled Peanuts. $3.50 bag." I thought, "Wow!" In a moment I was remembering my boyhood days of hawking boiled peanuts on the streets of Waycross, Ga. But, what I really remembered was that I would make about $3.00 on Saturday selling those dime bags of boiled peanuts that my mother fixed for me. And, I remembered, too, that she taught me two lessons. First, she took out the cost of my peanuts to teach me a lesson about the cost of operating a business. And, secondly, she told me to give 10% in the offering plate on Sunday because that much was a tithe belonging to God.
Before I saw the boiled peanuts being sold on the street corner, I had a conversation with my daughter who was telling me about her son taking his first job outside the home (a pet sitting job) which actually paid him money. She then went on to tell me about their conversation about God being given 10%. Wow! I am not sure where my Mother learned to tithe. I know she taught me and somewhere along the way our daughter started the discipline and now she is passing the word to her son. Of course, ours is not the only family where such things are passed on from one generation to another. It is the way it is supposed to be done.
The Scripture teaches us that things like spiritual disciplines, Christian values, and personal faith are to be transmitted from one generation to another. If we are expecting the church or the school to do this for us, we are likely to wake up one day keenly disappointed. In that great Old Testament passage from Deuteronomy 6 we hear the Word of God saying about the commandments of God, "Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down, and when you rise." This Word and others like it makes it clear that nothing is more important for the next generation than the word and witness about how to live right with God.
Before I saw the boiled peanuts being sold on the street corner, I had a conversation with my daughter who was telling me about her son taking his first job outside the home (a pet sitting job) which actually paid him money. She then went on to tell me about their conversation about God being given 10%. Wow! I am not sure where my Mother learned to tithe. I know she taught me and somewhere along the way our daughter started the discipline and now she is passing the word to her son. Of course, ours is not the only family where such things are passed on from one generation to another. It is the way it is supposed to be done.
The Scripture teaches us that things like spiritual disciplines, Christian values, and personal faith are to be transmitted from one generation to another. If we are expecting the church or the school to do this for us, we are likely to wake up one day keenly disappointed. In that great Old Testament passage from Deuteronomy 6 we hear the Word of God saying about the commandments of God, "Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down, and when you rise." This Word and others like it makes it clear that nothing is more important for the next generation than the word and witness about how to live right with God.
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