At the risk of sounding like one who has missed the real meaning of Christmas here, I have to admit that one of my favorite aspects of the holiday season is the presence of myriads of important (or pseudo-important if your team wound up in the Weedeater Bowl) football games. The NFL season is wrapping up and the playoffs are looming, but, best of all for me, college teams with at least six victories are playing bowl games.

For me, it is an important marker on the annual calendar: the end of college football buries the last vestiges of autumn and gives way to the cold, gloom of winter (read: I would prefer to boycott winter). Friends have teased that in the Robinson household there are three annual seasons instead of four: baseball season, football season and basketball season. Indeed, this lies close to the truth.

In recent years, my son has begun to watch games with me and it has forced me to think through this pursuit in terms of “how to” and “how much.” So, here is one father’s guide to navigating the bowl games (or NFL contests if you prefer the well-salaried tackle footballers) over the next few days:

• Keep the remote control in your hand (Or keep it beside you if you are a more animated fan). Commercials often attempt to capitalize on the prurient interests of men. This reality gives dads the opportunity to guard his own heart and protect his family, while modeling for his sons the profound care that a godly man must take in determining where his eyes will roam. Beware: there is much filth out there and it must not enter your household. Guard your heart and those of your family with vigilance at all times when the TV is on.  “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds…Take no part in the fruitful works of darkness…” (Eph 4:17; 5:11)
• Look for opportunities to discuss God’s sovereignty over sports. Countless times I have heard, “Come on, God has better things to do than mess with football. He doesn’t care about who wins and has nothing to do with it.” But, as the great Dutch statesman/theologian Abraham Kuyper so famously said, there is not one square inch of creation about which God does not say, “Mine.” Tell your kids that God is sovereign over football, even when your highly-ranked team loses to its unranked rival. This truth should help neuter proclivities toward the sinful sore-loser syndrome which can, in the brief span of three hours, turn a grown man into a sniveling, pouting boy. “Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?” (Lam 3:37)
• Look for opportunities to point out the way in which God has gifted athletes. When Ochocinco makes a great catch and then struts like Nebuchadnezzar, tell your boys that it was God who gave the wide out his gifts and that the glory belongs to Him alone. All athletic ability comes from God and must be employed for His glory - end zone dances notwithstanding. “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing; and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.” (Dan 4:35a)
• Watch games (and television/Internet in general) in moderation. Don’t stay on the couch so long that you become as much a fixture in the den as the armoire or sofa. Tell your children that football is one of God’s good gifts among many, but remind them that it does not make a satisfying God. Only Christ and His Gospel satisfy. Tell them. Show them. Spend more holiday time doing other things with them than you do in front of ESPN360. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” (Eph 5:15)

As time in the hourglass of 2009 runs low, I pray that each of our readers will have a blessed 2010 and that in the New Year, God will give all of us the grace to live in light of Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians: “So then, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all things to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10:31) Thank your for your faithful readership in 2009 and for all the encouragement and discussion we received by e-mail. Grace and peace to all of you!

A few years back, when our daughter was turning two, we began to hear her say more and more things like "I did it" or "I can do it." She was right. She was able to get up in her high chair, blow her nose, build a Lego tower all by herself.  She could turn on the light, dress her dolls, and talk on the phone. She was turning into a pretty independent little kid. Nowadays, she helps her mom with her two younger siblings.

As parents we watch our children become less and less reliant on us. They become self-sufficient adults. The challenge for us is to preserve their child-like trust in God while they develop into independent adults. Godʼs instruction to us, even parents, is to consider the needfulness of young children and model our trust in God after it.

Very young children rely completely on the provision of their parents.  They have no categories for self-sufficiency.  There is no thought as to where the next meal will comefrom or how they will be clothed. They simply assume it. This isnʼt bold-faced presumption, but child-like trust. This is similar to our needfulness for God. For our very existence, we rely on the provision of God - our Creator.

I want to suggest that the next time your child expresses his/her ability to "do it", rejoice in their growth, but possibly use it as a teaching moment:

• Remind them that they are a creature of God. They will never outgrow their needfulness of Him. He is the only one who is fully sufficient in himself.
• Remind them that they are growing into big girls and boys by his power.
• Remind them that he ordains their steps.
• Remind them that he has given us wisdom from his Word to guide and instruct us and apart from this wisdom is destruction.
• Remind them of men and women who have trusted God in such a way that they have suffered for it.
• Remind them that they need God as their Father more than they need material possessions.
• Remind them that we are all sinners that need grace, grace that was given through the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on a cross.
• Remind them that we need someone else to pay for our sins on our behalf.
• Remind them of the cost of living their life as if they were independent of God.

Below is a video with Dr. Michael Haykin on how the Persons of the Trinity relate to one another in the teachings of the Church Fathers. The debate over whether or not there is an eternal relationship of authority and submission in the Godhead is particularly heated in patristic studies. Both sides of the debate want to claim that Church History is on their side, especially Augustine and the Cappadocian Fathers.

Dr. Haykin explains how the Church Fathers understood the relationship of authority and submission among the Persons of the Godhead and how some contemporary theologians have misunderstood the Fathers in this regard. We are grateful to Dr. Haykin for his time.

You can watch the video here.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”

Isaiah 9:6-7

Merry Christmas from the CBMW staff! We pray God’s blessings on your celebration of the Savior’s birth.

Yesterday, I pointed to an incredible set of Bible commentaries for children, Herein is Love Commentary Series, from Shepherd Press. Thus far, Genesis-Numbers is complete with more to come from author Nancy E. Ganz, who has done an excellent job of making the message of the first four books of the Pentateuch more accessible to children and families. Yesterday, I provided excerpts from Genesis and Exodus. Today comes a sampling from Leviticus and Numbers.

From Leviticus, A Commentary for Children, three of six reasons why children should study such a seemingly archaic book in the OT:

1.It is the Word of God and that is reason enough? 2. It is the middle book in the Pentateuch and (as the middle child of three sisters), "Don't ever overlook the one in the middle!" Leviticus was the third book written by Moses, to whom God spoke face to face as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:11). We must never dismiss or neglect the words of a man so favoured by God. 3. Leviticus is a book which concerns itself with the worship of God! What could be more important?

On the moral law, the 10 Commandments in Leviticus, as it points to Christ and salvation by grace. Note the absence of works righteousness, moralism or sentimentality found in many presentations of the 10 Commandments to children (and adults!):

No man can save himself. No man can enter heaven by his own perfection. No man can attain eternal life by keeping the commandments. It is impossible. Only God can save us...It is by grace we have bee saved, through faith, and this not from ourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. Our hope should be in God's Word, our trust should be in God's Love and our faith should be in God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we forsake all to follow Christ and His Gospel, He promises us not only blessings in this life, but in the age to come...eternal life.

On the New Covenant significance of the conclusion of Numbers:

Most importantly, this final account in Numbers foreshadows the grace of God in our time, when he grants his children - both sons and daughters - an equal share in the greater inheritance through faith in Jesus Christ. It was foretold in the Old Covenant when the Lord declared, "And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy ... Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days ... And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Joel 2:28-29, 32). It was confirmed in the New Testament (in Galatians 3:26-4:7).

I cannot commend these children's commentaries highly enough. They are filled with biblical meat and are utterly devoid of the cotton candy theology that so typifies much Christian children's literature. Each commentary thoroughly (and clearly) explains the text in its original context with appropriate attention to its historical-redemptive context. Ganz also provides penetrating application and shows how all the texts are fulfilled in the New Covenant and its surety, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Fathers, the New Year may be a great time to pick up these commentaries and begin teaching your families the first four books of God's Word. Without the books of Moses, the Gospel makes no sense. As Augustine so famously heard in a Milan garden, take up and read.

Again, all four books are available here from the Shepherd Press website.