Big Truths for Young Hearts: Systematic Theology for Little Ones, Part II

Tools: Print E-mailPermalink

As promised in yesterday's post, today Gender Blog offers a few excerpts from Bruce Ware's wonderful new systematic theology for children, Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God (Crossway).

From Chapter 1, "God's Word and God's Own Life as God:"

There is another amazing way that God has made himself known to us, and it is this: God talks! One of the first things we learn about God in the opening chapter of the Bible is that God is a talking God. For each of the days of creation, he brings about what he makes by speaking. Have you noticed this? The first one comes in Genesis 1:3, "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." And the words, "And God said" are repeated in verses 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, and 26, where each of the special acts of creation are brought about when God speaks.

In Chapter 2, "God as Three in One," Ware unpacks the roles of each person of the Godhead in planning, executing and applying the work of redemption as well as the intra-trinitarian relationships and authority/submission structures. He shows how the Bible applies this structure to human relationships, illustrating it as symphonic:

The relation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then, is one of glorious harmony. Each has his work to contribute, and each does this in recognition of the authority and submission order that is true among these persons... A lesson we can learn from this is that lines of authority and submission are true in our human relationships because they are a reflection of what is true in God (see 1 Corinthians 11:3).

Of God's meticulous providence, Ware, in Chapter 3, "Creator and Ruler of All," tells of God's ownership of and kingship over His created order:

But since God (and only God) has created all that is, this means that God owns everything. Everything is God's because God made it all... To take it one step further, we can see that since God created all that is, and since he, then, is the rightful owner of all that is, God also is the rightful ruler of all that is. Everything that God has made is his, and he alone has rights to rule over it and use it however he wishes.

Finally, in Chapter 6, "The Work that Jesus Has Done," Ware makes clear, emphasizing key words in italics, that sinful humans owe a debt to their Creator that they can never pay, but gloriously sets forth Christ as Him who paid it all as the great substitute:

Jesus died in our place, taking our sin upon himself, and paying the penalty we deserved to pay for our sin. This is the cross as penal substitution. The word substitution refers to the fact that Christ took our place and died instead of us having to die. And the word penal refers to the fact that as Christ died as a substitute sacrifice in our place, he paid the penalty we deserve to pay. When you put the two words together, you see the term penal substitution means that Christ paid the penalty of our sin (penal) as he died in our place on the cross (substitution). As Paul says in Galatians 3:13, Christ became a "curse for us" as he died on the cross, accepting the curse of the Law, which is death, that we had brought upon ourselves by our sin. Second Corinthians 5:21 says that the Father made the sinless Christ "to be sin" for us, taking our sin and its guilt upon himself, dying our death, so that we might be saved.

We pray that these excerpts will whet the appetite of those eager to teach their families about God, His Word and His redeeming love in Christ.

Tools:Top Print E-mail