At Home

by John Gipson

“And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42).

Harold E. Luccock once observed, “We have not ceased to preach at the temple. But we have, rather largely, ceased to do it at home. And therein likes one of the major differences between the church of the book of Acts and the church of our own day.”

Teaching and preaching are still done in the temple, but it is not enough. In fact, it is meager unless there is teaching “at home.”

When we visited my grandmother’s house, there was a blackboard set up in the kitchen. And on that blackboard was a verse of scripture. There was no breakfast until we memorized that verse. My uncle told me that one verse seemed to appear there regularly. It was Philippians 2:14: “Do all things without murmurings and disputings.”

As a child, I remember that after supper my brothers and I would go to the living room where our mother would read to us from the Bible and then from Hurlbert’s Story of the Bible. (Incidentally, it’s still my favorite Bible storybook.)

We have wonderful classes for our children on Sunday morning and Wednesday night, but are these Bible lessons reinforced at home?

Timothy was a blessed young man. He was taught at home by both his mother and grandmother (II Timothy 1:5; 3:15). From childhood he had known the “sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Will your children be so blessed?