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| My father's bar mitzvah bible - A mazoretic translation of the hebrew tenach. |
What should we teach our children? Could there be a more important question? The implications stretch way beyond our children to our children's children, to all they interact with, to our community and our nation.
Some might answer "Love." But we show them love. They learn love by being loved. The same is to be said of hard work, respect and morality. Our children learn character by displaying these things for them.
But what about wisdom? How shall we be wise and teach wisdom? Perhaps the answer is found in a book. But which book? It can't be a new book, because surely there were wise men long long ago.
Where shall we find the wisdom of Solomon? The answer is in the question. Teach them Proverbs.
Proverbs 1:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs%201&version=NIV
Proverbs 22:
https://www.bible.com/bible/111/PRO.22.NIV
Historians believe that the Dark Ages ended when Constantinople, which was the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 CE. But I think it was about one year later. Why one year later?
One year later, in 1454 Gutenberg put his invention, the movable type printing press to commercial use producing thousands of texts for the Church. One year later, THE FIRST BOOK was printed on the Gutenberg press - The famous Gutenberg "42-line" Bible using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It is called the "Forty-Two Line Bible" because the pages are printed with two columns of 42 lines each. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution."
Only 38 years later, in 1492, Columbus first set foot in the Americas. The first European settlers brought their Bibles to the "New World." America is the only Covenant Nation after Israel.
By the time of the American Revolution, the influence of the Bible was deep and profound. The signers of the Declaration of Independence knew their Bible well.
George Washington noted, "…religion and morality are indispensable supports… let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion…"
Isaiah 46:9-10
Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’