Obeying the Gospel Commandments

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I decided to do a little Lenten exercise with my kids this year. We are reading through the Gospel of St. Matthew between now and Pascha. After we read each chapter, we review it and write down the things that we learned we are to DO, from each chapter.

We've only done four chapters yet, since we just started, but here is what we have come up with from the first four chapters of Matthew:

1. Believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
2. Worship Him
3. Repent/Turn away from our sins
4. Confess our sins
5. Be baptized
6. Worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve
7. Not live by bread alone, but live by every word that comes from the mouth of God (We discussed that we have to live our lives mindful that this is the "shadow Land" and that the Kingdom of Heaven is our eternal goal, this life is temporary and Heaven is permanent, and that this changes how we approach living our lives).
8. Do not tempt God (Don't dare God to rescue you from stupidity just to "prove he exists").

Well, so far so good. This exercise is at least teaching the kids how to really be attentive to the Holy Scriptures and to listen to what they say with a mind to apply what we read to our lives. I like it.

Comments

Anna said…
Good idea!
5:40 AM
Unknown said…
The kids and I have been reading through Matthew too. The original idea was that we would read 1/2 chapter each day until Palm Sunday and then continue in "real time" through Holy Week. The reality, I fear has been that we have forgotten to carve out the time almost as often as we have remembered so we are doing a chapter at a time now and assuming we will catch up. Still, I have enjoyed the growth toward this discipline. I like your idea of having something to listen for. Our conversations have been interesting but erratic and often require rereading passages that somebody didn't pick up on the first time!
5:58 AM
Basil said…
Here's an idea: When you're done, see if you can craft a single sentence summary of Matthew's gospel. Maybe do that with all four? (Can you tell I'm in seminary? I wanted to suggest doing that with Paul's letters, too!)
12:04 PM
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