Deuteronomy 6 Matters
It's the Outline for Godly Fatherhood
You are probably already familiar with Deuteronomy 6. It contains the passage that Jesus calls the greatest commandment in Matthew 22
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
This first commandment comes from Deuteronomy 6:4
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
What I think we fail to notice is that this commandment is not couched in a discussion about how you—oh man—personally are supposed to behave. Instead, it is in a discussion about how “you and your son, and your son’s son” (deut. 6:2) are to follow God’s commandments.
It’s a multi-generational commitment to the project of being God’s people.
It’s a multi-generational commitment to the project of being God’s people. And it comes with a set of instructions for how to succeed at this project. And it comes with a promise as well. The promise is “that your days may be long” (vs. 2) and “that you may multiply greatly” (vs. 3).
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (vs. 5)
These words that I command you today shall be on your heart (vs. 6)
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (vs. 7)
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes (vs 8)
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (vs 9)
If we were to try to render this list as a couple of concise action items for ourselves, it might come out something like this:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart
Think about God’s word all the time
Teach your kids about God’s word at every opportunity
Keep God’s word handy, so it’s always available
Keep God’s word visible, so you can never forget about it (and so the people around you know who you are!)
After this summary, there are expanded sections detailing what each of these items looks like. Verses 10-15 explain and expand on verse 5, verses 16-19 explain and expand on verse 6, verses 20-25 expand on verse 7, and so on.
It is verses 7 and 20-25 that I plan to focus on in this article and attempt to practically tease out in future articles. So let’s take a look at verses 20-25
When your son asks you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?” then you shall say to your son, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.”
The aspect of this passage that has always stood out the most to me is that when Junior asks Dad to explain the commandments and the rules, Dad responds with a story. There is a reason that activists insist on representation for their preferred lifestyle in media and movies. It’s because if you can change the culture’s stories, you can change the culture.
Stories matter, and it’s the Dad’s job is to tell the stories that matter, and to tell them a lot, “when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
I suspect we Dads aren’t as well equipped for this—most important—job as we would like to be, and the point of this series is to try to help with that. I hope you’ll walk with me (by the way), and we can remind ourselves of the foundational stories, and bring them front of mind to bind them as signs on our hands, and frontlets between our eyes so that when the opportunity arises, we have the stories at hand to tell.