Loving God’s Word: A Quote by Charlotte Mason

quotes-bible

Miss Mason on the Bible

The Word is full of vital force, capable of applying itself. A seed, light as thistledown, wafted into the child’s soul will take root downwards and bear fruit upwards. What is required of us is, that we should implant a love of the Word; that the most delightful moments of the child’s day should be those in which his mother reads for him, with sweet sympathy and holy gladness in voice and eyes, the beautiful stories of the Bible; and now and then in the reading will occur one of those convictions, passing from the soul of the mother to the soul of the child, in which is the life of the Spirit.

from Home Education, Vol. 1 Part VI The Will–The Conscience–The Divine Life In The Child, p. 349

My Thoughts

God’s Word is powerful. Charlotte Mason understood this reality and stressed the importance of exposing children to the Bible.

Read it and demonstrate a passion for it in that reading. The Word will do the rest. We do not need to get in between the Word and the child. The Holy Spirit will do that work.

There is a consistency here in how she approaches the Bible and how she approaches any other topic. As always, let the book speak directly to the child. Avoid interpreting for the child.

For one, it teaches children to be mentally lazy when we do all the work of digesting the meaning. And secondly, it discounts the efficacy of the Holy Spirit. Discussions are a beautiful thing, but those should include dialogue from both directions — parent and child. If you are doing all the talking, you are probably preaching and getting in the way of the Word.

Preaching has its place. But let your child learn to treasure and understand the Word of God independently as well. When your child is called to a distant mission field and has no Christian fellowship, he will know how to feed himself from the Word, directly from God.

Home Education is in the public domain and can be accessed in its entirety at Archive.org.