The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Important Content for Family Formation (Part 2)

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Parents are the primary educators of their children. As Jeff Cavins discussed in last week’s episode, it is a parent’s responsibility to share the faith with their child and be a witness of God’s love. But what are some tangible resources that parents can use to do this? Jeff shares his ideas in today’s episode. Snippet from the Show If you want there to be spiritual fruit in your children’s lives, you must plant the seeds and support them as they grow. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kavens show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is episode 345, important content for family formation, part two. Welcome back to the show, my friend, Jeff Kaven's with you. every single show we hope to give you more, more good content so that you can put it into practice in your life and reap the fruit of obedience to the Lord as a disciple of the Lord every single day. Well, this is the second installment of a series that I want to do called Important Content for Family Formation. And in the last episode, I talked to you just a little bit about, you know, in general, the responsibility that we have to teach our children and in Catholic education

and primarily in the home, the show before that I dealt with parochial schools and their relationship with parents. But in the last show, we really talking about this journey that every family is on and the parents have a responsibility to teach their children and to give them a good teaching so that they really do understand some of the basics of the faith. And when you talk to young people today, and you ask them about the core of what we are talking about here, they don't really have much of an idea. And that's topics like we're going to talk about today, Salvation History, knowing the story of the Bible. Number two, what does it mean to be a disciple. Number three, worldview that does not split spiritual things from secular things.

And number four, learn what the gospel is, better known as the carigma. Number five, why the church is so important. Those are five things that every single child needs to learn before they leave home. Because if they leave home and don't understand these things, the chances of them continuing on in the faith is going to diminish greatly. And they may hang on. just for sentimental value because it's the family tradition, but they really don't know how to go deep in the faith. That is your responsibility as parents. And as you know, I read last week from Familiar's Consortio,

paragraph 36 that said, hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive, so decisive, that scarcely anything can compensate, for their failure in it. So if you don't do it, the odds are Pope John Paul the second says it probably isn't going to get done. And so this is very, very important. So let's turn our attention. Oh, by the way, do you want the show notes? If you do want the show notes, all you got to do is type my name, Jeff Kavins, text it to the number 33777. Quite biblical. 3377 will get you the show notes.

Now, one of the important scriptures, which we talked about a little bit earlier, is from Deuteronomy chapter 6 versus 4 through 9, and it's called the Schma, S-H-E-M-A. I'll put it in the show notes for you. It is the foundation verses for the Jewish community, because in these words, it really is instructing us to go and live in a foreign land where they don't agree with us in any way, and you know you're there right now. So how do you live there? And this is what Moses said.

He said, Here, O Israel, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. Talk of them when you, watch this. Sit in your house. When you walk by the way.

When you lie down, when you get up. And you're supposed to bind them. this word as a sign upon your hand, in other words, what you do, as frontals between your eyes, what you think, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9, better known as the shmah, and it covers everything all the way from your home being a place to teach your children, to walking by the way, when you are sitting up, when you lie down, every aspect of life. so when we talk about salvation history let's get into that when we talk about salvation history

we are talking about the story that your child is destined to live in that is their destiny on earth to live in god's amazing story and that amazing story is from genesis to revelation and that is the story that God has called us to. You can read the very first paragraph of the catechism, and it says that God has a plan of sheer goodness, and that is for your children. But the question is, how do they get in it? Now, setting a foundation here,

the catechism gives us four pillars. And as an instructor of your children, it's important to share with them what those four pillars mean. And then they will understand the place of the Word of God, salvation history, in it. So number one, you have the creed in the catechism. What is that? Well, that is the story. That's the story from Genesis to Revelation.

It is the story that your children are created to live in. So you got the story number one, and it's number one for a reason, and that is that all three other pillars spring from the story. But if kids don't know the story, then what are the other pillars going to mean? So number one, the creed, number two, sacraments and liturgy. That's how you get into this amazing story, the second pillar of the catechism. And number three, life in Christ, the moral law, what's that? Well, that is your, that's your script.

That's what you live. That's what you live. Oh, it's so important. You know, our kids are growing up and they're going to search for themselves. They're going to try to find themselves. Yes, every child is unique, right? Every child is special and there's no duplicating your children. It just isn't.

Maybe you have the kind of children where other folks would say, I wish you could duplicate those kids because they're so good. But they are so unique. and they are really created to live in this amazing story. So the sacraments and liturgy is how they get into it. It's baptism. It's confirmation. It is the life of the church.

So then that is number three. That's the third pillar, fourth is prayer. Every home should be a home of prayer. And parents should be praying out loud and privately if they would like. But when you pray out loud with your children, then they learn twice. They hear it, and they are actually saying it. And that's, you know, that's how I learned the Lord's Prayer growing up. You just say it so many times that after I left the church for about 15, 16 years or so,

when I came back, it wasn't a problem to pray. The Hail Mary, the Lord's Prayer, because those were really seared into my soul. And I knew them. I knew them very well in other prayers as well. Okay, so the creed comes first. That's the story of salvation history. The question is, how do you show your children that story? Well, now there's a number of tools that I want to introduce you to, and it's based on the great adventure, which is what Bible in a year is all about.

Father Mike and I, Father Mike Schmitz and I, working on the Bible in a year, has done just amazing things for families to teach their children the story. I got a letter from a lady that said that every day on the way to school, they played Bible in a year. And so their children, over a whole year of driving them to school, they heard the story. They heard the story. So, you know, there's a lot of creative things you can do with this. And if you've got a creative way, I'd love to hear from you. You can write me at The Jeff Kaven Show, one word, the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. I'd love to hear your ideas as well.

Some of you have sent your ideas in, and I appreciate that. So that is a good tool to use. Now, the Bible timeline chart, which I have in front of me for adults, also comes in children's version as well. But I do think that the adult one is very good for you to riff off of, to teach. And the goal of the study is that you as a parent would be able to look at any particular point in salvation history or any book of the Bible and that you would know where you're at. And so the first thing that parents have to do to teach your children the Bible is for themselves to get a hold of this

basic story. And that's not hard to do. It really isn't. So what we did, I guess what I did years ago, I was 25 years old, is I took the entire Bible and divided it up into 12 periods. So you've got 12 periods and they're color-coded periods. In the Catholic Bible, there's 73 books. If your children try to read it from Genesis to Revelation, they may, but they certainly won't understand it, because it's not published in a way that tells a story. The story is in there, and you have to pull that story out, and that's what the great adventure is all about. And you can do it quickly.

I taught at Franciscan University. I taught the introduction to scripture, and most of the youngsters, most of the young adults, they did not know the story. Neither had they read much of it, and in a very short period of time, they could walk me through the entire story is really amazing. Why? Because they have a tool to do it. So on this Bible timeline chart, we have 12 periods. They're color-coded out of the 73 books in the Catholic Bible.

I took 14, 14 books out of the 73 that are narrative in nature. In other words, they keep the story going. And those 14 are on the chart. They're called narrative books. And so we have Genesis, we have Exodus, We have numbers, Joshua, judges, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1st Maccabees, and then we have Luke and Acts in the New Testament. Those are the 14. Listen, this is the core of Bible in a year, taking those 14 books, laying them out, and then Bible in a year takes all of the other 59 books and lays it down over. the story so that you know when a prophet speaks or when Deuteronomy is or Leviticus or Ruth

or Psalms and Proverbs all of these different books. Now on the chart you see this in living color and the chart is the size of a Bible so you can just stick it back there. But that's how the Bible timeline chart is is divided up, 12 periods color coded. Then you have 14 narrative books and then it shows you where the other 59 fit in. Along with that, in the middle section of the chart, you have the geography, and you have all the major characters, all the major events, and then it's all held together by a red line that goes from Adam all the way to Jesus. So it's right there. It's right there in front of you. And I know from my own experience that kids love colorful charts that make sense. And when I put that together initially,

I wanted someone to grab a hold of it and not have to figure it all out. I wanted them to look at it and I wanted their response to be, wow, I get it. That's cool. And there's such satisfaction when you get it and you have the keys to open this up. That's why we have one study of ours that is eight half-hour sessions where I go through the whole Bible with you. And you might want to try that as a parent. unlocking the mystery of the Bible is what it's called we did it in a big orchestra hall and in Philadelphia we had a great crowd there beautiful set and we go through the entire Bible quickly

you might want to start there and and then you can go into the 24 one-hour sessions where I take you through the entire Bible listen there's a there's a revival going on here in scripture there has been a revival going on in the last number of years and it's taking off. It is, it's taking off. There's a seat available for you on that. And you can even bring your kids with you. It's so much fun.

Okay, so I'm going to take a break. When I come back, I want to give you some tips on going through the story with your kids and some ideas as to when you might want to do this as they are with you throughout the day. All right, you're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi there. I'm Mark Hart.

And I want to share with you an exciting new series called Venture, the Bible timeline for high school. Now, let's be honest, the Bible is easily the most confusing, most misunderstood book of all time. How do these random time periods, these random people, these random stories all fit together? And what do they mean for me and for my life? In this study, we're going to take a journey through the basic story of scripture from Genesis through Revelation, so that by the end of it, teenagers will understand the big picture of salvation history. because when we come to know the story, we come to know our place in the story. To find out more and get a free preview of this engaging new study, visit ascensionpress.com backslash venture.

Welcome back. Welcome back. Okay, we're talking about the important content for family formation in salvation history. Wow. I put that number one. I put that number one because the catechism put it as number one with the creed. okay so let's say you want to you want your children to hear the entire story or you want to read it to them you have a plan here in the great adventure and there is for children there is a great adventure story book available at ascension where you can get that beautiful book and you can begin to read through all of the stories age appropriate of course but that could be really good for your young children. But as a parent, you're going to go through the Bible with your children,

either reading it or discussing it at the dinner table on the way to school maybe while you're going to, they go to bed at night. You can read to them and talk to them about it just a little bit each night. But as you go from Genesis all the way to Revelation, it is important to lay the foundation with Adam and Eve at the beginning in the turquoise period, the early world. Because if they understand the problem that Adam and Eve had in obeying God and what that original sin actually was, which it was a distrust of God, it was a distrust of our heavenly father, and instead of obeying God, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They grasped after it. They grabbed it rather than, they put it this way. They grasped after the

creation rather than the creator. And that was a major problem. So we have original sin entering in. And one of the things that you can teach your children is that before the original sin, they had two major things. They had the ability to reason. In other words, they can think. They can think. And you might run an exercise by them. If you want to do XYZ, what would you have to do?

And you let them think. And then the will is the other part. Now, before the fall, their thinking was really good. Reason was really good. And reason informed the will. Reason told the will, we're going to do this we're going to do right but after the fall the will reigns supreme and reason will say that's not smart to do will says we're going to do it anyway and then you have the consequences that is amazing

to explain to children because you can use real life examples from your living with them and things they've done in the past or what you did when when you were younger so as you move out from the early world you're going to hit the patriarchs, and this is where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph are. These are the major characters, and what you really want to focus on is Genesis chapter 12. For in Genesis chapter 12, God meets with Abram, and he promises him three things. You're going to get land for your family. Number one, number two, there's going to be a royal dynasty someday. In other words, a kingdom someday with a king.

And number three, the whole world is going to be blessed through you, Abram. Now, from that point on, we're going to be following the seed line of Abraham, and it's going to take us up and down and all kinds of problems. Then you're going to hit 400 years in Egyptian slavery. And then the Book of Exodus starts. The first two periods, the early world and the patriarchs, is Genesis. And then we have Egypt and Exodus, and that's the Book of Exodus. and the book of Exodus starts after they've been in Egypt for 400 years.

And it's the Passover. It's the big Exodus. And so Moses is the major character there. And the key to it is the Passover lamb. And you can teach your kids that Jesus is the fulfillment of this. He is the Passover lamb. And you can tell them, kids, this is why we call it the pascal mystery. The pascal mystery.

After that, it's a book of not. We have the desert wanderings. They don't end up taking the land right away, which was the first promise to Abram. So they go into the wilderness for 40 years in the book of numbers. And then after that, Joshua and judges. They conquer the promised land. And then Joshua dies. And we have this really poor leadership at that time. And so that leads us to the purple period, the royal kingdom. They're going to ask for a king. And they're going to get three of them. One after another, they're going to get Saul. David and Solomon. And by the way, this is when the Psalms and the Proverbs fit in. As you're reading 1 Samuel and 1st Kings 1 through 11, the narrative books on the chart, you might have your kids volunteer to read a proverb remembering Solomon. You might have them read a Psalm, remembering David. And then after that you have the darkest period in Israel's history, and that is the divided kingdom, the black period, 1 Kings 12, all the way to 2nd King 16. And the kingdom divides, and we have two countries. We have Israel to the north with 10 tribes, and we have Judah to the south,

two tribes. Well, after that, they don't listen to the prophets, because this is when all the prophets come in in that divided kingdom, black period, and they don't listen. So they go into the baby blue period, singing the blues in babylon. Babylon, you get it. And that's the exile, 2nd Kings chapter 17 through 25. But after 70 years, they hit the yellow period, brighter days ahead. They're going to return in the books to reader, Ezra and Nehemiah. I'm just bringing you through this. Then you have the, then you have the Maccabian revolt, how the people of God dealt with the Greeks, Alexander the Great, and the poor, poor leadership of the Greeks after that, Antiochus, Epiphanes.

And then finally, we come to the New Testament. We come to the Messianic fulfillment. Jesus fulfills it all. I've got my chart right in front of me. Maybe you can hear that. I get excited about the Messianic fulfillment. That's Luke. And then the white period is the church acts.

That's the whole story. Now, maybe you didn't even understand what I was talking about clearly there. That's okay. The first thing you want to do with your kids is you want to get the basic story. down just read it feel that story now there's a number of things that you can do uh you definitely need to talk about this at home there are the times of formal education with kids where i used to say to my daughter sit down i want to show you something and i would teach them they give me that look of course but i i still have to teach them you know the lord said didn't

say teach your children the word unless they give you a stinky face. They might give you a stinky face, but you still have to teach them. Why? Because it's your responsibility and nothing else will suffice if that's taken away. So you need to talk about it certainly and more of a formal showing them, but then you can talk about it throughout the day. You go up to the store, let's say you're going to go up to some big store and you read earlier in the day something about David you can just ask them you know what we read earlier what do you think about that and just get conversation going it's a normal thing you would be shocked at how little this happens in catholic families my own included when I was growing up and it's changing now like I said

there's like a revival so there's a number of tools that you can get there is the children's story book, which will put in the notes for you. You can click on that. There is a children's packet to learn salvation history. There's the Bible timeline chart. There is also, in terms of the overarching story, there is the quick, we call it unlocking the mystery. It's like a quick journey, but it's unlocking the mystery of the Bible. Unlocking the mystery of the Bible. Eight half-hour sessions. And then the big one, 24th. four one hour talks going through the entire Bible that's probably for you and you like a mother bird you can you can chew it up and feed your children with it so there's two of them there

and then we've got a lot of studies after that and then Bible in a year of course okay and catechism in a year there's a lot of as I said in a show not too long ago there's an embarrassment of riches that we have and so they're there but we have to use them in forming our children children. And so I am really encouraging you to make a habit of this, a plan on how you can share the word of God with your children. God said, my word will not return into me void, but it'll accomplish that which I purpose. You see, the word is the seed that you're planting in your children. And that seed, when you planted and you pray for them and you nurture that, it's going to grow. And there's going to be fruit. No seed, no plant. No plant, no fruit. No seed planted in your children. No growth. Simple as

that. Just simple as that. And they'll be so hungry someday, they'll go somewhere else. Don't let it happen. Now is the time. Number one question, let me end with this. The number one question I get from people is, how do I prevent my kids from leaving? That's what this show was. Important content for family formation. Again, if you want the show notes, text my name, Jeff Kavens, and you can send it to 33777. Let me pray for you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, you know, my friend, you know their responsibility, mom, dad, uncle, aunt, grandma, grandpa. Lord, we all have a real hunger and our heart for you and we want to share it with our loved ones. Lord, give us the ideas to do.

Give us the time. Give us, Lord, the courage to go forward with this. May this not be another podcast for those who have children. But may it be a starting point, a new beginning, a new springtime. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. I love you.

And the next session, we're going to continue on with what content is. is important for family formation. God bless you.