The Most Important Truth

June, 2006

by: Brock Bolde

As parents, it can become so easy to get hung up on the things of this world. Between carting the kids to and from school, coordinating their various sporting activities, and encouraging them to cultivate an appreciation for music, we can get swept away with the business of it all and forget what it is that God has called us to do as parents. If I were to call you, on your cell phone, while you were picking your child up from some form of practice, and ask you – “What is the most important thing that you can do for your child?” I’m sure that many of you would tell me to teach them the Gospel! I mean, after all, I’m a pastor and that’s what you tell a pastor when he asks you a question like that! But let’s say that I’m aware of that, so I don’t ask you, instead I ask your child what he or she thinks, based on your actions, is the most important thing that you can do for them. What do you think they would say? How would they respond to such a question? Do your actions move them to a place that they fully understand that the most important thing you can do for them is teach them the Gospel?

The Apostle Paul was a man who understood what mattered. He fully grasped the fact that the Christian is not to “be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of [his] mind, so that [he] may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Paul knew what mattered most of all and he never grew tired of proclaiming the Gospel that forever changed his heart and mind. Wherever he went he preached “Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). The message of the Gospel was ever on Paul’s mind. It wasn’t simply one of many things that consumed him – it was the thing! D. A. Carson writes concerning Paul, “He cannot long talk about Christian joy, or Christian ethics, or Christian fellowship, or the Christian doctrine of God, or anything else, without finally tying it to the cross. Paul is gospel-centered; he is cross centered” (The Cross and Christian Ministry: An Exposition of Passages from 1 Corinthians, p. 38). The Gospel of Jesus Christ consumed Paul to such a degree that no one ever had to wonder what mattered most to him. Timothy, Paul’s true child in the faith (1 Timothy 1:2), never had to wonder what mattered most to Paul. In fact, when writing his last letter to Timothy, Paul did not look to impart some hidden nugget of truth that he had held back until the right time. He writes “Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:13-14) and “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel” (2 Timothy 2:8). The Gospel was and is Good News and as those who have been chosen of God, let us follow the example of the Apostle Paul and proclaim it to such a degree that our children know that it is the most blessed and important truth that we know; that it is the wisest and grandest truth that we have to offer.

As parents, we have a daunting task to train up our children in the way they should go. One of the most important things that we can do to fulfill this high calling is to live out and proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. Like Paul, we must deliver to our children of first importance what we also received, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). May God help each of our lives to bear testimony to this greatest of truths!