Chew and Spit

Want to know how to make sure I will read a book? Give me an assignment. Tell me I have to read certain chapters so we can discuss it the following week. The (recovering) people-pleaser in me will do whatever I can do make it happen, so I can show up prepared for our time together, ready to add my input from our reading.

I have recently been reading Mama Bear Apologetics with some lifelong friends. The author, Hillary Morgan Ferrer, encourages parents to institute a chew-and-spit method with our families.

And no, she isn't advocating for poor table manners.

Instead, we have to recognize, and teach our children to recognize that most cultural lies are actually "wrapped in partial truths." And if you think about it, that is very true.

So while it may be easy to teach our children that everything belongs in one of two categories, good/bad or Christian/non Christian, we should teach our kids how to discern truth. When something is clothed with "good" words, like "truth, love, joy, authentic," it can hard for even us, as adults, to spot the lie.

What if, instead, we teach our children what the Lord says about who they are, who He is, and what He has for our lives? Then, teach and model for them how to hold those truths up to what we see in the world, whether it is a movie, a song on the radio, or a conversation they had with a friend.

Truth is truth, no doubt. But the world can be "tricky" for all of us, when it comes to truth. So let's equip the children in our lives to know what truth is and how to spot the lies around us.