Teaching Kids About the Covenant of Works (Using the Children's Catechism Questions 22-27 and 41-42)
/We are still working our way through the Children's Catechism, getting to some things that even some adults may have trouble articulating! This is one of the huge benefits of teaching our kids while they are young and can soak up new information. We plant the seeds now and they have a head start on grasping even more later.
In today's post, we'll be covering Questions and Answers 22 to 27 from the Children's Catechism.
These are a lot of questions for one chunk. However, since the answers are all relatively short, it makes sense to keep them together since they are very related. It only took about a week of working on the questions and answers for a few minutes every day (and a little review at dinner too) to have them memorized.
Q 22. What is a covenant?
A: An agreement between two or more persons.
Q. 23. What covenant did God make with Adam?
A: The covenant of works.
24. What was Adam bound to do by the covenant of works?
A: To obey God perfectly.
25. What did God promise in the covenant of works?
A: To reward Adam with life if he obeyed him.
26. What did God threaten in the covenant of works?
A: To punish Adam with death if he disobeyed.
27. Did Adam keep the covenant of works?
A: No; he sinned against God.
41. Can anyone be saved through the covenant of works?
A: None can be saved through the covenant of works.
42. Why can none be saved through the covenant of works?
A: Because all have broken it, and are condemned by it.
This post is in a series of posts working through the Children's Catechism! For more information on how this started, be sure to read the beginning of this earlier post. My kids I'm working on this with are now 7, 5, and 2.
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We started by talking about the word "covenant". We played a silly game where we made up covenants (just so they understand that a covenant is an agreement). One person could say "Every time you say the word "alligator", I have to jump up and down." or "I promise to always give you a hug before we go to bed."
Then we talked about how those weren't real and binding. As a contrast, we talked about real covenants we see in our world today - like marriage.
We also talked about how God always keeps his promises, so if God makes a covenant, he won't break it.
A good verse to review at this time is Deuteronomy 7:9, "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations." (ESV)
This would be a great time to also review the story of Adam in the Garden from a Bible storybook like the Jesus Storybook Bible or another favorite storybook Bible.
Then I printed a coloring sheet for each of my kids that has the basics of these questions covered. You can download it for free right here in the Resource Library!
Then while we colored, we listened to some music covering today's questions (all through our easy Amazon Unlimited Membership, you can start your free trial by clicking here.):
Q & A 23-24 (one song) and Q & A 25-28 (another song) from Ask Me Whooo, Volume 1. These songs use a slightly different version so the numbers are slightly different - but these are the same questions! You can read more about the different versions in this post.
God Always Keeps His Promises from The Ology: Ancient Truths Ever New by Sovereign Grace Music
That's it for today, as usual - nothing too crazy! Remember to grab some little moments as often as you can to talk to your kids and it will make a big difference over time!
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For a list of all the best catechism resources and direct links, be sure to check out this page!