If you have a child, you have already begun. You are already teaching him or her what is on your heart. Teaching spiritual truths occurs the same way you teach a child how to talk. Talk about what you are learning in their presence. Give them bits and pieces about who God is and what He means to you and to them throughout the day. Sing songs to them with spiritual truths, and let them hear you praying. Demonstrate your love for God and for them through your attitudes and actions to those around you. What is filling their lives? Timothy learned the Scriptures from his mother and his grandmother as a child. As a young pastor, he was well grounded in the Scriptures.

There may be many patterns of wrong thinking to correct; however, you can ask God to give you wisdom to make the appropriate changes. Joel told the Israelites that when they returned to God properly, He would restore to them the years the locust had eaten (Joel 2:25). God is merciful and gracious. He wants to draw us to Himself. Nevertheless, He is also holy and righteous, and we must come to Him on His terms in complete surrender.

Just as a student must have a foundational concept of letters and words before they can move ahead to reading, so too, we must build a proper spiritual foundation for a child, and the earlier we begin the easier it will be. It is far easier to build into a child than it is to remodel an adult.

Some seem to infer that the meat of the Word is when we understand seminary level concepts and words of Christian doctrines. We have come to think that the milk of the Word is when we are dependent upon someone else to do the chewing and digesting regardless of the vocabulary and concepts involved, and the meat is when we do the chewing, digesting and applying the truths which God gives us. The "meaty" time is when our time with God in His Word brings us to the point that we stand in awe of the beauty, majesty and holiness of our Lord which in turn changes our lives and our life styles.

Paul knew the Scriptures even while he was still Saul. However, God had to set him aside for three years to get Paul's thinking straightened out after He got his attention away from his foundational error of who God really was. Today we have seminaries where this three or four year training occurs. But is this the only pattern to emulate? What would happen if we were training individuals to follow scriptural patterns from the beginning? Where are the well-trained Timothys?