The Connection of Passover and Easter

Palm Sunday is on March 24, Easter on the 31st, and Passover begins on the evening of March 25th. But did you know that these three holidays are connected?

As a Jew, I grew up celebrating Passover most years, and since I have become a Christ-follower, I celebrate Easter. (Side note: I am still Jewish, of course, even though I am also a Christian. Believing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah does not stop me from being Jewish).

A couple of years after I became a follower of Jesus, while I was still in college, I started studying the Passover from a Christian perspective. My mind was blown! It suddenly seemed so obvious that Jesus was the fulfillment of this ancient holy feast.

To help you learn this, and to help you teach your kids, here are four days worth of scripture readings. For each day, you will see the context of the Old Testament Passover and the fulfillment in the New Testament. I hope you can use this over the next week, to help you draw near to God and know Him even more intimately.

Day 1: The Perfect Lamb Is Chosen

• In Exodus 12, Israel was commanded to choose a lamb on the 10th day of the first month (v. 3). This lamb needed to be unblemished (v. 5).
• In Matthew 21, Jesus entered Jerusalem on the this day, which we now call Palm Sunday. Note that instead of a lamb being picked, Jesus chose Himself to be our sacrifice. And He is without blemish or defect (I Peter 1:19), particularly since He never sinned.

Day 2:  Death and Judgment

•  The Passover lamb (in the Old Testament) was killed on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month. And the blood of the lamb was spread on the doorposts of the house. In Exodus 12:6-13, judgment came to those did not obey these instructions in faith. 
• Jesus the Lamb was crucified on what we call Good Friday. Our sins deserve death (Romans 6:23). We need to "apply" Jesus's blood to our lives, by having faith in His life, death, and resurrection. 

Day 3: God's Purpose and Redemption

• God didn't just want a judgment for the Egyptians that enslaved the Hebrews. His ultimate purpose was to rescue and redeem His people, so that they would know God and dwell intimately with Him (Exodus 6:2-8).
• Jesus didn't come to live and die for nothing. He didn't do it to set a good example or be a good moral teacher. Jesus died because we need to be saved from the penalty of our sins. Through faith, we are saved from our sins and can have eternal life (John 3:16).

Day 4:  Remembrance  

• Passover was intended not as a one-time event, but as a memorial throughout all generations (Exodus 12:14-20). Parents needed to keep telling their children the story of God's great redemption.
• Likewise, Jesus gave a new meaning to the Passover, a meaning that we are to continually remember. Jesus took the unleavened bread and wine and said, "Do this in remembrance of me." (Luke 22).When we celebrate Communion (or, the Lord's Supper), that is what we are doing -- remembering His body that was broken and His blood that was spilled.

Did you know that what many call "The Last Supper" was actually a Passover celebration? It was no coincidence that Jesus made this meal his last one with the disciples before His death. Jesus was declaring to the disciples (and to us), "I am the Passover Lamb."

And it's also no coincidence that in the book of Revalation, Jesus is called "The Lamb" more than any other name (including Lord, King, etc). Truly,

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”  (Revelation 5:12)

Related Links:

• Celebrating Passover as a Messianic Jew   
• Passover and Easter Ideas  
• What's the Origin of the Passover Afikomen?  
• Easter: The Crux of the Matter      

**image courtesy of kckellner via sxc.hu

Made In Your Image

This post is an updated version of one that I wrote in July 2010, on our church's (old) parenting blog. I hope you enjoy!

If you want a wake up call, tell your child to imitate you. This works especially well for a child who is particularly observant, dramatic, or just completely out-going.

Recently, we did this with our 3-year-old son Sender at the dinner table. As he imitated me, he made a bunch of silly faces; I'm not really sure how I feel about that, but it was better than Joanna got. When it was time for him to imitate her, he got a serious look on his face and very sternly said, "What?!" Joanna and I both tried to remember when she actually says that, but we laughed and shrugged and let it go. 

Two days later, Joanna and the kids were with some other families for a "play group" at someone's house. A handful of moms were inside, and about 15 kids were outside playing. Sender began repeatedly knocking on the door, and eventually Joanna (understandably not wanting to leave the adult conversation) went to the door and sternly started to say, "Wh--?!" She caught herself. What an eye opener!

Our kids follow our lead, sometimes in negative ways. Negative as in mimicking the tone of voice that they hear us use (and doesn't it sound so much worse when we hear it in others?). Negative as in strongly preferring being inside reading, watching TV, or playing video games, instead of outside playing and working up a sweat (our son Elijah gets this from me). Negative as in having a bad attitude when life doesn't go our way.

Of course, imitations can be positive, too. I remember when Elijah was a baby, and Joanna was constantly caring for and feeding him. Hannah (age 2 at the time) copied her mother, and seemed to always have a baby doll under her shirt, "feeding" it as best she could do.

What started as merely a cute imitation has now morphed into something more, as Hannah has an wonderful motherly side to her. She regularly asks to read to Sender and put him to bed at night or naptime. When he wore diapers, she often changed him, even without us telling her to. She loves serving at church with younger children.

The Apostle Paul called young believers to follow his example. "And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ."  (I Corinthians 11:1). Similarly, we are the primary models for our children, to demonstrate what a life in Christ looks like. Consider how you are doing this.

The best way to be an example for your child is for you to passionately pursue and imitate Christ.

How has your child imitated you, for better or for worse?

Related Links:

• Passing on Your Faith (Mission: Allendale blog)
• Imitate Me (by Justin Taylor) 

**image courtesy of kikko77 via sxc.hu

Book Review: Connecting Church and Home

If you visited 10 churches in your community, you will find 10 different philosophies and methodologies for doing children's ministry and youth ministry. Is there a right or wrong way? Should children and teens be a part of the adult (or main) worship service, or should they have their own separate programs?

In Connection Church & Home, Dr. Tim Kimmel says that the main issue is not whether a church has one or separate worship settings. After all, if a church has children worship with parents, that is that church's form of "children's ministry."

The key point is not about the form or method of church, but about the heart motivation of why that method is preferred -- both by the church and by any parent.

Dr. Kimmel cautions parents about "outsourcing" the spiritual development of their children. He correctly notes that this is already being done, for decades. On the other hand, though parents should be the primary spiritual influencer in their child's life, there is nothing innately wrong about other adults being spiritual influences in the lives their children.

Christians tend to prefer their own style of ministry, and look down on others that do differently. Moving away from this battleground, Dr. Kimmel outlines basic principles for "how churches and parents can work together in a grace-based partnership to make each other's efforts more impactful."

Does this book give solid principles and good suggestions? Yes. Does it try to give a single, perfect solution for every situation? Thankfully, no. After all, when it comes to the soul's of adults, teens, and children, we know that ministry is often messy and usually complicated. That's where grace comes in.

There were a few things that I didn't care for in this book, but maybe that's because I can be picky about details and about the importance of context.

First, Dr. Kimmel starts out with definitions of family (= "the domestic church") and church (= "a gathering of domestic churches"). However, he never explains how those definitions are derived. I wish he would have made a Biblical case for those definitions.

Second, he also made an attempt to trace a history for how parents began to outsource and subcontract (to the church) their spiritual responsibility. But I think he overstates how dramatic this change has been recently. For example, he says that only relatively recently did parents focus on "the child's outward behavior, sin-management, and spiritual-image-control." I think those issues have been going on a lot longer than a few decades.

Overall, I think this is a good book, and can be useful to parents and church leaders. Just be careful to see it as it is -- a tool that outlines an general framework, not a "bible" for parenting or ministry.

Interested in your own copy? You can order Connection Church & Home from Amazon.

Edit:  Read more about this book on Heart Connection, Moralism, and Grace.  

Related Links:

• Recommended: Shepherding a Child's Heart   
• Which Is the Better Parenting Book? Shepherding or By the Book? 
• Recommended: Age of Opportunity 
• Recommended: Hints on Child Training  
• Gardens of Home and Church   

How I Was Mean to My Daughter

She sat on her bed and cried, “Daddy, you’re being mean!”

No words could have cut me deeper. I wanted to defend myself, and I wanted to lash back at her. And I’m sure I did not immediately respond in a loving and nurturing way.

But the Holy Spirit caught me. He showed me that she was right, but not in the way that she (and I) thought initially.

Let me explain. . . .

Be sure to read the rest of the post on Epic Parent, The Day I Was Mean to My Daughter.

2 Dozen Pieces of Advice for Parenting Young Children

From Steve McCoy:

There's a lot of parenting advice out there. Some is great. Much of it is lacking. Some is downright harmful. . . .

We've gotten advice from books, other parents, pastors, and our own parents. We've taken courses on parenting and had one pastor/wife and family that we learned much from and watched closely as they did so much right (radically different than most parents we'd ever seen).

I wanted to share some advice for things I feel we have learned and that not enough folks are talking about. At its core, this list is a quick mind-dump of the practical advice I want to give parents with young kids after years of doing it. By no means do we do all of this perfectly. I assume you know that already.

McCoy rightly cautions that his list is not exhaustive, unordered, simple, practical, and not dealing with the important issue of rules versus grace.

I agree with most of his list (though I've fallen short of most of his principles). Here are five that I most needed to be reminded of:

• Believe Kids Are a Blessing
• Teach "First Time Obedience"
• Pre-Event Preparation
• Kiss Your Spouse in Front of Them
• Play with Your Kids

For a brief explanation on each point, and to read the entire list, read the full article.

Related Links:

• 4 Effective Consequences for Disciplining a Young Child  
• Parenting: It's Never an Interruption 

The Many Kinds of Dessert

Do your kids like dessert?

Let me tally up your responses:

• 94.7% of you said, "Of course!" 
• 4.9% asked, "Where are you going with this?"
• The remaining 0.4% of you don't exist. Sorry.

Cookies, ice cream, and chocolate bars are some of my kids' favorites. We like dessert so much that we've come up with other ways to eat dessert.

• Pre-sert = when you eat dessert before your meal
• Re-sert = when you have two desserts
• Bre-sert = when you have dessert after breakfast
• Me-sert = when you eat dessert whenever you feel like it
• Tree-sert = a healthy dessert
• See-sert = when you are on a diet and you can only watch others eat their desserts
• Bee-sert = anything with honey
• We-sert = when you are on a date and you share a piece of cheesecake or key lime pie with your spouse
• Free-sert = when someone else pays for your dessert
• Pee-sert = ummm . . . my boys made this up; I hope I don't have to say any more

Help us out. Can you add any more kinds of desserts to this list?  

Favorite Tweets for February

Two days with 500+ leaders who love Jesus

It's been a busy and fun month. We spent time from Asheville, NC to Savannah, GA. And a bunch of places in between. Mostly in Allendale, of course.

Here are some of my favorite tweets from the past month. You can follow me (@EspinosaJoey) to keep up.

From Others:

@travisro:  It's easy to tell people about your goals. It's much harder to actually go do something to move you toward them. #DontSettle

@BoAyers_Live:  Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that its stupid. Einstein

@ChrchCurmudgeon:  #UsherNews Signed B. Jones - Corinth Baptist Academy - 6'0" 185. School record 4,237 yards ushing. Aisle run - 4.2 sec.

@GraceChurchCM:  Be a vehicle that God can use for heart change in the life of a child.

@LACavin:  Don't be self-satisfied with where we are now. Have a vision for the gospel lived out in the next generation.

@sydleet:  Instead of getting me something for valentines days..mom gave me $6. #truelife

@PastorTullian:  To focus on how I'm doing more than what Christ has done is "Christian" narcissism.

@Gospel_Project:  God is bringing back the humanity that our sin has broken. He is restoring to us our created state as authentic humans who bear His image.

@anonbaptist:  Condemning sin outside the church but not confronting sin inside the church. #unbiblicalpractices #plankinowneye 

@FirstWorldPains:  I have too many videos on my youtube feed.

 

From Me:

Day 9: Spent the weekend with 500 people who lead b/c they love Jesus. @gracechurchsc #1smallthing http://instagr.am/p/Vg16duDyv-/

"Parents - Is your focus on your family, or on the kingdom of God?" Bill White

Job was blessed, & he blessed others (Job 29:1-17). May the same be true of me.

Want to reduce aggression in teenagers? Teach them that people CAN change. http://buff.ly/14RiQL4

How to Make Disciples. http://buff.ly/X9BHf3  // "The #gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer to absolutely every question and problem of life." 

Elijah & I at our first @firstlegoleague event. Kids here have amazing talent & creativity! #STEM @firstweets