The April 2008 Newsletter From Timberdoodle (A ...

The April 2008 Newsletter from Timberdoodle (a supplier for homeschooling families) noted a problematic teaching in a Children’s Study Bible used in Sunday school. Referring to Matthew 3.12, the footnote said, “This means that Jesus will come to separate the good people from the bad people, saving the good and punishing the bad.”

The author of the newsletter commented: “In the past year, thanks to the gospel-saturated teaching of [Pastor] Tim Keller [Redeemer PCA], our family has become keenly aware of how religion has infiltrated the church and turned a massive number of people away from the gospel. Religion says that if I am good enough, then God will love me, a way of thinking which leads to either spiritual pride or crushing despair. But the gospel says that God loves me, and so I want to be good. If we believe Romans 3:10, which says that ‘None is righteous, no, not one,’ how then do we dare say that the good go to heaven and the bad to hell, for there are no good people?”

She when on to describe how she taught the children our problem with sin: “In class we talked about poke cakes, those cakes which you bake, then poke holes in and fill those holes with flavorful syrup. Imagine if, instead of sweet syrup, it was a slurry made of barnyard manure and pond water. Covered with thick frosting and a substantial amount of colorful sprinkles, that cake would look good, but at its core, it would still be bad…. That’s why we all desperately need a Savior…. How thrilling it is to understand that there is nothing that I could or should ever do to make God love me more than He does today. If you can help your children to grasp this truth, you will save them from the barrenness of religion.”