QUESTION AND ANSWER

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1900

QUESTION AND ANSWER.

How would you teach the commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” to children from six to ten years of age?

In regard to teaching the seventh commandment to children, do not begin with the crime against which the commandment gives its warning; but first of all teach them what is the relation between man and woman, according to God’s holy law. Read them the love stories of the Bible, tell them how father and mother came to love each other, and live together in marriage. The language in which to do this teaching is in the Bible waiting for you. When the children have this beautiful picture of the family fixed in their minds, then show them how the commandment is given to warn men and women against doing those things that would spoil God’s plan, break up the home, and send father, mother, and children each out alone and adrift in the world.

Matt. 5:27-32 inclusive and Deut. 5:21 will throw light upon the subject. With the Scriptures open before you, and with consecrated woman’s wit, you can certainly teach your children all that children of their ages can understand of the subject. Make them see that the commandment is given for the purpose of keeping the family life sacred and pure. They will quickly comprehend that one man and woman should live in a family together, for the sake of the children, so that they might have an opportunity to grow up as they ought, without interference from too many people. You can illustrate this point from the lives of children who are thrown out of their homes, like birds out of the nest in a storm, and many other points that you can easily use. These will appeal to the children, and they will understand that to have changes in fathers and mothers, as in clothes, would not be very comfortable.