Luther's words remain true

This year is the celebration of the 500th year of the Protestant Reformation. I recently read "The Large Catechism" by Martin Luther, who is widely acknowledged to have started the reformation with his work "The Ninety-Five Theses". "The Large Catechism" is a summary of basic Christian doctrine. In the section of explaining the 10 Commandments, I found Luther's thoughts about the 4th Commandment, "Thou Shalt honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" as being very timely with our American culture today and the many struggles we are experiencing. He addresses how children are to honor parents and how parents are to raise their children.

The following is a quote concerning the importance of raising children and what impact it has on our society.

"If we want able and qualified persons as civil and spiritual leaders, then we really must spare no toil, trouble, or cost in teaching and educating our children to serve God and humanity. If we would do this, God would richly bless us and give us the grace to train persons to be the sort who would enrich the nation and the people. We would have good, capable citizens and virtuous, home-loving wives, who in turn would bring up their children and households to reverence God...Discipline, good order, and peace have broken down, and we all complain about it but fail to see that it is our own fault. Our citizens are lawless and disobedient because of the way we train them."

Something to think about.

JOANNE ERLBACHER, Cape Girardeau