Heidelbergian Children's Catechism (age 8- 10 years)
Lord's Day 2
Lord’s Day 2 You have to write a test. Are you allowed to look at your classmate’s paper and copy his answer? May you copy someone else’s answers? Of course not! It is your birthday, and you got a Lego box. Are you allowed to look at the instruction sheet and copy it to make a car? Of course! What is the difference? Why is copying forbidden? At school there is a rule against cheating. You must give your own answer. You can call that a rule: cheating is forbidden. When you cheat even one time and get caught, you feel bad. And yet, the rule that cheating is forbidden is for your own good. Wouldn’t you become lazy if you could cheat? You would not learn anything. And the result? You would not pass. You can say the same about the rules God has given: the Ten Commandments. You know them because they are read in church every Sunday morning. There are many things you have to do, and other things you may not do. It is hard to obey them all, isn’t it? And yet, this law is for your own good. If you look at these Ten Commandments, then you also see what you do wrong. If you follow these commandments, it goes well with you. But if you do not follow these rules, it really does not go well. If you do all your homework, you don’t have to cheat in class. But we always cheat with the Ten Commandments. We do not want to obey them. This teaches you that you need Jesus Christ. It is worse than failing a grade. Living without Jesus Christ is the worst you can do. What do the Ten Commandments tell us to do? This is explained later in Lord’s Days 34 and following. For now, only one rule is enough, and you should know that rule by heart. Jesus Christ himself gave us this rule: You must love the Lord above all, and you must love your neighbour (the people around you) as yourself. You can re ad this rule in Luke 10:27. It is very easy to learn this rule by heart. You probably know it already.lt is much harder to follow this rule in your life. Actually, no one wants to do that. Deep down inside us, something is terribly wrong.