For the parent: Read each part aloud and work through the questions together. Your answers are printed in blue italics, so no preparation is needed. Your child uses the Student Edition.
Step 1 · Understand the Collect
A collect is a short prayer the pastor prays for the whole church. Here is today's collect:
O God, because without You we are not able to please You, mercifully grant that Your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Words to know. Please: make glad. Mercifully: kindly, with mercy. Direct: guide; show the way. Rule: be in charge of. Lawyer (in the Gospel): an expert in God's Law. Silenced: left with nothing to say.
1. Without God we are not able to ______________ Him. Answer: Please.
2. We ask that God's Holy ______________ would direct our hearts. Answer: Spirit.
3. We ask the Holy Spirit to direct and ______________ our hearts. Answer: Rule.
Step 2 · Understand the Gospel
Matthew 22:34-46
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." 43 He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
1. What did the lawyer ask Jesus? Answer: Which is the great commandment in the Law (verse 36).
2. What is the first and great commandment? Answer: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (verse 37).
3. What is the second commandment Jesus names? Answer: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (verse 39).
4. Whose son did the Pharisees say the Christ would be? Answer: David's son (verse 42).
Step 3 · Find the Collect in the Gospel
Say to your child: Our prayer says that without God we cannot please Him, and it asks the Holy Spirit to rule our hearts. In the Gospel, Jesus tells what pleases God, and then He asks who the Christ is. Let's find our prayer in the story.
1. The collect says we cannot please God without Him. Read verse 37. What does God's great commandment ask of us? Answer: To love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
2. Can anyone love God that perfectly by himself or herself? Answer: No. Only Jesus did. We need Him and His Spirit.
3. The collect prays for the Holy Spirit. Read verse 43. How did David call the Christ his Lord? Answer: "In the Spirit." The Holy Spirit taught David who the Christ is.
Parent note. The Law shows us what pleases God, and it also shows that we do not do it. Jesus keeps the great commandment for us. The Holy Spirit, who spoke through David, comes to us through God's Word and Baptism and makes our hearts His own.
Step 4 · The Small Catechism
The Third Article. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. What does this mean? I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.
1. Luther says I cannot believe in Jesus by my own ______________ or strength. Answer: Reason.
2. Who brings us to believe in Jesus, and how? Answer: The Holy Spirit, who calls us by the Gospel.
Step 5 · Wrap It All Up
Pray today's collect together one more time. Then ask:
1. What does Jesus do for you when you cannot please God by yourself? Answer: He loved God and His neighbor perfectly in my place, died for my sins, and sends His Holy Spirit to make me His own and guide my heart.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible. Small Catechism quotation from Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, © Concordia Publishing House.