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Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up (Deuteronomy 5:4-7).

Imagine that you have never seen a Bible, nor read it. Imagine that there are no church buildings and no worship services with sermons. Imagine that you have never heard a sermon because there are no preachers (don\u2019t think about that too long). Imagine that you have never attended a Sunday School class or a youth group. Imagine a society without Christian schools of any level, or Christian books of any kind, or Christian music or radio for that matter. Imagine a society in which the word Christian was unknown because there were no Christians.

If we can enter this imaginary world, I think we can begin to comprehend the situation Moses is addressing in the book of Deuteronomy. Recall, he is speaking to adults who had left Egypt as children. Genesis does not record God giving any religious education. When God interrupts Moses\u2019 shepherding to appoint him leader of Israel, one of Moses\u2019 push backs is \u201cWho are you? What is your name?\u201d

Israel doesn\u2019t know who God is, let alone how to be in relationship with him. There is no printing press to reprint the 10 commandments; the only copies are chiselled in stone. There is no record that they were passed from tribe to tribe. How are they to learn? How are they to grow in their trust and faith in God?

Moses boils everything down to the bare bones, \u201cHear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.\u201d This is to be on their hearts and impressed on their children. But how?

Simple: talk about it.

The Israelites are called into a life of exploration. What does it mean to love God in the everyday affairs of life? For Israel, it was never a matter of just \u2018me and God\u2019, it was always a matter of \u2018God and us\u2019. As they did life together, they were to discuss what it meant to \u2018love God\u2019 in each situation.

And when the children asked about their religious rituals, they were to tell them the story, \u201cWe were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand\u2026and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors (21,23).

What would happen if we took Moses\u2019 advice and talked? What if we constantly wondered what it looks like to love God and follow Jesus in the common matters of life? What if we talked to our children about how we are loving God in our work and play and parenting? Somehow, I suspect that talk might have more impact that all the classes we attend and the sermons we hear.

I wonder if we have become too dependent on Sunday School teachers and preachers? Are we putting too much stock in Christian education and the wealth of Bible studies at our fingertips? Maybe. It is not that any of these things are bad or should be done away with. But maybe God was on to something when he told Israel to \u2018talk and walk.\u2019 Here is something to ponder. \xa0