Please rejoice with us. My wife is under fire from her School for teaching the children why it is wrong to draw the "Baby Jesus." My wife teaches 6-12 grade computers at a "Christian School" (inter-denominational, but mostly Baptist). The persecution comes from a child's family that professes Christ and her school that claims to be a Christian organization. She was advised of the complaint today and has to prepare a statement for tomorrow. She has to appear before the school council for a hearing. Please pray (1) that she will be delivered from the Lion's Den, and (2) that God's Word will prosper. Here is what I am preparing to assist her. Please read it and see if you may make some suggestions.

[Name of School] has among its population of students some Presbyterians. In the Presbyterian faith we take very good care to teach both children and adults the importance of the Ten Commandments. Among the Ten Commandments is the Second which says:
    Exodus 20:15-16 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of then that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

    Deuteronomy 4:15-16 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

    I believe as a Christian, and one believing in the Second Commandment, I had, and still have, a duty to instruct the children that while the First Commandment is against worshiping a false god(s), in the Second, the worshiping of the true God in a false manner is also wrong, as interpreted by some denominations (i.e. Presbyterians, et. al.) and a great deal of historic Christianity (The Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A-97, God neither can, nor may be represented by any means). I advised the children to do here what both the Bible, their Denomination's Statement of Faith (if they have a teaching on the Second Commandment), and parents instruct them.

    Thomas Boston said:
      It is not lawful to have pictures of Jesus Christ, because his divine nature cannot be pictured at all, and because his body, as it is now glorified, cannot be pictured as it is; and because, if it do not stir up devotion, it is in vain; if it do stir up devotion, it is a worshiping by an image or picture, and so a palpable breach of the second commandment.

      Thomas Watson stated:
        If it be not lawful to make the image of God the Father, yet may we not make an image of Christ, who took upon him the nature of man?

        No! Epiphanies, seeing an image of Christ hanging in a church, brake it in pieces. It is Christ's Godhead, united to his manhood, that makes him to be Christ; therefore to picture his manhood, when we cannot picture his Godhead, is a sin, because we make him to be but half Christ - we separate what God has joined, we leave out that which is the chief thing which makes him to be Christ. Here I stand! grin

Reformed and Always Reforming,