Christians have children. What do churches teach such children and think of such children as they attend sunday school or equivalent? Scripture says the children of at least one believing parent has holy status before God. What if their parents do not clearly stand out as believers, for instance they might doubt but then so did the Apostle Thomas. I grew up a son of a pastor and grandson of a missionary pastor and was expected to be a believer, which to some extent I was as far as a child can be completely sure of anything. Yet I sinned quite a lot you might say (and I would agree) but in church they thought me above all that and I didn't like to argue about it (well at least not about that, but I argued a lot about most things!). So I was trapped into lying. I hated it and longed to be known as I was and helped to repent. I was forced to pretend to be a saint. Until someone sent me away and while away I got 'saved'. When I say 'saved' I mean I heard a simple gospel message, confessed to the preacher a bit of real truth instead of the usual lying to fit expectations, confessing I realised the truth of Christ dying for me like for the first time and realised I might not really be a Christian, he prayed with me, I prayed, the Spirit came on me powerfully breaking the hold of lying by teaching me with demonstration practically of power within to tell truth and not lie, I confessed to other believers and saw more power, it stopped when I went home but the lesson was learned. Just step one of many to come. Still seeking to break further holds of sins. So sanctification takes time but starts somewhere - the message of Christ crucified. Now I overflow with joy in certainty based on power - certainty Christ died for me. But more sanctification has to happen and that is partly up to me to 'stop sinning'. Thanks be to God. Each Christian parent has to tell the basics to their children and this could be a kind of preaching. The people who make it into the kngdom of God all become a kind of priest and priesthood requires answering questions about God. I found that many preached to me but didn't do so well enough when I was a young man to help me repent. They mixed the gospel with their opinions about me which were too easy on me. I needed a gifted and called stranger away from anyone who knew me to filter out all that noise and tell it as from God so I could receive it as from God. Then the Holy Spirit anointing came and the preacher was familiar enough with it to let it happen. All this took gifting and a true sending to preach. The preaching by well meaning but all too human folk might only have been hardening me. I would say they were relating gospel concepts but not really directly preaching the gospel. The real preacher simply used a board and paper in the street and wrote 'CHRIST DIED FOR YOU'. Perhaps all the preaching people who knew me weren't at all at fault but were not enough for me to believe because they simply had opinions about and I needed someone who had no opinion or knowledge of me to tell me God's message unhindered by personal opinion. So I needed there to be someone with nothing except preaching of the gospel to do. Friends simply could not help, just because faith needed a real preacher.
