Preface

The need to have an extensive manual in teaching the Law of God is dictated by modern, special, unprecedented conditions:

1. In most schools, the Law of God is not taught, and all natural sciences are taught in a purely materialistic way.

2. The majority of Russian children and youth are surrounded by a foreign environment, among various religions and rationalistic sects.

3. The textbooks of the old edition are already sold out, it is almost impossible to get them. In addition, not all textbooks of the old edition can fully meet the requirements and demands of modern children.

All these conditions and other circumstances of our difficult time impose a great responsibility on parents, on all educators of children, and, especially, on teachers of the Law of God. In addition, no one knows what will happen tomorrow - whether this child will learn the Law of God or not, maybe tomorrow his family will move to a place where there will be no church school, no church, no priest. This circumstance alone does not give us the opportunity in the very first grades to limit ourselves to a simple (without any explanations) telling the child the events of sacred History, as was done before, with programs designed for many years.

In our time, it is necessary to avoid telling the Law of God in the form of a naïve fairy tale (as they say "childishly"), because the child will understand it as a fairy tale. When he becomes an adult, he will have a gap between the teaching of the Law of God and his perception of the world, as we often observe in the life around us. For many modern people with higher education, knowledge in the field of the Law of God has remained only from the school bench of the first grades, i.e. in the most primitive form, which, of course, cannot satisfy all the needs of the mind of an adult. And the children themselves, growing up in modern conditions and developing faster than usual, often have the most serious and painful questions. Such questions that many parents and adults are completely unable to answer.

All these circumstances put forward the primary task - to give into the hands not only of children in church schools, but also of the parents, teachers and educators themselves, or better to say the family, the school of the Law of God. For this, as practice shows, it is necessary to give one book that contains all the foundations of the Christian faith and life.

In view of the fact that many of the students may never take the Holy Communion into their hands. Bible, and will be content with only one textbook, then this situation requires from the textbook the absolute correctness of the transmission of the Word of God. Not only should there be no distortion, but not even the slightest inaccuracy in the exposition of the Word of God.

We have seen many textbooks, especially for the lower grades, in which inaccuracies and sometimes inaccuracies were allowed in the transmission of the Word of God. Let's give a few examples, starting with small ones.

In textbooks it is often written: "Moses' mother wove a basket of reeds"... In the Bible it is said: "She took a basket of reeds and tarred it with asphalt and pitch"... (Exodus 2:3). At first glance, this seems to be a "trifle", but this "trifle" is further reflected in a larger one.

So, in most textbooks they write that Goliath blasphemed, blasphemed the name of God. When in the Word of God it is said thus: "Am I not a Philistine, and you are servants of Saul?.. today I will put to shame the armies of Israel, give me a man, and we will fight together"... And the Israelites said, "Do you see this man speaking? He comes out to revile Israel"... (1 Samuel 17:8, 10, 25). And David himself testifies when he says to Goliath: "Thou comest against me with sword and spear and shield, but I come against thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast reproached" (1 Samuel 17:45).

It is said quite clearly and definitely that Goliath did not laugh at God at all, but at the armies of Israel.