Happy Christian Parenting

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. – Ephesians 6:4

Who is responsible for love in the home? The Bible says it is the husband. Who is responsible for children’s godly education? Again, the Bible says it is the father. Educating our children in godliness is an awesome task, which none of us can do unless God gives us grace. But God is patient with us, and he does give us abundant grace, that we may do every good work.

Ephesians 6:4 says, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children.” The idea is that we are not to provoke them to anger. “Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” The phrase “bring them up” actually means “nourish them.” This spiritual feeding of children is the responsibility of the father. The parallel passage in Colossians 3:21 says, “Fathers, do not embitter,” or stir up anger in, “your children, or they will become discouraged,” dispirited, brokenhearted, broken in spirit, and so on.

Ephesians 6:1-4 speaks about Christian home life, especially to the duty of children to parents and the duty of parents to children. Today we will particularly consider the duty of parents to children, as described in verse 4.

The Decay of Modern Culture

Training children in godliness is primarily the responsibility of their parents, not the state, the school, or the church. So parents must take time to do this. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones states, “If people but gave as much thought to the rearing of their children as they do to the rearing of animals and flowers, the situation would be very different” (D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home and Work: An Exposition of Ephesians 5:18 to 6:9 [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978], 290). He is speaking about England. In our country we could probably add things like sports and music and the like.

Sadly, today even Christian parents are affected by the cultural decay of this country and of the Western world. The state and the public school system violently oppose the biblical view that parents must train their children. Today we are governed by Marxist principles in which only the state, not parents, is seen as being qualified to train children. The idea is to liberate children from the control of their parents, especially parents who believe in the Bible.

I liken this situation to that of a frog in a kettle of cold water. If the water is heated slowly, the frog will adjust to the heat. As the heat gradually increases, the frog will remain in the kettle until the water boils and the frog dies. In the same way, as Christians adjust to the anti-God, anti-Bible culture around them, it will inevitably affect how they raise their children. Our decaying, rotting modern culture is against traditional, biblical moral values, against parental authority, against physical punishment for correction, against all aspects of biblical Christianity and for complete sexual freedom, homosexuality, convenient abortion, free contraception, and even the right of children to sue their parents.

The Bible commands Christians not to conform to the world. We must obey God rather than culture and the state, or anyone else. Therefore, let us now focus on the duty of fathers to their children as defined by God.

Duty of a Christian Father-the Negative

First, we must understand that our children are not ours, but they belong to the Lord. They are a gift to us and we are merely guardians whose charge it is to bring them up to love and serve the Lord. This is the especial duty of the father, and if he does his job right, then Proverbs 23:24 will be true of him: “The father of a righteous man has great joy; he who has a wise son delights in him.”

It is an awesome responsibility to raise children to become, not merely healthy or accomplished, but righteous and wise. In order to fulfill this responsibility, a father must be a Christian, be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), and must live under the authority of the Holy Scriptures. A Christian father does not have absolute authority over his children but recognizes that they are the Lord’s and have certain rights given to them by God. So fathers are to submit to their heavenly Father as they educate and train their children in godliness.

What, then, is the duty of a Christian father, according to Ephesians 6:4? First, we find a negative duty, what he should not do: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children.” A father should not provoke his children to anger. This is a divine command. And in the Septuagint, this word is used with reference to Jeroboam and Manasseh provoking the Lord to anger by their idolatry.

Parents can provoke children to anger when they deal with them unjustly, not in accordance with God’s word, or when they deal with them emotionally. Dr. Lloyd-Jones points out that the father of Victorian times was typically a tyrant-a cruel, stern, legalistic person who believed children were only to be seen and not heard. But today the opposite condition prevails. Today people believe that human nature is essentially good, and, therefore, punishment and moral teaching must be forsaken. And if punishment is warranted, the modern idea is that the father must punish himself every time the child does something wrong. Dr. Lloyd-Jones knew of one father who gave up eating supper every time the child misbehaved. Of course, he soon gave up this idea, for he was getting weak and incapable of going to work!

But the prevailing idea today is that children are good, not born sinners. We think that no folly is bound up within children, so we may allow them to decide for themselves what to learn, when to learn, what to eat, what to wear, where to go, when to go to bed, and when to rise up, and so on. But this idea is clearly false, and today we are reaping the bitter harvest of this type of teaching.

The answer to the wrong kind of discipline, Dr. Lloyd-Jones tells us, is not absence of discipline, but balanced, biblical, correct discipline, administered by parents under the control of the Holy Spirit. And self-control is a very necessary precondition to disciplining children. If you have no self-control, you should not discipline your children.

How Not to Exasperate

So we are told, “Fathers, do not exasperate, frustrate, and embitter your children.” In order to obey this, we must do several things:

1. Do not be capricious and arbitrary. Be consistent in discipline, not indulgent one moment and legalistic the next. Be calm, cool, and submissive to the Lord of the word. Act in accordance with an established standard understood by the children.
2. Hear the child out. Get all the facts. Hear the facts even when you know the child is wrong. It is good to hear what your child is saying.
3. Do not be selfish. Do not use children as chattel for your own selfish interests. Do not impose your personality upon them. They belong to the Lord, so teach them to be like the Lord, not like you. Do not be domineering, demanding that children should live for the parents. Some people never marry because their parents demand that they help the parents all their lives. This is tyranny. We all have our own lives to live. We must train our children in godliness so they can leave our homes and start their own homes, in due course.
4. Do not punish mechanically, without mercy and love. Give explanation to your children as you are disciplining them, and remember that our heavenly Father does not punish us according to our iniquities. When the great painter, Benjamin West, was a little boy, his parents went away one day and left him with his sister. While they were gone, he took his parents’ paints and created a portrait of his sister Sally, making a total mess in the process. But when his mother came back, she stooped down and kissed her son and praised his work without rebuking him, even though she saw the mess. Benjamin West later said, “My mother’s kiss made me a painter.” The Bible says we are to be slow to anger and abounding in mercy.
5. Never be too severe. The punishment should fit the crime. There is no question that millions of children are abused by their own parents today.
6. Recognize growth and development. Notice, your children are growing. Don’t treat them always as children, but give them responsibility according to their growth.
7. Beware of over-protection. Over-protected children are not allowed to do anything. Everything is “No, no, no, no, no” because we want to keep them away from all possible harm. But growth requires certain risk-taking, so we must allow our children to take risks.
8. Beware of favoritism. Isaac’s favorite son was Esau, while Rebekah’s was Jacob. Jacob himself practiced this, favoring Joseph. But we must not do this.
9. Beware of discouraging children. A father may say, “I want you to be a doctor,” but the child does not want to be a doctor. Or the child says, “I want to be a doctor,” but the father says, “You might as well forget about it; you are good for nothing.” We must never discourage our children in this way.
10. Do not make unreasonable demands. Do not ask children to do something that is not within their power. God never makes unreasonable demands of his people.
11. Never humiliate children, especially in front of their peers.
12. Never use sarcasm.
13. Never over-indulge them.

The Bible says in Colossians 3:21, “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” Using wrong methods of discipline can exasperate, provoke to anger, embitter, and break the spirits of our children, causing terrible psychological damage. Such embittering makes children feel they are worthless, and they suffer from lack of proper biblical self-esteem.

Duty of a Christian Father-the Positive

What is the positive duty of parents toward their children? “Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” The word ektrephô, which the NIV translates as “bring them up,” actually means “nourish” or “feed.” The same word is used in Ephesians 5:29: “After all, no one ever hated his own body but he feeds and cares for it.” So part of the parent’s duty is to feed the children in the word and way of God. Parents are to feed and nourish them up to maturity. Again, this is especially the duty of the father.

Certainly, parents are to nourish their children physically. If Christian parents do not provide for their own household, the Bible says they are worse than unbelievers. Parents are to pray and work very hard in order to provide for the material needs of their children. They are to give them food, clothing, housing, medical care, and so on. That is why young people should study hard, work hard, and get a job. Do not be lazy leeches. You are unfit to be a parent if you do not work hard, because you will not have anything with which to feed your children. It is your responsibility to pray and work hard. And if you do so, the heavenly Father will provide what you need for your children.

Parents are also to provide mental development for their children, for they are the ones primarily responsible for educating their children. They must do everything to help the children blossom and flourish physically, mentally, and socially, for that is honoring to God. But the text is not speaking about physical nourishing. That is understood. Even pagans and animals do that. The particular emphasis here is on spiritual feeding.

Above all, a father is commanded to nourish his children spiritually. Jesus said, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Man is not a mere animal. Man is body, yes, but he is also soul. There is both a physical and a spiritual aspect to our constitution, and proper nourishment must be provided for both. The word of God is the food for our soul.

Today parents provide too much of the physical and too little of the spiritual. Oh, we feel so happy when we can provide our children with a bigger house, a bigger television set, a bigger everything! We have great banking accounts and great estates. We can super-size everything and feel very happy. We think we have done the job. But, in reality, we have not. Our children are famished spiritually. There is a famine in the land and in the homes, a famine not for bread but for the word of God.

How to Nourish Children Spiritually

In order to nourish his children spiritually, a father must be spiritual and love God. He must be governed by Scripture and filled with the Holy Spirit, and the word of God must dwell in him richly. Such a father is to nourish his children in the instruction and admonition of the Lord-not in human wisdom, but in the wisdom of the word of God.

A father is to nourish his children in the paideia and nouthesia of the Lord. Paideiastands for practical, experimental teaching of the word of God by example;nouthesia refers to counsel, warning by the word. To give nouthetic counseling means to put the word of God into the mind of someone. Because we all by nature resist God’s word, you must tell that person, “This is what God is speaking, and you had better listen. Otherwise, you may have serious problems in life.”

Both paideia and nouthesia come, not from human psychology and educational theories, but from the word of God. (PGM) The word paideia is used in reference to the Holy Scriptures in 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” That word “training” there actually means paideia.

So a Christian father is to train his children in righteousness, just like he may train them how to ride a bicycle or how to ski or how to ride a horse. Yes, they may fall down once in a while. But the father helps them get up, and he keeps at it until they learn.

A father is to train his children in right living-in making right decisions, in walking in the right way, in doing the right thing based on the word of God. Such training should include physical punishment when necessary to bring the child back to the right way. The Bible says in Romans 15:14 that every believer is competent to counsel. When the father sees somebody doing something wrong, he is to counsel, warn, and admonish that person, so that he will do the right thing.

Every person in authority is to train others by example. We read in 1 Peter 5:3 that pastors and elders are to govern the flock by example. So too a Christian father is to train his children in the way of the Lord by example, saying, “Do as I do-not do as I say. Work hard as I work hard. Pray as I pray. Repent as I repent. Sing as I sing. Listen to the word as I listen to the word of God. Keep things clean as I do.”

Through paideia and nouthesia, through training and admonition, we not only inform the intellect of our children, but we also train their wills and emotions so that, as a result of our feeding, nourishing, training, and admonishing, they will know what is right, love what is right, and, above all, do what is right. Educating the intellect and training the will and emotion of our children is the job of every Christian parent. And if we do our job right, our children will obey us in everything.

Imparting Spiritual Wisdom

A Christian father is responsible to impart wisdom to his children. What is wisdom? The fear of the Lord. As he nourishes them with the spiritual bread of the word of God, they will become wise. Then they will love and obey God and their parents. They will have personal knowledge of God, coming to know him as the God of their salvation. This is how fathers should measure their success as trainers: their children should know, love, and obey God.

A number of scriptures speak about this. Deuteronomy 11:18 says, “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.” That is the first thing. Before we begin to teach our children, we ourselves must love the word, know the word, and be governed by the word. Only then, as we are told, in verse 19, can we teach them to our children.

Proverbs 4:1-5 begins, “Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding.” The purpose of education is to gain knowledge of God, which is wisdom. “I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching. When I was a boy in my father’s house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, he taught me and said, ‘Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live. Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them.'” Here we see the father teaching his sons, as his own father taught him.

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train a child in the way he should go”-which is the way of the Lord, not the way of psychology, not the way of the corrupt culture-“and when he is old he will not turn from it.” I am an example of that; I have not turned from it all these years. And verse 15: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” These two verses tell us what training is all about.

In 1 Samuel 3 we find the example of Eli the priest. Although he was the custodian of the word of God, Eli did not train his children well; thus, the Lord said of him, “For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.” Eli failed in his job as a father, and you know what happened: his two sons were killed. It was divine judgment upon them.

Even King David was remiss in his duty toward his sons. In reference to Adonijah we read in 1 Kings 1:6, “His father had never interfered with him by asking, ‘Why do you behave as you do?'” Fathers, God wants you to interfere. God wants you to train. God wants you to counsel. God holds you responsible for doing that.

In the New Testament we learn about Timothy. Because his father was a Gentile, his grandmother and mother trained him in God’s ways. As a result of their teaching, Timothy came to know Christ. Thus in 2 Timothy 1:5 Paul writes, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.” And in 3:15 Paul writes, “From infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation.” Who taught Timothy the holy Scriptures? His grandmother and mother. What is the purpose for our training, our rebuke, and our correction? That our children may be saved. Knowledge of salvation comes only through the holy Scriptures; thus, we are to teach them to our children from infancy.

Jesus himself was trained in God’s word. Luke 2:52 says, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature”-that is, spiritually and physically-“and in favor with God and men.” Jesus grew up in right relationship, both with God and the people of God.

Fathers, as the prophet, priest and king of your family under Jesus Christ, it is your unique duty to nourish your children in the word of God and impart spiritual wisdom to them. It is not enough that they know calculus or advanced trigonometry. It means nothing if you did not impart wisdom.

The purpose of this training is that they may trust God, live for him, prosper in all they do, and, in turn, train their own children to love and serve God. This is an awesome task, and none of us is competent to do it. But God gives grace. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

So the education of our children should be God-centered, focusing on his words and his deeds. The purpose is to impart wisdom, not to make them rich, famous, or powerful. Fear of God-that is what we aim at, and it is primarily the responsibility of the father in the home, beginning when the children are very young. Fathers, you must believe in the promise in the Scripture that they are included in the covenant: “The promise is for you and your children. . .” (Acts 2:39). And you must trust God and pray for their regeneration as you are training them. There has to be a miracle from heaven to make a change in their heart. You must do this because this is God’s plan for generations to come.

Psalm 78 speaks of the importance of teaching our children to trust in God:

O my people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old-what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands (vv. 1-7).

Rules for Happy Christian Parenting

1. We must practice firm, fair, constant and consistent discipline.
2. A mother’s supervision and companionship is very necessary. If both parents are working all the time, you may be courting trouble.
3. Parents are to demonstrate affection for each other before their children.
4. Parents are to love each child without showing favoritism.
5. There should be a family altar in the home where parents and children read the word of God, sing God’s praises, and pray together on a daily basis, and the father should require everyone to be alert and engaged as they worship together.
6. Families should worship together on the Sabbath day, and then discuss in the home what was preached.
7. A family should spend time in activities where everyone participates. Do things as a family when you plan vacations and other activities. Don’t be fragmented, with everyone going his or her own way.
8. Eat at least one meal daily together, at which time you discuss all kinds of issues-political, spiritual, and social. That will provide your children with a tremendous education every day.
9. Require hard work from everyone. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
10. Parents, do not indulge your children. You may be tempted to do it, but don’t. It will only make them weak.
11. Do not compare one child with another. Each is unique.
12. Do not push children to achieve beyond their God-given abilities.
13. Praise your children when they are doing well.
14. Do not engage in physical or verbal abuse.
15. When parents sin-and they do-they must repent and ask the children’s forgiveness, and parents should require the children to do the same.

Let me give you an encouraging word from Susannah Wesley. As the mother of nineteen children, including John and Charles Wesley, she said, “The parent who studies [strives] to subdue self-will in his child works together with God in the renewing and saving of a soul. But the parent who indulges his child does the devil’s work.”

Brothers and sisters, let us work together with God in nourishing and training our children up in the instruction and admonition of the Lord so that they will grow up being wise and loving God. This is happy Christian parenting. Then we will be ready to die, knowing our children love God and will be with him, both in this life and forever. Amen.