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Because Your Family Matters
Our endeavor to discover a Biblical Child Training Model requires far more than just learning a formula or some secret hidden away for all time that will give us instant and lasting victory. Child training is designed by God for the progressive sanctification of both the child and the parent. The biblical model will therefore embrace not just the mimicked actions of God, but it will require us to learn the nature and thoughts of God behind each action. Just as we will seek to teach our children to pursue the “person” of God, so also will our maturity as parents require that we do the same. In short, I cannot give you a set of simple instructions that will apply to every situation you will face and ensure your success as a parent. Accordingly, we will learn principles that will keep us on the right road no matter what the Enemy throws at us as we apprehend the heart and mind of God. If we understand the purposes and principles of Godly child training, then the devil can change the rules for society all he wants. Christian parents will be able to discern right from wrong, Christian thought from secular thought, and truth from error.1 As we review some systems of secular (godless) thought, you will be surprised at how much of it is accepted by Christian parents, leaders, and teachers.
There are many secular voices calling us away from Scripture and into their schools of thought. Pressure is great to accept the practicality of “current wisdom” in society. However, we must never forget the abundant fruit of society that is clearly seen in a generation that is out of control and bound by anger, wrath, malice, addiction, relational failures, and bondages too numerous to name.
Current statistics show that somewhere between 70% and 88% of all Christian high school students are leaving the church by their second year in college.2 In other words, seven to nine out of 10 of the students active in our church youth groups do not establish a Christian home and family when they marry. I meet Christian parents almost weekly who are discouraged, disillusioned, and even angry with God because they did the best they could, and it wasn’t enough. My question to them is simply, “Do you have a biblical child training strategy and, if so, where did you get it?” Almost without exception the bulk of their information has come from one or more of the following sources or parenting styles.
Experts of the Day
There are basically three schools of thought that have crept into mainstream Christianity: that of Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner, and Carl Rogers. (Benjamin Spock, in my opinion, was just a reiteration of Freud.) The heart of Freudianism is quite simple: man has an inner self, or Id, and an outer conscience or Superego. Problems come when the Superego, or conscience, is “unduly” influenced by society, i.e., parents, grandparents, church, or school, and becomes restricting to the Id, his natural impulses for sex and aggression. Therefore, you have a conflicted person that must channel his natural impulses expressing them in covert ways resulting in undesirable and deviant behaviors. In other words, it’s society’s fault for his problems. It crossed his will and conflicted him. Freud’s answer: modify the conscience until it is no longer a source of conviction. In other words, take away the rules and allow the person to choose as he pleases within societal mores and norms.
B.F. Skinner went in the other direction believing that man is basically an animal and he can be trained to an end by a series or system of rewards and punishments. Christian psychologists have embraced this concept and declared it biblical with the affirmation of the church. At times, the influence of Skinner is evident in James Dobson’s famous book Dare to Discipline as he seems to agree that a system of rewards and punishments can modify behavior successfully. Skinner, however, never embraces the heart of a person and the influence of God by His Spirit to teach and empower the child unto righteousness. It’s not just the rod that brings us to a biblical end. According to Proverbs 29:15 (and echoed in Ephesians 6:4) it is the “rod and reproof” that is needed. “Reproof” literally translates “meaningful discussion”. We must control the child with the rod, but we also must teach the child to surrender his will to God through salvation in Jesus Christ, love God with all his heart, and then to internalize the living Word of God using it as his life compass in the power of the Holy Spirit. Lasting change only takes place when the heart is transformed by the renewing of the mind as a work of the Holy Spirit.
Carl Rogers’ is our third school of thought and the one most embraced by Christian circles in one form or another. Rogerian theory is based upon the idea that within man lies the answer to all of his problems. Basically, man is seen as having adequate knowledge and resources for success in life and he has but to discover and actualize them. We simply must learn how to live up to our own potential. Hidden within this school of thought is the idea that man is basically good and those with problems are just not living up to their potential. At its best, Rogerian theory is man-centered and not God-centered with self-improvement and self-reliance as its goal. Rogers at least climbs past the idea that society is responsible for a person’s problems and demands responsibility on the part of the person for his own pathway. However, the responsibility is to himself and not to God, and his success, should he somehow find it as he has defined it for himself, is the result of his own efforts and not the power or blessings of God. On its best day it is a movement away from God and toward self-reliance. Yet, much of our “new age” theology is quite comfortable with this idea as it is expressed in the concept of behavior modification through positive thinking and positive reinforcement alone.
By now perhaps you have noticed an element of truth, even biblical truth, in each of these schools of thought. There’s just enough truth to make them sound plausible. That makes each of them ever so dangerous to both new and veteran Christian parents because partial truth or truth out of balance always leads to trouble. Samson found the honey he needed for nourishment in the carcass of a dead lion. It refreshed him for the moment, but it ultimately led to his demise and death. We must endeavor to capture the whole heart of God and absolute truth. That alone will enable us to become skilled trainers of our children, building in them a heart for God and a love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember the theories of each of these men and learn to recognize and avoid them in the literature and teaching you embrace. They are deadly. And they are everywhere including much of the Christian Literature available in your trusted Christian bookstores. Make no mistake about it; whenever the sacred is mixed with the secular, the sacred always suffers.
So where can we go for a child training model that we can know is going to work? The simple answer is the Scriptures, the Holy Bible. Are we to discard the advice and teachings of the Christian “experts” of the day? No, not entirely. I have great respect for the Christian psychologists that have used their skills to help a lot of people. But human research and observations must be interpreted in the Light of the Scriptures and must never be allowed to invalidate the clear instruction of the Bible. To be sure that what we have observed is truth, one must learn first what the Bible has to say and qualify or disqualify other sources accordingly. The “Christian” mental health community has, for years, hidden behind the idea that “all truth is God’s truth.” This supposedly validates their findings under the reasoning that once they discover what they have perceived to be truth it is as valid as the Scripture. My question is how can they know it is truth in the first place until it has been validated as truth by the Word of Truth, the Bible?3 The finite understanding of man can in no way compare to the infinite wisdom of God. It is this very concept that has led some of our Christian experts to conclude that training up a child in the way he should go is not sufficient to insure he will return to his faith should he stray. We have all observed good parents who have had one or more of their kids go bad. But this is no reason to doubt Scripture or perhaps reinterpret it to mean something else. No one can, with accuracy, draw such conclusions as we will see. We have no way of knowing how well the child was trained, how pure the hearts of the parents really were, or what path the providence and purpose of God may have for the child or the parents in the future.
Consider the story of the Prodigal Son in the book of Luke chapter 15. A son becomes dissatisfied with his life at home and demands that his father give him the portion of the estate that would eventually fall to him as an inheritance. He then promptly leaves to set out on his own. Notice that the father cooperates and actually gives him his inheritance and lets him go. How foolish was that? Actually, it was incredibly wise. To understand why, you must step back and get a look at the larger picture only Scripture can give. In this book of the Bible there are three stories or parables, not just one. I don’t think any one of them was ever meant to stand alone. There is the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the lost son. Each story carries its own wisdom, to be sure, but each is indelibly linked to the others.
The parable of the lost sheep presents our first scenario. There are one hundred sheep belonging to a shepherd. One of them strays so he leaves the ninety-nine and pursues the one until it is found. He then places it upon his shoulders and brings it home to a great celebration. Why? Because it is the responsibility of the shepherd to do so. Sheep are simple animals and not very smart. In fact, they are nearly incapable of survival apart from the shepherd. They will eat the wrong food or too much food, cast and die. They have been known to graze themselves right off of cliffs. This sheep, probably a lamb, wondered off in his simplicity. The shepherd sought him out and brought him home to teach him differently. Shepherds have been known to actually break the leg of a lamb and then nurture it back to health in order to build a bond with the lamb that would prevent future dangerous excursions. In King David’s Psalm (51) of repentance after the Bathsheba fiasco, he cried out to the Lord, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice.” (Italics mine.) The issue here was clearly the simplicity of the sheep.
Our next adventure involves some lost money. No one loses money on purpose. Obviously, this loss was due to carelessness or the accidental misplacement of the coin. The response of the owner is to put the house in order and search until it was found. In other words, clean up the mess and seek that which is lost until it is found. This is a proper response when childish foolishness or an accident is the cause of the problem.
Our final situation clearly differs from the first two. This sequence involves rebellion, a subject we will cover extensively later. Simplicity can be overcome with learning and carelessness can be overcome with rebuke and instruction, but rebellion requires chastening. And when the chastening of the child by his parents is not enough, it’s time to turn the child over to God and the natural consequences of his sin. The father allowed, even enabled, his son to go into a faraway country and foolishly squander away his inheritance. This was necessary for him to experience the natural consequences of his sin. You see, we may live in an immoral society, but that society is still a part of a moral universe governed by a sovereign God. All sin will ultimately have consequences. When parents feel that they have exhausted all of their resources, even biblical resources, they must never forget that they are in partnership with God, Himself. The young man probably thought it wouldn’t be a problem when he ran out of money. “I grew up on a farm,” he, no doubt, thought to himself. “I’ll just get a job on a farm and make some more money.” However, he had not counted on his Heavenly Father introducing yet another factor into his life: a famine. I’ve always thought it a bit ironic that he wound up on a farm with pigs, a place no respectable Hebrew boy would dream of going. Anyway, it’s here that he came to his senses and returned home broken and ready to again serve his father. Without the wisdom and intercession of God, this father would not have known what to do and would never have seen the return of his son.
There is a final thought that I want you to embrace before we leave this father and son. Consider the older brother that had remained in the home and loyal to his father. Upon the return of his lost brother, he refused to celebrate his restoration and displayed very jealous and childish behavior. Read for yourself the final verses in this passage concerning the behavior of the older brother and ponder this question. Which son would you prefer now? The broken son that returned or the proud son that never left? Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul exhorted us to judge nothing before its time.4 Our God can be trusted, and His wisdom is infinitely superior to anything man has to offer.
The Mistakes of Others
There is a saying that has circulated around airport hangars and pilot lounges for years. “Learn from mistakes, preferably those of the other guy.” There may be some wisdom in that as long as the other guy makes a mistake before you do. But the reality of the matter is that mistakes, whether your own or those of others, give you no real insight as to the correct path to take. You know only another way that doesn’t work. I have always believed that walking away from something old will never be as successful as walking toward something new.
There is a Scriptural principle called “The Law of Biblical Replacement.” It is based on the passage in Matthew 12:43-45 and others.5 This principle simply stated means that when something is taken away, it must be replaced with something better otherwise the void will be filled again with the first folly to an even greater degree. This has been the fallacy of many twelve-step programs. They are successful in taking away the addiction, but they fail to adequately fill the void with a lifestyle characterized by a passionate pursuit of Christ.
Trying to parent by simply avoiding the mistakes of others is like trying to run a race looking over your shoulder. The Apostle Paul said to forget those things that lie behind and press forward toward your high calling in Jesus Christ.6 We can have precise direction in our child training and know exactly where we are going.
Trial and Error
There is a prominent school of thought among Christians today that embraces the premise that there is no one set of absolute parenting guidelines to follow so the best any parent can do is experiment, observe short-termed outcomes, and adjust as you go along. In the absence of any one right way to parent, you just do the best you can. In his book Revolutionary Parenting George Barna writes, “In this incremental approach, the goals of parenting are to continually improve and to perform better than most other parents.”
One of the reasons for writing this study is to assault this premise and put it to death. God requires nothing of us that He doesn’t give precise instructions as to how to accomplish it. As we work through the Scriptures you will be delighted to find that there are very precise instructions on parenting. God would never leave the future of the next generation to mere chance. This brings us to another faulty premise. It is the idea that we must expose our children to all aspects of worldly life and allow them to choose what they believe is truth.
Default Parenting
With its roots firmly in Freudian psychology, this form of parenting is happy with the path of least resistance. The idea is not to inhibit the child in any way. Parents do what comes naturally as both the parents and the child are led by current norms or cultural traditions. The idea is to be a peacekeeper, so everyone can be happy. What you create is a little monster who expects the whole world to revolve around himself, his wants, his desires, and his needs. Someone has said, “The path of least resistance will always flow like a river: crooked and downhill.”
Can we be honest here? Parenting through trial and error or parenting by default may be the result of parents who are new, simple, or both. But most often it is the result of little more than parents who are just lazy and do not want their parenting responsibilities to force them to define and prioritize their own lives. We must be willing to take the time to search the Scriptures and become skilled technicians in the hands of God to mold and shape the pliable lives of our children. Otherwise, we will see them abandon the faith and we are in for a number of very difficult years as we watch them struggle and fail in their own efforts to succeed in life.
A Personal Philosophy
The bottom line is that we must never settle for a personal philosophy that is a collection of parts and pieces of whatever we can gather from the world, society, or even our own parents. We have seen many children sacrificed upon the altars of simplicity, neglect, and inordinate ambitions and goals. The failures of our own parents and failures in our own lives should be a constant reminder from the past to seek God in all that we do. The window of opportunity is small. Miss it when they are young, and it gets smaller as they age. We must do it the right way, God’s way, and we must begin now. If you are late getting started, or if you are a single parent, it may be more difficult, but you are in partnership with the King of the Universe who wants you to succeed and will walk with you all the way. It’s never too late to start doing things correctly.
We are about to embark on a journey through the Scriptures, not just to glean a method of training our children, but to closely examine the way God parents and trains His own children. We are not just looking for a formula or method; we are searching for the very heart and thoughts of our Heavenly Father. The goal of Godly parenting is not just to successfully train our children. It is to ever deepen our walk, our wisdom, our relationship, and our intimacy with God.
Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge, the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. Proverbs 24:3
- Spiritual discernment always comes with the help of the Holy Spirit. The more we learn of God through Scripture and are intimate with Him in prayer and meditation upon the Scriptures, the better the Holy Spirit can help us discern danger with our spirit even when we can’t identify the danger with our minds and intellect.
- Family Driven Faith, Voddie Baucham, pg. 10
- “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” I Corinthians 1:18-20
- “Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts.” 1 Corinthians 4:5
- “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” Matthew 12:43-45
- “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13, 14 See also: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1, 2
Understanding Our Past Failures