Preserving
the Harvest
Phil Lancaster
I
have become increasingly alarmed over the last couple of years at reports of
the children of patriarchal families abandoning the home, the values, and
even the Christian faith of their parents. Regularly the news comes in of
yet another young person who has gone off the deep end and apparently
rejected all that his or her parents have taught. The problem seems to be
especially prevalent among our daughters. In addition, the affliction is no
respecter of persons: not a few prominent leaders in the homeschooling and
patriarchal subculture are losing their children as well. My wife and I have
spent countless hours ministering to such families in crisis this past year.
So the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of
the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD
which He had done for Israel…
When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another
generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He
had done for Israel.
Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served
the Baals; and they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who had brought
them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the
gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them;
and they provoked the LORD to anger. (Judges 2:7-12)
I have become increasingly alarmed over the last couple of years at reports
of the children of patriarchal families abandoning the home, the values, and
even the Christian faith of their parents. Regularly the news comes in of
yet another young person who has gone off the deep end and apparently
rejected all that his or her parents have taught. The problem seems to be
especially prevalent among our daughters. And the affliction is no respecter
of persons: not a few prominent leaders in the homeschooling and patriarchal
subculture are losing their children as well. My wife and I have spent
countless hours ministering to such families in crisis this past year.
This problem is particularly alarming in that it seems to cut at the very
heart of what biblical patriarchy is all about the transmission of the
Christian faith and life through the generations. The multi-generational
vision of family renewal is one of the essential ingredients of our view of
life. We are exercised about such things as male leadership, homeschooling,
and courtship because we want to assure that our faith is passed along to
our children, and these seem to us to be ways of living that Scripture would
encourage us toward in the process of discipline the next generation.
If I have a life, ministry and passion, it is to find the ways that God
would have us live in order to assure that the Christian faith does not die
with us but becomes the way of life of our children and grandchildren and
that this faith is lived with increasing fervor and understanding in each
succeeding generation.
This burden arose in my own heart because, although I was raised in a
seemingly ideal Christian home and church, most of my own siblings rejected
the faith of their fathers as they crossed the threshold into adulthood, as
did a large number of the children who grew up with me in the church of my
childhood. It is not too much to say that Patriarch magazine was founded to
deal precisely with this problem. So my dismay is great when I hear reports
that raise questions as to whether we will be any more successful at
transmitting the faith than recent generations. What’s going on here?
The problem is as complex as it is prevalent, so I will not pretend to be
able to address all the elements of the disease and its cure in one article,
assuming that I even have a clue myself as to where the root problems may
lie. But I’ll begin my tentative attempts at unpacking the issue here, and
I’ll continue my quest for answers in subsequent issues.
GOD’S PLAN: FAITHFUL CHILDREN
Before looking at the factors that may be
contributing to the defection of our children, perhaps we need to ask
ourselves if something is indeed wrong when our children do not follow in
the footsteps of our faith and life. After all, why should we expect them to
be Christians just because we are?
The reason we believe we are in fact dealing with a problem is that we
believe the Bible tells us that the normal pattern would be for our children
to embrace our Christian faith and life and pass that heritage on to their
children after them. We have dealt with this subject thoroughly in the past
(“Children of Promise: God’s Plan to Save Our Children,” Issue 36; also
posted on www.patriarch.com), so we will not repeat everything we wrote
then. But allow me to summarize.
God works through families. He deals with people in this world as
individuals — no one is saved apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ —
but he also regards the human connections that tie each individual to
others.
Specifically, he promises that his grace in salvation will flow through
family channels to succeeding generations of his people. Perhaps the
clearest statement of this truth is seen in God’s pronouncement of his
covenant to Abraham, the spiritual father of all Christians (Gal. 3:29):
“And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants
after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to
you and your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7). Peter picks up this theme
in his sermon at Pentecost: “For the promise is to you and to your children,
and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts
The normal pattern is for the children of believers to follow in the faith
and faithfulness of their parents. When instead they renounce the faith in
words or actions, something is indeed wrong.
Since Scripture makes a connection between the nurture of children and how
they turn out, it makes sense for Christian fathers to pay close attention
to how they raise their children and to assume that there is some defect in
their training if the children go astray. While it is possible, in the
sovereign purpose of God, that even a father who is scrupulously faithful in
the raising on his children may have a child who ends up outside the faith,
fathers ought not to evade their own culpability.
Who of us does a perfect job of raising his children? What father could deny
the likelihood that his failures, even if seemingly small, may provide an
efficient cause and thus a sufficient explanation for any defects of
faithfulness on the part of his children?
One of the marks of manliness is the assumption of responsibility for what
goes wrong on our watch. When children of a generation go astray, we will do
best to ask ourselves how we may be failing in our duties and how we can be
even more faithful and skillful in our calling. With that in mind, let’s
begin to consider some of the possible reasons why patriarchal families are
losing their children.
MAKING AN IDOL OF PATRIARCHY
The Lord says, These people come near to me with
their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” (Isaiah 29:13)
The kind of people who read a magazine called Patriarch are not exactly your
mainstream Christians. We tend to be people with a cause. Our cause is the
restoration of the Christian home and the transformation of the church, the
nation, the world (and perhaps nearby galaxies) through a return to biblical
patterns of life, beginning with men returning to their calling of spiritual
leadership in their homes, and continuing with peculiar priorities like
homeschooling, courtship, and family-integrated church.
Let’s be honest: people like us can lose perspective. (Ask anyone who would
not think of reading a magazine called Patriarch.) We can come to believe
that the principles and practices that we espouse are the most important
things in life, and to us they often seem to be just that.
But here’s the rub: these things are not what is most important. Let me
explain.
One of the root human sins is pride. Our first parents were afflicted with
it (“Let us be the judge of whether God or Satan is telling the truth.”),
and it is the sin behind any attempt of mankind to figure out his own way to
solve the problem of sin and misery in the world (whether by jihad, yoga,
religious pilgrimage, or legalistic righteousness).
You and I are seriously tempted to let our pride attach itself to the
teaching and lifestyle that we call biblical patriarchy and make an idol of
it. We may try to solve the problem of sin and misery in our families
through perfecting our technique in the use of the rod, or through the
choice of the perfect homeschool curriculum, or through avoiding the church
youth groups, or through leading our children to marriage through courtship,
or through getting involved in a home church. We can easily come to rely on
these very good lifestyle choices and the biblical principles we believe lie
behind them as if these things themselves have the power to transform our
children and assure that they will be followers of Christ. But they can’t do
that.
The inherent danger of being people with a cause is that we lose sight of
our Cause. Biblical patriarchy is not the meaning of life for the Christian.
Christ is. “For to me, to live is Christ…” (Phil. 1:21). Biblical patriarchy
is not the secret for assuring that our children walk with God when they are
grown. Christ is. It is horrible to think that while focusing on the
ingredients of the wholesome and biblical lifestyle we have learned, we may
be losing sight of the One who is the only source, guide, and goal of the
Christian life, Christ himself.
When Paul wrote the Corinthians about his former visit to them he said, “For
I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him
crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Now come on, Paul! Who can believe that?
Read the rest of your own letter. You address a lot of things besides Jesus
Christ and his cross: unity in the church, church discipline, handling
controversies, marriage and singleness, meat and idols, head coverings, the
Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, the resurrection, etc.
Obviously Paul doesn’t mean that he never addresses other topics of
importance to Christians. What he means is that no matter what topic he
deals with, he wants to deal with it in terms of its relationship to Jesus
Christ and his atonement. Nothing else matters. Nothing makes sense if
considered apart from Jesus. And separated from Jesus Christ, all these
important issues can actually become stumbling blocks that prevent progress
in the Christian life.
I think one reason we may be losing our children is that some of us are
attempting to substitute a religious system for the person and work of
Christ. We make sure our children dress modestly, we have them read Elsie
Dinsmore, we don’t let them date, we’re part of a family-oriented house
church — but we forget to be sure they have a personal relationship with
Jesus Christ!
For to me, to live is… homeschooling? No. Homeschooling is a great idea, and
I hope you do it, but it is not the be all and end all of life. It’s the
same with the other ingredients of our lifestyle. Jesus himself is our life,
and that’s what we have to communicate to our children. Otherwise,
homeschooling, courtship, or whatever won’t do them any ultimate good.
No doubt some Christians out there think that the kind of people who read
Patriarch magazine are just some weird subculture of people who’ve latched
onto some old-fashioned ways of life. They think we find comfort in
believing that we can bring back the good old days if we adopt enough of the
old practices. They think that we are proud that we have found more
righteous way of life and that we are better than other people. The trouble
is, they may be right… if we’re not careful to keep our perspective.
If we make an idol of what we are calling patriarchy, if in our pride we
rely on our system to save our children, we will lose them in the long run.
Our children need Jesus. Unless they are taught to know him, and knowing him
to love him, and loving him to obey him, they will not walk with him when
they grow up. And we will watch these home schooled, father-led, courtshiped
kids wander away from all that we have tried to teach them.
Isaiah and the other prophets often warned about the danger of honoring the
Lord with words and external actions but failing to have a heart for him.
Those of us who embrace patriarchy as a biblical teaching must be very
careful not to come to rely on our particular applications of principle
(“rules taught by men”) as if they were the very word of God himself, as if
they were themselves the very means of salvation.
Systems don’t save even good, biblical systems. Jesus saves! If we are
losing our kids, we need to consider if maybe in our fervor for a new way of
life we are failing to introduce them to the One who is the reason why we
live the way we do.
FAILING TO WIN THE HEART
Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.
(Proverbs 4:23)
Reb Bradley writes (p. XX of this issue):
In the words of a 21-year-old young woman, who chose to continue living at
home under her father’s authority after her older sister bolted one day, “I
stay at home, not because I have been convinced by the biblical apologetic,
but because of love. I love my father and I don’t want to dishonor him.”
Even with the negative example of an older sister, even though she didn’t
agree with her father’s view of adult daughters, and despite the fact that
she was at an age by which most young women in our society are out of the
home, this daughter chose not to depart but to honor her father’s principles
and desires. And she did this simply because she loved her father.
A heart bond of love with our children is our best insurance against their
“bolting” the home in exasperation and perhaps abandoning the Christian
faith in the process. I am convinced that it is the lack of this element in
the parent-child relationship that accounts for a very large portion of the
defections of older children that we hear about so often today. If a father
has his child’s heart, that will make up for a lot of other failures in the
process of training his children
This heart bond is especially important for families who believe in biblical
patriarchy because we are seeking to have our children walk a narrow path
compared to the world around and even compared to the church at large. It is
difficult for our sons and daughters to withstand the opposing opinions of
those who ask why they dress as they do, why they can’t date, why they (the
older daughters) are still at home instead of away at college or living on
their own.
Parents who raise their children the way everyone else does are not as
likely to meet with dissatisfaction and resistance to their values. There’s
nothing to resist! The children get to do what everyone else is doing. But
those parents who have a stricter standard have a greater challenge when it
comes to winning their children to their point of view. Thus, the need for a
loving relationship is even greater. The bond of love with her parents will
help a daughter withstand the forces that would tend to pull her away from
their way of life. In the midst of a sick culture, the higher the dosage of
the medicine of truth, the more the sweetness of love is needed to help it
go down.
John Thompson shared with me a recent email in which he wrote, “Fullness of
truth requires fullness of grace in order to embrace it, especially when
there is little or no reinforcing grace coming from the culture or sometimes
even from the church. To put it another way, biblical instruction/direction
of our family will exasperate our children in the absence of a fullness of
grace which keeps their hearts tied to God and parents.” Well said.
We have addressed before the importance of fathers turning their hearts to
their children (cf. Mal. 4:6) and what this means (“The Father’s Heart:
God’s #1 Priority,” Issue 22). From the biblical point of view, turning the
heart involves all the elements of raising children. Previously we
summarized these elements as “godly training” and “a loving relationship.”
These concepts are parallel to “fullness of truth” and “fullness of grace.”
We will deal with possible failures in training in a later article. In our
present context, we are addressing the relational side of “turning the
heart” and how a failure in this area can lead to the loss of our children.
Let’s now look at four ingredients that go into creating a heart
relationship with our children.
Incarnational Love
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself
likewise shared in the same… Therefore, in all things He had to be made like
His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things
pertaining to God… (Heb. 2:14ff)
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,
but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore
come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace
to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:15, 16)
We recently celebrated Christmas, the Christian festival of the incarnation.
Its message is that God became man in order to save mankind. The eternal
Word, God the Son, took on a human body and soul (“the Word became flesh,”
John
This is the nature of love: to enter the world of the loved ones, to share
their experiences, to understand their needs, to sacrifice on their behalf,
and thus to give help that is perfectly suited to them. And as God has loved
us, so we must love our children. A father needs to enter into the world of
his children.
The first thing a father must do to show incarnational love to his children
is to learn what’s in their hearts. He needs to see life from their point of
view. He needs to understand what they think and feel what they feel. He
needs to find out what is in their hearts, what they value, what motivates
their actions and shapes their emotions.
So how does a father gain this kind of entrance into the world of his
children? What is the secret to entering the recesses of their hearts? It’s
very simple: he listens.
When the children want to talk about their activities and relationships, he
listens. When they don’t want to talk about these things but need to, he
patiently draws them out with questions, and then he listens. And as he
listens, he looks at them to observe their non-verbal communication and to
assure them that he is giving full attention to what they have to say.
Listening is a very effective way of penetrating the heart of another person
and communicating love.
Once in a while I will be amused to hear that a person I have visited with
will report to a third party that “we had a really good conversation,” even
though I spent 90+% of the time in that “conversation” listening to the
other person and may not have offered any significant information about
myself at all. But this is how it works. People feel loved and affirmed when
you listen to them talk about whatever is important to them.
It’s almost a cliché now to report how little time the average father spends
in conversation with his children each day. One would hope that
homeschooling fathers spend more time than the average. But how is that time
spent? Is it spent giving directions, lecturing, admonishing or is it spent
drawing out and listening to his sons and daughters?
A second thing a father can do to show incarnational love is to share what’s
in his heart with his children. While listening is vitally important,
communication is a two way street, and if a father is to win the heart of
his sons and daughters he must expose them to his own thoughts and feelings,
desires and beliefs.
Too many of us fathers are reticent to open ourselves up to anyone, even our
wives; and it may be even harder with our children. Another cliché about
contemporary men is how poor they are at communication. True enough. But we
need to be committed to overcoming our natural hesitation and to sharing
with our families what’s going on inside.
How will your son ever come to share your faith in God if he never hears you
talk about how much it means to you? How will your daughter come to embrace
your desire to protect her if you don’t explain to her how much you value
her and why you want to guard her?
Let your children feel the passion and hear the thinking that goes on inside
you. As you open yourself up to them, their heartstrings will inevitably
tend to vibrate in harmony with yours. But if they never hear the sounds of
your heart, they will be more likely to tune in to the sounds of another,
and perhaps not someone they should be listening to.
A third thing a father can do to show incarnational love is to display warm
affection to his children. There is no more effective way to enter the world
of another person and show acceptance and love than with a tender touch. We
are physical beings and physical touch communicates in a way that also
touches the heart. Jesus laid hands on people when he healed them, and he
laid hands on the children when he blessed them (Matt.
Physical contact overcomes the barriers between people. Consider the
handshake when meeting a stranger; somehow, he is less a stranger
afterwards. Or consider the message of the “holy kiss” (a gentle hug)
exchanged with other believers at the meeting of the church. How much more
important to draw our children close to us with a hug, a kiss, a pat on the
shoulder, a gentle squeeze. Winning our children to a lifelong commitment to
Jesus will certainly take more than hugs, but it is doubtful whether we can
be successful without such expressions of love.
The Christian faith is not first of all an ideological commitment; it is an
incarnational reality. The Word became flesh… for us. Effective fathers will
mimic God by fleshing out their love for their children heart to heart and
skin to skin.
Overcoming Grace
But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. (Rom.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves;
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Eph. 2:8, 9)
We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
Why do you love God? Because he loved you first. Your love for him is a
response to his love for you. God saw you lost in your sin and misery, and
while you were his enemy, he sent Christ to die for you. God takes the
initiative in love.
His grace overcomes your sin and your opposition to him. Your sin could not
diminish his love for you. In fact, where sin abounds God’s grace abounds
much more. He will not be deterred. He is determined to overcome your sin by
his grace.
This means that there is nothing you could do that would make God loves you
more. You are accepted in Christ and you could not be more acceptable than
you already are in him. Nor is there anything you could do that would make
God love you less. All your sins are forgiven, nailed to the cross, and he
holds none of them against you. That’s grace. Your works don’t earn his
favor; his favor is a gift, given through Christ.
The natural response to such undeserved favor is thankfulness. “Thanks be to
God for His indescribable gift!” Corinthians 9:15) And thankfulness leads to
worship and obedience. The motivation for living the Christian life is
profound appreciation to God for his grace.
We fathers must demonstrate the gracious love of God to our children if we
expect them to remain faithful to us and to the Lord. Our attitude toward
our sons and daughters must always be that of acceptance, not necessarily
approval of their behavior of course, but acceptance of their persons. Our
disapproval of their bad behavior and attitudes must be expressed in the
context of a complete affirmation of our relationship with them. Overcoming
grace draws near to the sinner with a determination to win the sinner by
love to holy living.
One of the most destructive attitudes a father can display, and one sure to
wound the hearts of his children and drive them away (emotionally if not
physically), is the attitude of conditional love: “I will love you if you
perform up to my standards.” Imagine if the Lord did that to us. Would we
love him? No, we would dread him, we would want to get away from him, and we
would despair and lose heart since we would know we could never be pleasing
to him. Such is the sad position of a child whose father communicates
conditional love.
Doug Wilson has suggested that the surest way to drive our children away
from us and from our Christian faith is to raise them with a “debtor’s
ethic” in which they are always in arrears, always owing us more in order to
be accepted, always failing to meet our expectations. On the other hand, he
says, raising our children in an atmosphere of efficacious, overcoming grace
creates gratitude and loyalty toward our Lord and us.
A very real danger of our patriarchal way of life is that we so stress our
high standards of behavior that we communicate a spirit of judgment to our
children. They feel that they can never measure up. They become exasperated
that they cannot win our love, and eventually they may lose heart and give
up trying. Then they are ripe for the influence of someone who will give
them the love they long for.
Our principles and their applications can become instruments of death if
they are not communicated with love. Remember, fullness of truth requires
fullness of grace for it to be accepted. Many families are losing their
children, not because their standards were not high enough, nor for that
matter that they were too high. They are losing the children because their
standards are not communicated in an atmosphere of overcoming grace.
Do your children believe that there is nothing they could do that would make
you love them more and nothing they could do that would make you love them
less? Answering that question just may provide the most important
information you could have about the future prospects of your children’s
faith.
Passionate Exhortation
My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways. (Proverbs
23:26)
…you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a
father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls
you into His own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians2:10-12)
The book of Proverbs is written by a father to his young adult son in order
to guide the youth with wisdom as he takes his place in the world. Over and
over, we read such appeals as this: “My son, hears the instruction of your
father, and do not forsake the law of your mother” (1:8). The heart cry of
this father reaches its climax when he calls, “My son, give me your heart!”
(
Throughout the Bible, we find that it is a father’s duty to instruct his
children in the ways of the Lord (Gen. 18:19; Eph. 6:4). But this teaching
is not to be the mere transmission of facts from one brain to another, as if
the truth were just information. No, the source of truth is God, and it
always calls for a personal response to God. Jesus said, “I am the way, the
truth, and the life” (John 14:6). When you encounter truth, you encounter
God and your learn the way to live.
So one of the callings of fatherhood is to urge upon children the joyful
duty to walk in the way of wisdom and life, to “walk worthy of God who calls
you into His kingdom and glory.” Fathers should be passionate in their
appeals, coming alongside their sons and daughters and pointing them in the
right direction, charging them to follow the path of wisdom, encouraging
them on in their walk with God.
Perhaps one of the reasons fathers don’t win the hearts of their children is
because they fail in the duty of exhortation. Their instruction, when they
do it, lies dry and passionless on the living room floor. The children never
get the impression that the things they are taught actually matter. Things
that matter engender passion, and passion appeals to others to share that
passion.
Fathers should be saying, “Watch me, follow me, live as I live, love God as
I love him. Give me your heart and, like me, give your heart to the Lord.”
The successful transmission of the Christian faith always involves one heart
inviting another heart into the heart of God.
We
began to take a look at why it is that many patriarchal families are losing
their older children, particularly their daughters. By “losing,” I mean
everything from seeing them bolt the home, abandon the faith, and marry
unbelievers to simply leaving home with no intention to live by the values
with which they were raised.
Here is a summary of the first article: We pointed out that it is indeed a
problem when children do not follow in the faith and Christian life of their
parents since God’s design is that the faith multiplies through the
generations. Then we began to consider possible explanations for why parents
may be losing their children. First, we explored the possibility that the
very values we espouse could become an idol, a religious system that takes
the preeminent place that only Christ should hold in our lives. Second, we
discussed the problem of losing the hearts of our children. Under this
heading we presented (a) the importance of incarnational love expressed in
communicating on a heart level and showing affection; (b) the necessity of
overcoming grace, an attitude that does not allow a child’s failure to meet
moral standards to diminish the love a parent shows to the child: acceptance
of the person even in the midst of disapproval of the behavior; and (c) the
value of passionate exhortation, one heart inviting another heart into the
heart of God: “My son, give me your heart!”
The scriptural mandate that fathers turn their hearts to their children
(Mal. 4:6; Luke
Another way of saying it is this: passing on the Christian heritage depends
on a training process characterized by both a heart-level relationship and
Christ-centered content and goals. And this process we can call
discipleship. It is not discipleship if there is a loving relationship
without biblical objectives for belief and conduct. Nor is it discipleship
if there are Christ-centered content and goals without a relationship that
embodies and reinforces the content. Biblical discipleship encompasses both
content and process, both truth and love. While in the last article we
focused on the nature of expressed love (“fullness of grace”), here we will
focus on the content of godly training (“fullness of truth”).
One reason we may lose our children is through a failure adequately to train
them to think and act biblically. We must help them to both understand and
live the truth that God has revealed in his word, the Bible, and that means,
first of all, that we must expose them to the word of God.
TRANSFORMED BY
TRUTH
10For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return
there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may
give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, 11So shall My word be that
goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall
accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent
it. (Isaiah 55:10, 11)
You and I have no power to make our children into followers of Christ. We
can teach, admonish, discipline, and appeal, but we cannot change the heart,
and without a heart change, none of our children will carry on the faith of
their fathers.
Only God himself can shape a person from the inside out. Only he can change
the heart. This does not make our efforts to train our children irrelevant.
Quite the contrary. The God who can transform a child into his image is the
same God who has revealed the normal means by which he accomplishes that
transformation, and one of the primary means he uses is instruction in his
word. His word has the power to transform.
Scripture is replete with statements that confirm this fact. The passage
above from Isaiah plainly states the God’s word will bring forth fruit just
as surely as the rain brings forth produce from the ground. His word is not
just a collection of inert words and sentences. “For the word of God is
living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to
the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb.
Surely then, exposing our children to the word of God are the most important
element of training them, and a failure here can have devastating
consequences. So how does this exposure happen? The key passage concerning
the discipline of children pictures a process in which they encounter God’s
word everywhere they go during all their waking hours. “6And these words
which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7You shall teach them
diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your
house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up”
(Deut. 6:6,7). Let’s list some of the ways this exposure to God’s truth can
occur.
(1) Family worship. The regular practice of gathering the family to hear the
Bible read is perhaps the most important method of teaching children the
scriptures. This is the normal setting for the primary Bible instruction of
a child. Over the years, this family time can be used for the simple reading
of a passage without teaching or discussion, for detailed and systematic
teaching, or for casual discussions of content and application. Through all
these means, the truth takes root in the mind and heart of the child.
(2) Personal devotions. Each child should be trained to have a daily time of
personal worship (Quiet Time) in which he both prays and reads Scripture. As
he is taught to read the Bible expectantly, it comes alive for him with
answers to his own questions about doctrine and life. This spiritual
discipline is a key way in which a child makes the faith of his parents his
own.
(3) Church meetings. God intends every Christian to be under the weekly
teaching ministry of the elders of a local church. Their teaching will
reinforce what a child is learning at home and provide a supportive backdrop
for the biblical view of life that a father teaches his family.
(4) Scripture memory. Given the power of the word to transform, parents
ought to take advantage of every available means to get the word of God to
lodge in the heart of the child. One very useful means of doing that is
encouraging the memorization of Scripture. As the word takes root in the
mind, it is available to shape the heart. (cf. Ps. 119:11)
(5) Bible-based education. The truth of the Bible needs to shine on every
endeavor of our children, especially the school subjects that occupy such a
large part of their childhood attention. The books and teachers to which
they are exposed should present a biblical view of whatever subject they are
studying.
(6) Conferences, seminars, tapes and videos. We live in a day in which there
is a wealth of good Bible teaching available through these means. It is a
shame not to take advantage of these opportunities to expose our children to
many teachers they might not otherwise encounter in the normal spheres of
family and church life.
Neglect of any of these means of exposing our children to God’s word leaves
them, to that extent, less likely to become godly adults as they mature. For
example, the father who fails to conduct regular family worship and fails to
train his sons and daughters to meet the Lord personally in daily devotions
need look no further for an explanation when it turns out that one of his
children does not embrace his Christian faith and values when he reaches
adulthood. Using the Bob Jones curriculum and attending a good evangelical
church may not make up for the failure to make the Bible a regular part of
family and personal life.
TEACHING THE HOW AND THE WHY ALONG
WITH THE WHAT
While getting our children into contact with God’s word
is important; we should not think that our job of training is done if
they are merely exposed to the content of the Bible. It would be possible
for a child to win a Bible trivia game every time and spout off hundreds of
verses of Scripture from memory without having been transformed in the
process of learning. This is because the goal of studying the scriptures is
not merely to learn content in the sense of a collection of facts. Our aim
is to teach him to apply what he learns to his life.
Proverbs was written by a godly father to his young adult son in order to
equip him with what he needed to live a life pleasing to God. It is clear
throughout that this father’s ambition is that through his “instruction” his
son would not only have “knowledge” but also the ability to use that
knowledge. The purpose of the book is stated in verse two of the first
chapter: “To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of
understanding…” (Proverbs 1:2). Later we read, “For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6).
There is a lot of overlap in the terms that are repeated so often in this
book, but it is clear that “wisdom” and “understanding” are something added
to “knowledge” to make it useful and effective in the life of the young
person. You have probably heard someone say that knowledge is knowing what
to do and wisdom is knowing how to do it. We could add that understanding is
knowing why you do it. Both wisdom and understanding are crucial to making
good use of knowledge. “Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom.
And in all your getting, get understanding” (Proverbs 4:7). “Buy the truth,
and do not sell it, Also wisdom and instruction and understanding” (Proverbs
We find an example of well-rounded instruction in Proverbs 5. The whole
chapter is a warning against the perils of fornication and adultery, and the
basic concept of the what — avoiding the adulterous woman — is stated in the
first few verses. But the wise father knows that he has to do more than, in
effect, repeat the commandment against adultery.
So he adds the counsel of wisdom and explains how to deal with this kind of
temptation: stay away from situations and persons that will entice you (v.
8) and enjoy sexual relationships with your wife (vv. 18, 19). He also give
the counsel of understanding and explains why it is important to keep the
commandment: if you break it you will risk loss of wealth (v. 10) and may
contract disease (v. 11) or even die (v. 23); but the overriding reason to
avoid adultery is because the Lord sees all that a man does (v. 21). The
young man who considers the instruction of this chapter will have a clear
picture not only of what he must do but also how to do it and of why it is
important to do it.
One of the reasons many patriarchal parents lose their children is because
they fail to follow this pattern of instruction. They think their job is
done because their children know what the parents believe and can repeat it
back to them, and even say they believe it too. But then suddenly a child
reveals that he has not actually embraced what he has been taught at all.
Let’s take a common example: A daughter who never questioned the idea that
her father was her protector, that he would guide her in finding a husband,
and would then give her in marriage suddenly runs off with a man her father
would never approve and marries him against her father’s will. The parents
are in shock. They wonder what happened.
Perhaps what happened is that the daughter did not have a real understanding
of the principles she was taught and the wisdom to apply what she knew to
her own life. Why does a young woman need a father to protect her? Why does
God give him the prerogative of giving his daughter to someone he approves?
How is she supposed to conduct herself around men? How can she avoid the
temptations of unsuitable men? Our daughters need to be able to answer these
questions or their commitments to the principles involved are pretty shallow
and may not withstand the onslaught of other opinions and influences.
Understanding added to knowledge will protect them by giving them a reason
for what we teach them. Wisdom added to knowledge will protect them by
helping them know how to apply in practice what we teach them.
These thoughts suggest a related reason why many families may be losing
their children: the children are never encouraged to grow up. They need to
learn to apply the truths they learn from the Bible to their own lives.
ENCOURAGING CHILDREN TO BECOME
ADULTS
One real danger in parenting is that we don’t
allow our sons and daughters to make the transition from childhood to
adulthood. Paul speaks of this process when he writes, “When I was a child,
I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when
I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Corinthians
Too often fathers of the patriarchal sort (who are often more strong-willed
than most) think they have succeeded in passing on their faith and values
simply because they have maintained a firm control of the family and their
children have acquiesced to that control. They have taught the what of their
faith and life and have quickly stifled any thinking or acting in other
directions. Their children learn to keep the peace by simply going along in
smiling agreement with Dad. But unless the children are embracing what they
are taught with their own hows and whys, trouble may be brewing.
The next generation will not embrace patriarchal values through the sheer
force of a father’s will, nor should we desire that. Our goal is not
full-grown children who submit unthinkingly. Our goal must be mature adults
who have embraced our values because these values are pleasing to God and
our children want to please God. But this means we need to be willing to
take the time to give reasons for our beliefs and not feel threatened when
our children question us about these things.
Let me give you a live example from my family this very day. My
fifteen-year-old daughter, Joanna, asked me if she could get her haircut
tomorrow. Now for my taste, her hair is already on the short end, but I have
allowed her some liberty to choose her own length and style, anxious to let
her practice making adult decisions. When she brought it up tonight at
supper, we talked about it briefly during the meal, and after supper I
opened the Scripture to the passage on head coverings (1 Corinthians 11) and
read it. Then as a family, we talked about the principle of women being
given hair as a covering, the need for gender distinction, feminine
hairstyles vs. unisex styles, etc.
Bottom line: I’m letting her get her haircut and styled tomorrow, but I told
her I didn’t want it any shorter than the last time it was cut. My aim was
to expose her to God’s word, invite her to consider its meaning and
application to her life, and give her the liberty to make a decision like
the adult she is (by biblical measures), all the while making clear the
absolute boundary I wanted her to respect (my wish that it be no shorter
than I allowed previously). My preference is that she have longer hair, and
I would have been happy had she chosen to allow it to grow out more, but I’m
not willing to impose my preference under the guise of its being a biblical
mandate (when in fact I believe there is liberty in application). I do
believe a father has the right to impose his will in such cases, but that
right must be used with increasing caution, as the child grows older.
Far more important to me than her hair length is Joanna’s relationship to
the Lord and her learning to think for herself like a Christian. I would
rather let her have her hair too short (by my standards) than exasperate her
by strictness on non-essentials. I would rather point her to God’s word and
urge her to consider how it applies to her life than just tell her what she
can and can’t do. Of course, I can’t allow what is clearly sin or what would
be a danger to her, but I must give her room to develop her own beliefs and
convictions within the wide band of liberty God gives his children.
We fathers must always bear in mind that we are stewards of God, and we are
raising our children for him, not for ourselves. My daughter’s primary
relationship is with her Lord, not with me; so I have to be careful not to
usurp the place of God in her life by too much control. If a father presses
his children to observe his standards on every application of biblical
principles, how are they supposed to learn to think like adults and apply
those principles for themselves? As a child grows, a father’s direct control
must decrease while he seeks instead to maintain influence through counsel
in the context of biblical principles and a loving relationship — yet he
never gives up his overall responsibility to direct his home in the way of
the Lord. It’s not that a father becomes less involved as his children grow;
he just channels his leadership in a different way.
So we are back to the thought we expressed at the beginning of this article:
Biblical discipleship encompasses both content and process, both truth and
love. Our goal is to love our children in such a way that the truths of
God’s word take root in their hearts and become so much their own that they
live out the truth by their own choice. To put it another way: Our aim is to
teach the truth in a relational context that assures that the truth becomes
theirs for life.
We
continue now by noting that many of our sons and daughters depart from the
faith, or from a faithful practice of it, because of the influence of
godless people with their ideas and lifestyles. No matter how faithful we
are as parents, if our children are heavily exposed to that which
contradicts what we live and teach, they are in danger of falling by the
wayside.
The Antithesis
1Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the
LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, ‘You shall
not eat of every tree of the garden'?…
4Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3)
God created the world “very good” (Gen. 1:31). The creatures were in perfect
harmony among themselves and with their Creator. For our first parents there
was no evil, no tears, no death.
All this changed the day that Satan, appearing as a serpent, crept up to
Eve, and raised his fateful question: “Has God indeed said…?” With that
question, Satan altered the course of history on this planet. Notice that he
did not directly attack the Creator at first; he simply raised a question
about what God had said. He subtly invited Eve to begin evaluating what God
had said rather than just submitting to him. Having thus introduced doubt
into the mind of Eve he followed up with an outright contradiction: “You
will not surely die.” God said one thing, and Satan said the direct
opposite. This is the antithesis that, since mankind’s fall into sin, has
confronted every man, woman, and child: Satan’s vision of life vs. that of
the Lord God. Jesus described Satan as “a liar and the father of lies” (John
The “world” in the New Testament usually refers to human life and culture as
it exists under the influence of Satan and in rebellion against God. “We
know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the
wicked one” (1 John
15Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the
world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world.
17And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the
will of God abides forever.
The children of God must always be aware of the antithesis and consciously
choose to love God and to hate both the lies of the wicked one and the way
of life of those who follow him.
There is no neutral ground in life. Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is
against Me” (Matt.
And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this
day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that
were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose
land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Josh.
24:15)
Every generation, every person faces this choice. To fail to choose
self-consciously is simply to choose for the devil since it is impossible
not to choose one side or the other.
Christian parents must help their children live the antithesis, embracing
the truth and ways of God and rejecting the opposite. This begins with
exposing the children to the word of God and teaching them to apply the word
to their lives. But it also involves protecting the children from
over-exposure to influences that contradict and undermine what the parents
are teaching and modeling.
A Warrior Mindset
1When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess,
and has cast out many nations before you…
2and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer
them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show
mercy to them.
3Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to
their son, nor take their daughter for your son.
4For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods;
so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you
suddenly.
5But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and
break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn
their carved images with fire.
6For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has
chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the
peoples on the face of the earth. (Deut. 7)
These verses instructed the Israelites about how they were to deal with the
pagan nations that occupied the land God was giving to his people.
The lessons of this passage are twofold. First, God’s people are supposed to
conquer the enemies of God.
Christian parents should aim to raise their children with a warrior mindset
in which they recognize the antithesis and seek not to accommodate the
enemies of God but to win them by the proclamation of the word. “For though
we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down
strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself
against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the
obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). As the children learn to
recognize falsehood, they will be less likely to succumb to it. As they are
busy counteracting the lie, it will be more difficult for the lie to
influence them. Children who are trained to be spiritual warriors are more
likely to remain faithful, as they become adults.
Avoid Intimate Associations with the Enemies of God
The second lesson of the passage above is that God’s people must avoid
intimate associations with God’s enemies. If the Israelites married the
pagans, they would be led to forsake the true God and worship idols (and
this happened repeatedly through
What constitutes an intimate association? It would be any relationship in
which a heart-bond is created. If the mind is persuaded, the affections are
kindled, and the will is drawn, it is an intimate relationship. The
parent-child tie is one such relationship, as is marriage. Other intimate
relationships include those between pastors and members of their flocks,
teachers and their students, counselors and counselees. An employees and his
co-workers may well have an intimate relationship. Close friendships are
among the most intimate of human associations. Actually, of course, there
are a myriad of other ways in which people may be connected such that a
heart-bond is created. Any relationship that involves spending considerable
amounts of time with another person may become an intimate one.
Christian parents often fail to guard their children from forming intimate
bonds with unbelievers. One of the greatest threats to the spiritual health
of Christian children is the public school. Many of the teachers proudly
proclaim their lack of Christian faith, and even those who are Christians
are not allowed to teach God’s truth, so the overall intellectual and
spiritual atmosphere is godless. Add to this the influence of unbelieving
and immoral classmates and you have a very negative environment in which to
place a Christian child for the best hours of his day.
Parents should be careful who their sons and daughters spend time with.
Hours of teaching, conversation, and modeling by parents can be counteracted
by the hours a child spends with a friend, with co-workers at a job, or even
with someone on an internet chat room. Many a child has fallen away from
faithfulness due to the failure of parental diligence when it comes to
association with those who do not follow the Lord.
Of course, these negative influences need not be personal. Impersonal
influences can just as effectively undermine faith in the heart of a child.
By “impersonal,” we refer to things like music, television, movies, and
magazines. A child in a Christian home who is not in public school, who has
no non-Christian friends, and who does work outside the home can still
become a casualty if he spends hours of every day watching television or
listening to rock music. The lies of the devil become his meditation as he
absorbs them through these media.
Avoid Intimate Associations with Compromised Christians
It is bad that we have to face the onslaught of propaganda for the Lie all
around us in the world. It is devastating that we often have to confront the
same thing in the church. But then the church is not that different from the
world, as any serious Christian knows and as research has documented.
In December 2000, the Barna Research Group noted the most noteworthy
findings from its many religious polls conducted during that year. First on
the list was this: “A minority of born again adults (44%) and an even
smaller proportion of born again teenagers (9%) are certain of the existence
of absolute moral truth” (www. barna.org). Read that again. Among those who
claim to be born again, less than half of the adults and less than a tenth
of the teens are certain that there is any such thing as absolute moral
truth. Is it any wonder, then, that exposure to church people is not much
better than exposure to the world?
Actually, it is worse — because parents assume that church associations
provide positive input into the lives of their children, and so they are
inclined not to place any limits on such contact. But the church youth group
is not a place to build strong Christians. Another finding in the Barna
report: “Only a minority of born again teenagers (44%) claim that they are
‘absolutely committed to the Christian faith.’” The simple fact is that
hanging out with the average evangelical church people is likely to
undermine a firm commitment to Christ and to God’s revealed truth. Is it any
wonder, then, that Barna noted yet another finding: “Fewer than one-third of
all teenagers are likely to attend a Christian church once they are living
independent of their parents”? The sad fact is that parents who want to pass
on the Christian faith to the next generation must often limit the amount of
time their children spend around church people.
This is the reason that many fathers who hold the values of biblical
patriarchy have separated themselves from traditional churches. They have
become weary of having to guard their children from other children, and
often even from leaders in the church. Such separation has its downside,
with its risk of fostering an unbiblical independence and leaving the family
without the oversight and protection God designed the church to provide. But
many fathers are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place: be
part of a traditional church or risk seeing their children compromised by
evil — not a happy choice.
Don't Be Deceived
It is an extraordinarily difficult thing for serious Christians to prevent
their children from having too much exposure to the personal and impersonal
influences that may lead them astray. Nor is it desirable or reasonable to
eliminate all contact with those who do not believe and live as they do.
Some exposure to the Lie can be appropriate — and even necessary for
training purposes — if there are also heavy doses of training to recognize
the antithesis. But it is not necessary or wise to immerse oneself in evil
in order to learn about it. As Paul wrote, “I want you to be wise in what is
good and simple concerning evil” (Rom.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
It is tempting to minimize the potential influence of relationships with
those who are not uncompromisingly committed to the truth. It is easy to
believe that our children will be able to stand strong in the midst of alien
worldviews, to think that the people in question are not all that bad. Vice
does not usually present itself right up front as a “monster,” and we hate
to be too restrictive. Christian parents have a strong inclination to be
optimistic concerning their own children and their associations. “Our local
public school is not as bad as most others.” “The youth group leader is a
godly young man. I’m sure he will set a good example for my daughter.” “My
son knows that we don’t endorse the values that he sees and hears on TV.”
But Scripture is clear in its warning: “Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company
corrupts good habits’” (1 Corinthians
We have to remember that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light (2
Corinthians
A Personal Word
Lest I leave all that I’ve written in this article floating in the ethereal
realm of the theoretical, let me assure you that I have learned (and am
still learning) the importance of these principles through hard experience.
I have known for years the general outline of what I am presenting to you
here and have taught others these things, yet I myself have been deceived in
this matter of allowing alien values to influence my children.
I erred seriously in allowing my children to have as friends and
acquaintances children from Christian families who had a different view of
life, and I allowed them to remain under the influence of a church leader
who was hostile to biblical patriarchy. I rationalized that I couldn’t keep
my kids locked up in the house that they were old enough to be able to sort
out the difference between our views and those of competing (“Christian”)
worldviews. While I never permitted dating or pairing off of boys and girls
and never allowed participation in youth groups, I did give in to my teen
children’s appeal for liberty to gather with other church children when they
met for social events. And while I didn’t allow them to attend special
classes offered by the church leader, I did keep them too long under his
teaching and influence. These seemed reasonable accommodations, a balancing
of my own very strict inclinations and the more liberal tendencies around my
children, and me— would be strong; after all, their father writes Patriarch
magazine!
Sadly, however, there has been bad fruit in terms of the effect of these
associations on my children. I have realized only late in the game to what
extent others have influenced the hearts and minds of some of them. While I
have repented of my failure adequately to protect my sons and daughters and
have made corrections, and while all my children are still in submission to
me, there has been real damage, and I see only too well how easy it would be
to lose one’s children to the enemy of their souls.
I am one who tends to fear being too strict, too authoritarian, and I may
pride myself on not being harsh or overbearing in my home. I don’t want to
make patriarchy a system that smothers kids and leaves them immature and
inexperienced or tempts them to throw off an oppressive yoke and abandon the
faith of their fathers. But then I tend toward the other error: being too
soft, giving in when I shouldn’t. I rationalize my failure adequately to
protect my children by telling myself (and my wife) that the threat is not
that great and the kids are strong enough to handle it. Now I know from
experience why Paul warned, “Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good
habits.’”
But whatever our failures as fathers, we can chart a new course when we
realize we have blown it. That path involves repenting for our sins before
the family, identifying the proper course of action, and with humility,
love, and determination pursuing that course henceforth. Past failures can
never become an excuse for failing to pay the price to take corrective
action in the present. My children are not under that church leader any more
and I have put an end to certain of their friendships.
Parenting is a tough assignment. There are pitfalls and you and I will fall
into some of them. We just need to be sure that we always remain ready to
make mid-course corrections — and trust in the grace of God to make up for
our failures.