Parenting with Christ in Mind
Ephesians 6:4 (Colossians 3:21)
It’s tough being a parent – expensive, exhausting, and challenging in many ways. Yet sometimes we focus too much on being a parent that we forget what the other side is like.
It’s tough being a kid!
You see, changing a diaper is no fun, but wearing one is no fun either. Sitting through a parent-teacher conference may be nerve-wracking for a parent, but it’s uncomfortable for a child, too. It’s hard to say “no” to your child about something he or she wants to do, but it’s also hard to hear “no” when you’re that child.
For every challenge a parent faces, the child faces another challenge. Parents should know this fact and adjust their parenting approach accordingly, especially in the church.
Life was tough for first-century children.
Roman families were in bad shape. Wives struggled to respect their husbands and husbands rarely loved their wives. The parent-child relationship was in bad shape, too.
According to Roman law, fathers held life and death authority over their children. When a child was born, it was laid at his feet. If he picked it up, the child would stay in his home. If he walked away, the child would be discarded as trash. Discarded children would either die in the street or be retrieved by strangers to raise them as prostitutes or slaves.
Christian families should take a better approach.
Before giving instructions about family relationships, Paul said, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Eph 5:8). So we who are in the church should handle our home relationships differently than the world outside. We should walk worthy of (or in a way that is equal to) our calling to be like Christ (Eph 4:1).
In the world, wives compete with their husbands, but in the church, they respect and support their husbands. In the world, husbands neglect their wives, but in the church, they love their wives at any cost. In the world, children resist and rebel against their parents, but in the church, they learn to obey and respect both their mother and father.
God also wants parents in the church to behave better than parents outside. To achieve this change, we must first worship and serve God together as a church. Doing this keeps God’s greatness in view and our acceptance, equality, and worth as his children. Corporate worship lays a foundation for a godly home.
Empathetic parents are evidence of a Spirit-filled church.
When we worship God together in dependence on the Spirit, we learn to submit to one another (Eph 5:21). Submission means we elevate one another’s needs over our own desires and expectations. We put each other first when we put him first.
This regular experience of mutual submission as a church reaches into our homes. Wives learn to respect their husbands. Husbands learn to love their wives. Children learn to obey and honor their parents. This is a result of regular God-focused, Bible-based, Christ-centered, Spirit-dependent worship as a church.
So, how do God-worshipping, Christian parents “submit” to their children? They do so in a twofold way that’s both negative and positive. The negative is “don’t provoke” them and the positive is “raise them up” (Eph 6:4). Together, these are the ways that Christian parents “submit” to their children, elevating their children’s needs above their own.
Paul is not teaching here the wrong parenting approach that lets children do whatever they want any more than he teaches husbands to let their wives run the home. Instead, he is teaching parents to teach and care for their children in an understanding, empathetic way. It’s tough being a kid! A godly parent will keep this in mind.
Paul’s instructions focus on fathers.
When Paul gave instructions to children, he spoke to boys and girls together. Yet when he turns his attention to parents, he speaks especially to fathers.
Mothers and fathers share responsibility for raising their children. In 1 Tim 5:10, Paul implies that women should play an active role in raising her children. Also, the word father here may be used to refer to both parents including the mother. In Heb 11:23, we read that that Moses’ “parents” (the Greek word for fathers is used) hid him in a basket in the river, but Exo 2:1-3 tells us his mother was the one who did this specifically.
Still, it seems Paul is focusing on fathers in Eph 6:4, not just parents in general. He has already used the common word for parent (“Children, obey your parents,” Eph 6:1), so if he intended to speak to parents in general, he would use this word again. By using fathers instead, he narrows his focus to fathers without necessarily excluding the mothers.[1]
In ancient Jewish culture as well as first-century Roman culture, people expected fathers to be more distant and harsher in their treatment of their children. They expected mothers to have a more intimate, tender approach. Paul’s instructions to fathers here challenges this stereotype and encourages fathers to be more patient and understanding with their children than they might normally be, whether for natural or cultural reasons.[2]
Parents can be a source of frustration.
Children face many challenges. Laziness, bullies, peer pressure, schoolwork, emotional and physical changes, and more. Yet has it ever occurred to those of us who are parents that the greatest challenge they face (or one of the greatest) might be you? Parents work so hard to help their children overcome many other problems but may be oblivious to the ways they themselves may be a source of frustration, too.
Perhaps you struggled through a difficult class in college with a subject that was hard to understand. This challenge becomes even more difficult, though, if your professor – no matter how intelligent – used poor teaching methods or had a sour attitude.
Parents should know that how they treat their children can trigger bad effects. These effects can lead to feelings of anger (Eph 6:4) or irritation and exasperation (Col 3:21).
Not all bad feelings in a child are the result of parental failures. Sin is embedded in every child’s heart and they must learn to take responsibility for their own sins, regardless of their parents’ performance. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him” (Prov 22:15). Still, parents can aggravate this problem and should avoid doing so. We must help our children conquer sin, not stir it up more.
Parents should remove causes of anger and frustration.
Let’s survey twelve things that can cause anger and frustration in a child’s heart over time. Ask God to help you detect whether any apply to you. If you feel guilty or overwhelmed, acknowledge your failure to your children and ask their forgiveness (Jam 5:16). Also, depend on God to make definite changes for the good of your child (Jam 1:22-25). It’s tough being a child. We don’t want to make it harder than it already is.
Also, consider (esp. if you’re not a parent) whether any of these factors caused frustration in your own childhood. If yes, then it’s likely this frustration has carried into your adult life. If so, acknowledge your hurt to God and accept his grace to move forward. By giving him your hurts, you’ll weed out the roots of bitterness growing in your heart and experience the transforming power of God’s grace and freedom to a greater degree (Heb 12:14-16).
Repeated Irritation
The words “don’t provoke” describe bad feelings that develop over time. Like your neighbor’s car alarm going off every night, repeated wrong behavior by a parent eventually leads to your child becoming exasperated.
Children are very forgiving. Just as they often forget your instructions (ugh), so they also forget your failures (yay!). Yet the more frequently you fail in a certain way, the more likely it is that they’ll remember the failure and be frustrated by it.
Disunified Parents
A good marriage is the foundation for good parenting (Eph 5:22-33; Col 3:18-19). A wife who will not respect and meet the needs of her husband and a husband who will not understand, love, and care for his wife will frustrate their children.
Just because a husband and wife are married doesn’t automatically ensure that they are “on the same page.” Children need both parents to guide them as a harmonious team, as “heirs together of the grace of life” (1 Pet 3:7). Disunity between parents will frustrate children and turn them away from God’s grace.
This happened to Esau in the Old Testament (OT) for instance when his parents, Isaac and Rebekah, had different plans for their children (Gen 25:28). This fueled Esau’s cause for bitterness, which eventually led him to an ungodly life (Heb 12:14-17).
Favoritism
Scripture indicates that when parents favor one child over another, they foster deep-seated bitterness. Consider how Isaac favored Esau and Rebekah favored Jacob (Gen 25:28). The result was that Esau became a bitter man himself and the hatred between his children and Jacob’s children, cousins, lasted generations (Heb 12:14-17).
Unresolved Anger and Bitterness
We may easily overlook this, but bitter and angry parents raise bitter and angry children. Anyone in a close relationship with an angry person risks becoming angry too (Prov 22:24), and bitterness in a parent’s heart will corrupt those in their household (Heb 12:15).
If you’re bitter (towards your parents, spouse or former spouse, employer, or some other person), there’s a real possibility that your anger or bitterness will infect your children.
Hurtful Words
Parents should speak in ways that encourage their children rather than tear them down (Eph 4:29). Sarcasm, derogatory names, making them the subject of jokes, speaking down about them in public (esp. if they can hear), and responding only negatively to wrong behavior but never positively to good behavior will discourage your children over time.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” (Prov 15:1). “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness [crookedness] in it breaks the spirit” (Prov 15:4). You need to say hard and unpopular things to your children sometimes. Yet hard words shouldn’t be harsh words, and unpopular words shouldn’t be mean words.
Hypocrisy
Parents are responsible to correct their children’s character flaws. Yet, when parents don’t acknowledge and correct their own character flaws, their children will view this inconsistency as hypocrisy. Over time, they may become exasperated or upset by what they view as a double standard.
When you fail as a parent, admit your failure just as you would expect your child to do. As with any other relationship, you cannot effectively confront problems in others, even your own children, when you won’t correct them in your own life (Matt 7:1-5).
Expecting Too Much
1 Cor 10:13 ensures that God will never test us beyond our true ability. We may feel like he has given us more than we can handle, but we know that he’s assessed our ability beforehand to ensure that what he requires is within the realm of possibility with his help.
We should do the same for our children. We shouldn’t expect from them more than they can handle or more than is reasonable for their strengths and stage of development. They might say, “That’s too hard,” or, “I can’t do that!” Be sensitive to this feedback, but don’t let it be the only factor in your decision. As a parent, it’s your job to know the difference between what’s too much for your child and what they think is too much.
Mothers and fathers must agree on what is reasonable for their child. Often a mother will have more sympathy than the father, but not always. After parents have conferred, the wife should support whichever decision the husband decides to make, expecting from the child what he (with his wife’s input) believes is an appropriate expectation.
Ignorance of Your Child’s Purpose
Parents should understand each child’s purpose in life. Children need guidance to discover and prepare for “the way they should go” (Prov. 22:6). This “way” includes God’s general will for any person (to follow Christ, to be a good citizen, etc.), but it also includes the way he intends for each child to go as a unique individual.
Children who reach adulthood still vague and uncertain about who they are and what they should do in life may grow embittered and angry towards their parents. Parents should aim their children in the right direction (Psa 127:4). Attentive, godly parents, better than anyone else, will know the strengths and weaknesses, personality, gifts, and abilities of their children. They should leverage this knowledge to prepare their children for life.
Absent Parents
Paul’s instructions assume that parents are home with their children (Eph 6:4). “Training and admonition” are hands-on, in-person behaviors that require a parent to “be there.” By focusing on fathers, Paul reveals that children need Dad at home, not just Mom.
An absentee parent due to divorce, a demanding occupation, busyness in general, or seeking pleasure (hanging out with friends, pursuing a hobby, etc.) will damage the heart of a child if it removes you from the home.
Both parents should arrange their lives and schedules to ensure that they have both quality and quantity time with their children. Eating breakfast and dinner together as a family most days of the week is a good step towards resolving this frustration.
Neglect
Parents should “bring up” their children, which means meeting your child’s genuine needs. Your child has educational, physical, spiritual, and social needs (Luke 2:52). Both parents should work together to ensure that all these needs are met for their children.
Children whose needs go unnoticed will become bitter and upset. As they progress in school and other social environments and especially when they reach adulthood, they will become increasingly aware of needs that you may have neglected as parents. This can bring about deep resentment in their hearts towards you.
Permissiveness
Paul tells parents to meet the needs of children through nurture (Eph 6:4). This refers to discipline or child-training, teaching children proper behavior for adult life by using rules and consequences. In our desire not to frustrate our children, we should not make the mistake of being permissive. A permissive parent lets children do whatever they want, ignores clear disobedience, and accepts excuses for poor behavior and performance.
This approach may seem nice at first, but it contradicts how God trains us as our heavenly Father. Heb 12:3-11 teaches that God disciplines us with firm and sometimes painful consequences – not every time we disobey, but when we demonstrate firm resistance or make especially flagrant choices to sin.
Christian parents should do the same. They should establish clear, appropriate boundaries, with proper consequences for wrong behavior (Prov 13:24; 22:15). They should also receive appropriate recognition and reward when they choose good behavior.
Contrary to popular opinion, parental discipline does not discourage children. It encourages them to do right. It encourages them even more, then, when they face larger challenges and setbacks in life but they know how to handle them, leading to greater personal success and helping them avoid greater problems.
Sometimes they need you to say no and correct your child’s wrong behavior. If you never do this and never enforce appropriate boundaries with appropriate consequences, your children will be frustrated in life in larger ways when they’re fired from the job, dumped by their spouse, or incarcerated because they broke important rules in adult life and society.
Silence
Paul also tells parents to meet the needs of a child through admonition, or teaching that informs their mind (Eph 6:4). Doing this includes warnings, with an emphasis on talking with your children and helping them understand the significance of what you are saying.
Admonition emphasizes comments and conversations that warn against wrong behavior before it happens (1 Cor 10:11) and corrects wrong behavior after it happens (Tit 3:10).
Parents should talk regularly, positively, and proactively with their children, not just reacting when they misbehave. We should do this when we’re relaxing around the home or busy running errands, during our evening routines and our morning routines (Deut 6:7).
While it’s good to have family devotions at night before bed, if that’s all you do, your children may be frustrated. Talking about God and life should not be relegated to formal, sit-down lectures by mom and dad at the end of the day. This should happen in your conversations throughout the day, just as you talk about anything else.
Talking to our children regularly about everything from God to their favorite toys is an important part of building a relationship with them. Children want to have a relationship with their parents, so parents who don’t talk with them will frustrate them deeply.
Talking regularly to your children also provides a valuable platform to shape your child’s thinking and values. Don’t just correct them. Teach them. Dream and envision things together. Share your passions and interests with them and let them do the same with you. This is an important part of admonition. It’s about all kinds of talk, not just correction.
Parents should raise their children for the Lord.
Notice how Paul ends his instructions to parents (esp. fathers) with “of the Lord.” This phrase reminds us to parent our children in a way that leads them to the Lord so they will be led by the Lord. We want them to have a personal relationship with Christ for themselves, and we want them to be led by the Lord beyond their brief time in our home.
It’s helpful to think this way: though we’re the God-given caretakers and guides of our children in their developing years, they don’t belong to us – they belong to the Lord. He made them and desires to save them. It’s as though we’re the baby-sitters and substitute teachers that God has assigned to raise his children in this world.
After all, we are children of God now, so we should treat our children as God treats us, not as Satan treated us before we believed on Christ. “Eph 5:1 says, “Be imitators of God as dear children. Eph 5:8 says, “Walk as children of light.” We who are parents and also God’s children should treat our children differently, the way God treats us.
How we raise our children should give them a close approximation of what it’s like to have God as a Father. That’s why it’s important to participate faithfully in a Spirit-filled church and to submit to the Lord as parents first of all. As parents submit to the Lord, they teach their children to do the same – and that’s the ultimate goal of parenting.
Where should parents get guidelines for raising children?
Let the Bible be your guide.
As Christian parents who are leading our children to and for the Lord, we should get our parenting methods and insights from the Lord, or more specifically, from his Word. There’s no shortage of books today about how to be an All-Star parent, but the Bible – not these books – should be our guide.
It’s important not to raise our children with pop psychology (i.e. Parenting Magazine, what we see in movies, talk shows), cultural traditions, worldly wisdom, personal intuition, and methods handed down from your parents, grandparents, and culture. Now some of what these sources teach us about parenting may be good, but only if they agree with the Lord.
Abraham was a good example of doing this. Moses said Abraham “command[ed] his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice” (Gen 18:19).
Consider how Isaac obeyed his father by carrying wood for a sacrifice on Mount Moriah and even obeyed his father by allowing him to bind him on the altar (Gen 22:6-9). He didn’t resist, throw a fit, argue with his father, or run away.
Contrast this with Eli the priest. Samuel tells us that “his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain [or correct] them” (1 Sam 3:13). They committed immorality and theft in the tabernacle and Eli did nothing to teach or stop them otherwise.
Talk about Old Testament stories.
Did you see what I just did there? I gave you some OT stories to teach you about parenting by referring to Abraham and Eli.
The Bible provides a treasure trove of insights for warning and correcting your children regarding wrong, ungodly behavior. Consider how Paul tells us that the OT examples of the Israelites’ failures in the wilderness are recorded in Scripture to warn us from committing the same errors today (1 Cor 10:1-11).
Do you ever refer to events and lessons from the OT to teach and train your children today? When my children complain about their food at suppertime, sometimes I’ll remind them that when some Israelites complained in the wilderness, sometimes God opened up holes in the ground to swallow them alive, or sometimes they got sick.
When children find it hard to obey their parents in everyday chores and assignments, I like to remind them that David took care of his father’s sheep for many days as a child. This was hard and uncomfortable work, but because he learned to obey his father, he was able to discover God’s bigger plan for his life to become the kind of Israel.
Talk to your children about Jesus.
In the New Testament (NT), Paul speaks about a mother and grandmother (the father was probably unsaved or deceased) who taught their son/grandson, Timothy, from the Bible. They had done this from his earliest childhood and did more than just teach moral lessons – they also taught him about Jesus (2 Tim 3:15).
They made him “wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15). What’s more, Paul tells Timothy that all Scripture is for teaching (2 Tim 3:16). So, when you warn or correct your children, don’t just tell them what you think, tell them what the Lord thinks and why they need to follow the Lord.
We must avoid the trap of only teaching laws and moral lessons. We must teach them these things with Jesus in mind, talking about who Jesus is, how he fulfills what the Bible says perfectly, and how they need to trust in him as their Savior and God for salvation. Without his salvation, they will be frustrated in the greatest possible way because they will never find the meaning of life and they will face God’s judgment for sin in eternity.
It’s tough being a kid!
As parents, it’s our job to guide them through their challenges, not add to their challenges. Will we be parents who empathize with our children and eliminate the causes of frustration and anger from our lives? Will we raise our children for the Lord by talking to them from the Bible and teaching them about Jesus?
These are outcomes of a Spirit-filled church. And if you’re childhood was marked by frustrations and anger which your parents never resolved, then take this moment to give those frustrations to God. He is our heavenly father and our church is his spiritual family. First place your trust in Christ as God and Savior to become his child, then involve yourself regularly in the worship and ministry of the church. By his grace, he will meet those needs in your life which your parents were never able to fulfill.
[1] Clinton Arnold, Ephesians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 417.
[2] Arnold, Ephesians, 417.
