“the lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand,...
TRANSCRIPT
“The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God”
Psalm 14:2.
Biblical Guidance Biblical Guidance Through theThrough the
The Uncertainty of the Outcome
Challenges of Challenges of ParenthoodParenthood
“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6
“Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 “For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings”
Isaiah 7:15-16
“The First Parents Had Trouble Too”
Whenever your kids are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God’s omnipotence did not extend to His kids. After creating the heaven, the earth, the oceans and the entire animal kingdom, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing He said to them was “Don’t.”
Bill Cosby Fatherhood, pg. 64
The Uncertainty of the Outcome
Balancing Control and Compassion
Challenges of Challenges of ParenthoodParenthood
Respectful and responsible children result from families where the proper amount of love and discipline is present. Both these ingredients must be applied in the necessary quantities. An absence of either is often disastrous”
James Dobson, Dare to Discipline,
pg. 11
The Uncertainty of the Outcome
Balancing Control and Compassion
Adjusting to Our Child’s Stages
Challenges of Challenges of ParenthoodParenthood
“Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life”
Sophocles, Phaedra, frag. 619
Bring them up in God’s Training – Ephesians 6:41
Biblical Guidance for Biblical Guidance for ParenthoodParenthood
“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”
“The Training of the Lord”
• The book of Proverbs emphasizes the training and discipline of God.
• Hebrew musar translated “instruction” (Proverbs 1:2).
• This Divine instruction refers to words which are taught, but it can also refer to things learned by observation, experience, and punishment.
“Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and
dogs than of their children.” William Penn, Reflexions and
Maxims, pt.i, No. 85
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. “You 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.
Deuteronomy 6:6,7
“He Did Not Restrain Them” – 1 Samuel 3:11-132
Biblical Guidance for Biblical Guidance for ParenthoodParenthood
“Then the LORD said to Samuel: ‘Behold, I will do something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity…”
“He Did Not Restrain Them” – 1 Samuel 3:11-132
Biblical Guidance for Biblical Guidance for ParenthoodParenthood
“…which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them.’” (1 Samuel 3:11-13).
Eli’s Sons “Made Themselves Vile”
• The sin of Eli’s sons is described in the previous chapter.
• Unlawful portion of the offerings (1 Samuel 2:13-17) and fornication with women that came to the tabernacle (1 Samuel 2:22).
• Eli did rebuke them (1 Samuel 2:23,24) but he did not “restrain them.”
“There is security in defined limits. When the home atmosphere is as it should be, the child lives in utter safety. He never gets in trouble unless he deliberately asks for it, and as long as he stays within the limits, there is mirth and freedom and acceptance”
James Dobson, Dare to Discipline, pg. 42).
“Permissiveness is the principle
of treating children as if they were adults and the tactic of making sure they
never reach that stage”Thomas Szasz
Avoid Discouragement – Colossians 3:213
Biblical Guidance for Biblical Guidance for ParenthoodParenthood
“Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.”
“Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful;
nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it”
Hebrews 12:11
“And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son,
do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; 6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every
son whom He receives.” Hebrews 12:5,6
“Provoke…To Wrath”
Greek parorgizo, “to rouse to wrath, to provoke,
exasperate, anger” (Thayer).
• After the instructions to children to “obey your parents in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1) and to “honor your father and mother” (Ephesians 6:2).
“Make not an hungry soul sorrowful; neither PROVOKE (parorgizo) a man in his distress. Add not more trouble to an HEART THAT IS VEXED; (parorgizo) and defer not to give to him that is in need”
Ecclesiasticus 4:2,3, KJV
“Of all nature’s gifts to the human race,
what is sweeter to a man than his children?”
Cicero, Post Reditum ad
Quirites, ch. i, sec. 2
“As A Father Pities His Children” – Ps. 103:13-144
Biblical Guidance for Biblical Guidance for ParenthoodParenthood
“As a father pities his children, So the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.”
God is Omniscient (“All-Knowing”)
• David: God has, “searched me and known me” and understood “my thought afar off” (Psalm 139:1,2).
• Jesus “shared in the same” flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14), becoming a fitting High Priest who can “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).
God and Human Fathers
“Pities” Heb. racham • KJV “mercy” (32); “compassion” (8);
“love” (1).• The father, who pities, has compassion,
mercy, and love for a child is offered as a picture of what God is like—He knows our “frame” of dust (vs.14).
““Our task as parents...is Our task as parents...is not to eliminate every not to eliminate every challenge for our challenge for our children; it is to serve as children; it is to serve as a confident ally on their a confident ally on their behalf, encouraging behalf, encouraging when they are when they are distressed, intervening distressed, intervening when the threats are when the threats are overwhelming, and overwhelming, and above all, giving them above all, giving them the tools with which to the tools with which to overcome these overcome these obstacles” obstacles”
James Dobson, James Dobson, Hide or Hide or SeekSeek, pg. 70, pg. 70
“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
1 Corinthians 10:13
Love…“bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things”
1 Corinthians 13:7
Make a Place for Your Children – Matt. 19:13-145
Biblical Guidance for Biblical Guidance for ParenthoodParenthood
“Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’”
The CowbirdThe Cowbird
“The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to lose time in
order to gain it.”Jean Jacques Rousseau