PARENTING, THE BIBLICAL WAY

Matthew 7: 7-11 NRSV

I am convinced that one of the most challenging and most difficult tasks m wife and have ever faced had to do with raising our children. That time was also one of the best times in our family life. I still grieve that our children and are grown and gone but please do not tell them that for one of them might come back home. We didn’t have bad time of it at all. It was a wonderful experience which left us wishing it wasn’t yet over. That is isn’t what I hear other parents say. Parenting has become a very troubling challenge for all to many parents. Many of them need help.

So, where do you go for help, for parenting advice when you need it? Which one of those sources is THE most trusted source for advice? ….or do you just do the best you can and fly by the seat of your pants?

For the next several weeks I would like to offer you a series of sermons on parenting. For all too many people parenting has become rocket science. There are probably as many parenting experts out there as there are parents. What seemed to be a matter of good old common sense a generation or two ago has now become a nightmare.

Parents are becoming more and more conflicted about raising children. A woman was overheard to say that “I’m absolutely convinced that my husband and I have experienced more problems in four years with two children than my parents had with all ten of us the entire time.” That mother’s statement reflects the difficulties that are now part of today’s child rearing philosophy and practice. I’d be willing to bet that most if not all of you who are currently raising children are having more problems than your parents did.

The schools have become a battle ground primarily because the schools are reaping whirlwind. The whirlwind has been caused by parents who either have not been effective parents or do not know how to be parents to their children. Listening to a wife over the years who has taught in the public schools of four different school systems from inner city to rural for over thirty years I know what the schools are facing. Having been a pastor of churches which have had good numbers of children in them I also know what the lack of child rearing skills does to children not to speak of adults who work with them. I think the church needs to make a contribution healthy parenting.

Some of you may be thinking that the sermons on the subject of parenting are not something you are interested in because your children have aged out or because you do not have children or your children are beyond help. Parenting is a responsibility I continue to have because I come in contact with your children. You are a parent of sorts to other children in the church and beyond. Parenting is also an issue that involves relationship building. Parenting is all about developing strong marriages and ability to communicate effectively. Those are issue all of us are interested in…..so, I would encourage you to make every effort to worship with us while these sermons are the topic for consideration.

Before I go any further I need to be up front about a resource I will be using. The Bible will be my primary source but I am also using John Rosemond’s Parenting by the Book. By the “book” Rosemond means the Bible. Now needless to say that there is much material in this book that needs to be covered but I will only be sharing a few sermons on this subject. You will probably want to go out and buy a copy of the book for it is in my humble opinion one of the best books I have ever read regarding child rearing.

John is a licensed psychologist who has major issues with the direction his once noble profession has taken. He now believes that after the 1960’s psychology became a secular religion which he left behind when he became a believer in Jesus Christ.

Rosemond is candid about his own faith experience which has influenced the writing of this book. He says that for all too many years he was like so many people in our society….. a cultural Christian. By that he means one who goes through the motions without ever getting his heart involved or expressly committed. Then he experienced a conversion and was born again. As is the case with so many born again Christians reality began to take on new meaning. He began reading the Bible with a new set of eyes. He says that as he listened to God with an open heart, he realized that God had given him a new assignment. He began to see that the Bible provided a readymade blueprint for raising children God’s way. The result was that he “plagiarized” parenting material from the Bible into a readable and doable how to book which has become Parenting by the Book.

John talks at length about how “parenting according to Dr. So and So replaced parenting according to God’s design and it has been a downhill ride ever since.”

He believes as do I that, “blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust.” Psalm 40:4

If you are having difficulties raising your children more so than your parents did…usually a lot more, you are probably listening to something other than the way the older generations raised their children. While that generation had problems raising their children they didn’t have anywhere near the number of problem we are having raising our children.

Some might say that “the Times They Are a Changin” and that calls for different methods of rearing our children. But I would argue as Rosemond does that God’s way of parenting is timeless.

The 1960’s was a time when life as we now know changed significantly and not for the better. By the 1970’s we were no longer a culture defined by tradition. After the 70’s we were a culture defined by television. Now at the risk of being too negative I will not say any more about that other than to say that television in the 1960’s the television industry began to take on a rebellious, activist character. By 1970 the consensus that had previously existed concerning values, right versus wrong, and morality had begin to unravel. One of the old ways in question was traditional child rearing..

One of the results was that “Grandma’s” homespun wisdom, greatly influenced by the Bible over the years was now outmoded and outdated. Grandma is a word describing the previous generation. Child rearing was now an issue that began being decided by child psychologists whose advice was handed out not based on experience but by what was read in books. Biblical literacy being what is in this day and time, there is little wonder that we now have to sub-out for advice about the raising of our children.

One of the characteristics that appeared after the 1960’s was a new attitude toward authority. By 1970 cynicism toward authority such as that exhibited by the political, military, institutional, church and family were being questioned if not abandoned. All of those authority traditions derived their credibility from the Bible. In effect this was an assault on the very Judeo- Christian principles upon which Western Civilization was built.

The attack on the traditional family was especially vicious.

The result was that child rearing became parenting. Parenting moved from being family centered to being child centered. The new way substituted high self esteem for respect for others. Parents who subscribe to the new way are not supposed to tell their children what to do. They are to reason with them and reward them when they cooperate.

I would argue that as with all matters in our world God holds the blue print for our lives and that includes child rearing. God created the universe and all that is within it. Not only does the Bible tell me that but recent scientific discoveries are affirming more and more that that is the way our world was created and that is the way the universe functions. God has given us the blueprint for living creative, productive, fulfilling lives and experiencing fulfilling relationships with one another and with God. This revelation is clearly set forth in the Bible.

The Bible contains any number of smaller blueprints for every aspect of living whether you are in business, married, single, forming and living in healthy societies, legitimate authority and the parenting of children among others.

If you depart from God’s plan in any area of your life, you will experience more than your share of problems and more than your share. Often times those problems may seem to be never ending. Americans have departed from God’s blueprint for child rearing.

Now on the other hand if you adhere to God’s plan in your life, you will still experience sadness and pain, frustration and heartache but you will endure and you will eventually come out on top. That is to say that any parent who so chooses can align his or her plan for child rearing with God’s and thus begin to experience success.

That is the goal of these sermons.

Grandma and her generation had it right. She knew that the most powerful force shaping a person’s life was the force of a person’s free will. She understood that the choices people, including children, made were influenced by early childhood experiences, socio-economic factors, cultural expectations, peer pressure and so on. But Grandma also understood that when all was said and done, people were fully responsible for the choices they made. Thus when one of grandma’s children did something wrong and tried to mount a defense she turned her withering look on him and said, “No excuses, no ifs, ands or buts.” Grandma heard none of them. She held her children fully responsible for what they did and she held them fully responsible from the time they were toddlers. That is Biblical.

Grandma also knew that she could not be a good enough parent to guarantee that her children would never do anything despicable, disgusting or depraved….that the power of their choosing was more powerful than her parenting. She knew that to be the case because the Bible taught her so. Where and how?

You can see it in the story of Adam and Eve. If a perfect God could not raise children who were perfectly obedient what chance to we have?

This is important folks for us to note. Here is the Adam and Eve principle: No matter how good a parent you are, your child is still capable on any given day of doing something despicable, disgusting or depraved.

One of Grandma’s favorite parenting sayings was “good citizenship begins at home” which means that at all times and in all places parents should aim their child rearing at the goal of producing a good citizen, a person of value to the culture. In this regard Grandma understood that she was raising an adult not a child.

In Grandma’s day, home and family were a character-education classroom in which parents were teachers and children were the students. Within this classroom, parents developed a delivered a curriculum designed to teach children a set of values essential to good citizenship. The core of this curriculum was composed of the following “Three R’s:

Respect for the fundamental dignity of every human being, which children develop first by first learning respect for people in positions of legitimate authority, beginning with their parents.

Responsibility in two equally important senses of the term: first, accountability for one one’s own actions; second, a willingness to carry out tasks assigned by authority figures as well as those that are simply due the family/community by virtue of one’s membership within it.

Resourcefulness…hang in there, tough it out, try and try again attitude brought to the challenges of life.

From this threefold value system grow all the more specific attributes of good character.

Grandma’s Home School Character Curriculum” was a powerful and uplifting experience. She endowed her children with respect for others by teaching them good manners and from an early age.

She taught task responsibility by involving them in household responsibilities. She insisted that her children accept accountability or social responsibility for their behavior.

Finally, by expecting her children to solve their own problems, entertain themselves, do their own homework, and even devise their own playthings, Grandma all but ensured that her children would develop a resourceful attitude toward life’s challenges. It is important to note that Grandma believed she should do as little as possible for her children, thus helping her children learn to stand on their own two feet.

That was certainly my experience as I was growing up. My parents helped but only when they knew and I knew that without that help I would not succeed. By and large it was left up to me to make it through high school (and that included transportation to and from) and that I was expected to make my way through college and seminary and graduate school.

But Grandma’s practical, commonsensical, down to earth, biblical approach fell by the wayside as Postmodern Psychological Parenting captured America’s attention I believe in part because people just didn’t familiarize themselves with the Bible anymore.

Another reason Grandma’s approach fell by the wayside is because parents began to emphasize success experiences. Instead of teaching them manners parents wanted their kids to be successful so they taught them skills….and chores were replaced with after school activities. In order for kids to be successful parents fell into the trap of doing things for them and the parent who did the most for their child was seen as the best parent. As for accountability, Grandma expected her children to fight their own battles, lie in the beds they made and stew in their own juices. All too often today’s parents are found fighting their children’s battles, lying in beds their children have made and stewing in their children’s juices.

My daughter is a high school basketball coach. Her biggest challenges come in the form of parents who are literally fighting to get their children on the team and then to force the coaches to give them playing time when in fact they may not deserve either at least not without earning it. She has just become the athletic director for the high school at which she coaches. Guess what? Now she will be getting telephone calls from parents whose children are playing on any of 35 athletic teams complaining about the coach’s unfair treatment of their children. Grandma believed in letting them fight their own battles. I do too. So does the Bible. It is good training for the future. More than anything, America needs another parenting revolution……restoring parenting to the way parenting once was. The longer we allow the new psychological models to fester, the more problems they are going to create for all concerned.

The question for you parents is this one: are you willing to become a revolutionary? I think that is what it is going to take . I can only hope and pray that these sermons along with your reading the book will have some effect in helping God raise healthy, happy, productive and wholesome children. I believe we had better get on with it for you see

The Day Will Come

“The day will come---much sooner than we realize—

When there will be no diapers to change

No toys to pick up

No noise to quell

No childish prayers thrilling our hearts.

The garage light will not be burning twenty four hours a day.

There will be no dented fenders and teenage insurance rates.

No advice to give.

No opportunities to give direction.

No, these will all be gone.

We will have a neat house again, everything in place.

Disorder will give away to order.

All our time will be ours.

It will be quiet.

It will be the quietness that follows in the wake of a job that has now passed by.

I rather thank that as we walk through our orderly and quiet house we might silently wish

To step on a toy truck

Or see a biology book lying on the couch

Or walk past a bedroom and see a crazy poster that warns that the place has been condemned

Or hear a teenage voice talking about God Or saying, “I love you too, Mom.”

And we might wish we could say something

Something we have never said

Or never said enough times.

We might wish we could have just some of that time back but that unique period of time

With those particular boys and girls is gone and wishes won’t change that.“ Amen.

Written by Bill Clark.

This sermon was preached and written by Dr. Jerry D. Bron at the Southminster Presbyterian Church of Gastonia, NC on January 10, 2010. This sermon manuscript does not give credit for sources used so please do not use this material for any other purpose.

Parenting the Biblical Way #1 Flash Drive