Tag Archives: fathers

DISCIPLINE AND INSTRUCTION – 18a

April 21, 2024Bible StudyDiscipline and instruction, Do not provoke, fathersLuella Campbell

Ephesians 6:4 NLT
[4] Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.”

Parents, unfortunately, even in the church, have lost God’s pattern for parenthood in the chaos of human ‘wisdom’. The Bible gives clear direction for fathers and mothers to raise godly offspring.

Take the book of Proverbs, for instance, written by Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, which is full of details that help us understand the nitty-gritty of parenthood. From Solomon’s instructions, we glean the nature children have from birth. We also learn how to deal with their inherent rebellion and waywardness.

No child is a blank page at birth.

‭Proverbs 22:15 NLT‬
[15] “A youngster’s heart is filled with foolishness, but physical discipline will drive it far away.”

Every child is born with an ‘old nature’ inherited from Adam, that has a bent towards sin. David acknowledge this trait in himself.

‭Psalms 51:5 NLT‬
[5] “For I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.”

Without wise intervention, a child will inevitable go the way of his fallen nature.

‭Proverbs 29:15 NIV‬
[15] “A rod and a reprimand impart wisdom, but a child left undisciplined disgraces its mother.”

Every child is also born with a moral compass – conscience, written on the heart. Together with the basic knowledge of right and wrong comes the guilt that follows deliberate deviation from the right way.

A parent’s role, then, is to alert the child to the wrong he has done, to point to the right way to obey what his conscience (God’s Word) teaches, and to apply appropriate discipline so that the lesson is learned.

Since the father is the head of the home, the leader and example for his family, it falls on him to carry out the role of teacher through instruction and discipline.

How often fathers abdicate from this charge and only father biological children. They leave their wives to train the children, which inevitably fails because mothers cannot marry their role as nurturer with the more difficult role of disciplining unruly behaviour.

It takes a mature man, secure and confident in his relationship to his heavenly Father, to treat his children as the Father treats him. Love is the atmosphere in which fathering happens. Fathering, in turn, is not about inconsistent and emotional reactions to bad behaviour. It’s about patiently and consistently guiding the child, using discipline and instruction, towards the goal of true sonship, i.e., obedience and submission, in preparation for sonship in God’s family.

Without a clear goal in view, the path to adulthood becomes a battle ground of wills and a place of tension, insecurity, and unhappiness.

Parents need to find the difficult balance between overindulgence which cements a child`s inherent selfishness and too-strict control whidh robs him of security and confidence.

Here are two simple rules to help parents on this tortuous journey.

Apply discipline to rebellion, not immaturity. A good rule of thumb from Larry Chritianson, “The Christian Family”, “The rod must be the first recourse, not the last resort.” In other words, children must learn to obey the first time a parent speaks, not at the end of a conflict.
Make decisions for young children, decisions with them as they grow older and understand issues better, and guide them in their own decisions as they move towards young adulthood.

Happy parenting!

To be continued…

Reciprocal Relationships

January 26, 2016Bible Studybring them up, Children obey your parents, fathers, first commandment with a promise, training and instruction of the LordLuella Campbell

RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIPS

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honour your father and mother’ which is the first commandment with a promise – ‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:1-4).

Have you noticed how relationships always work in pairs? They are never one-sided. People on every level function interdependently but, at the same time, one group sets the tone and the other responds, and vice versa. Take the relationship between parents and children or, as Paul instructed here in his letter to Ephesian believers newly rescued out of paganism, fathers and children.

Why did Paul single out fathers for their specific role in the family? Is it not because, again, fathers have the responsibility to take the lead and to set the tone for the whole family. This, of course, assumes that there is a father in the family and that he recognises and understands his role as the head of the home.

With today’s rebellion against God’s beautiful idea for marriage, the world is full of biological fathers who have abdicated their role as real fathers, procreating offspring like animals whose main purpose is to pass on their genes, while ignoring their task of raising their children in a godly environment. Is it any wonder that the world is also full of ‘orphans’ who have no identity, no security, no home and no name because their fathers are not fathering them as Paul instructed?

It was not God’s idea to set boundaries around human behaviour to spoil our fun. Belief in the lie of evolution has a spin-off. If human beings are no more than a higher order of apes, evolved over millions of years to walk upright and to have superior intelligence, then it is in order for us to behave like apes, ignoring such things as decency and morality. (From where do morality and conscience come if we are only human apes)?

We can only be safe and flourish within the boundaries of well-defined moral behaviour. God’s prescriptions for children and fathers in the family circle constitute the safety zone in which they are protected and can live in harmony with one another.

When roles and functions are blurred, the power struggle begins and the result is chaos and unhappiness. It is the father’s role to set the standards for the child the moment he or she enters the world. Baby is not king in the house and the sooner he learns that, the better.

God has only one requirement for children – obedience to their parents. That does not mean that parents must beat their children into submission. They must apply discipline where necessary but always in the best interests of protecting love and preserving unity, not venting their anger and frustration on the child because they are bigger and stronger.

Why is obedience to parents of primary importance? A child is naturally selfish and independent – the hallmarks of Adam’s nature in them. If he is left to himself, his potential for selfishness and independence will come to full bloom in a life of lawlessness and rebellion against all authority and he will end up a hardened criminal living a wasted life, probably in a prison cell.

It is the father’s role to tame that potential for rebellion by nurturing his child in the atmosphere of love and acceptance, to submit to his authority in the home. That presupposes that the father will love his child enough to set reasonable boundaries and to reinforce them lovingly and not in anger or frustration. Again, that presupposes that he is submitted to Jesus Christ as Lord and that he honours God and obeys His Word just as he expects his child to honour and obey him.

Once again, there is no place for one person lording it over another even if they are father and child. No child will honour, respect and obey a cruel or abusive father. He will do so if his parent treats him with respect. That implies and includes reasonable boundaries which, of necessity, will change as the child grows older.

This interconnected, interactive behaviour is intended to foster loving and harmonious relationships in the home that produce order and contentment. Each one in the family must know his or her place according to God’s Word, within which he or she will be safe and contented. When one or another steps out of line, the result is chaos, confusion and unhappiness.

There is a pitfall every parent must avoid – the idea that it is important to be your child’s ‘friend’. Some parents are afraid to exercise discipline and to teach their children to behave in a civilised way because they don’t want to lose their child’s ‘friendship’. That is a lie from the devil. Parents are parents, not friends. God placed parents in the home to guide and shape their children for responsible adulthood, not to be on the level with them or to please them.

It is only within this environment of interactive living that children can be their real selves and can develop to their full potential in the atmosphere of harmony and peace. The world is full of angry people, angry because Dad was either missing or a tyrant in the home. God’s way is the only way that really works.

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

Stable In A Sinful World

November 9, 2015Bible Studychildren, fathers, know Him, overcome the evil one, sins forgiven, young menLuella Campbell

STABLE IN A SINFUL WORLD

I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one. (1 John 2: 12-14)

I’m not quite sure what John’s reason was for singling groups of people out and for repeating what he had to say to them. Perhaps they needed encouragement because of the particular issues they faced at their time of life. We need to examine the circumstances of his readers since their lives were always in great peril as believers in Jesus who had to swim against the current of Jewish fanaticism and Roman antagonism because they refused to bow to Caesar as Lord.

In the overwhelming tide of idolatry in the Roman Empire of that day, there were pockets of people all over the empire who had renounced the worship of idols for the truth that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that He died for their sins. The worship of idol gods entailed the offering of sacrifices, temple prostitution and sexual promiscuity, all in the name of “worship”. The lives of their devotees were riddled with sinful practices while the children of God were called to live holy lives, separated from unclean things in the midst of the evil all around them.

John, then, reminded the “children”, most likely not literal children, but those who, through faith in Jesus, had been adopted into God’s family and were therefore no longer a part of sinful society and the world system, that their sins had been forgiven. For the believer, sin wasn’t just violating the customs and practices of society around them or the gods they worshipped. Sin was anything that fell short of God’s perfection and holiness. It was not their worship or their sacrifices that brought them forgiveness of sin, but the death of God’s Son who gave His life for them.

It was important that they keep this fact in mind in the face of the false beliefs of their neighbours and the hostility they faced for daring to put their faith in a Jewish rabbi who was crucified as a criminal and whom, they claimed, rose from the dead and was alive in them. In the face of the filth of the world around them, their sins had been forgiven.

Who were the “fathers” John addressed? Were they the literal fathers? Were they the “fathers” of the flock of God’s people? It doesn’t matter. John knew that they also needed encouragement. Their sins were forgiven – they knew that – but, more than that, they knew the Father. What does it mean to “know” God? Not intellectual knowledge or even casual acquaintance. This was about knowing the Father intimately like sons who spend time with, have fellowship with and live in submission and obedience to their fathers because they love them.

They were fathers because they were mature believers who were not troubled or thrown by the ungodly society around them. They had long since been weaned from the world and its allurements. Their faces were towards God. They enjoyed fellowship with Him, which meant more to them than fellowship with the world. Idols no longer held them in fear. They had tasted the goodness of God and the joy of living under His authority in His kingdom. They were comfortable and secure in the love of God and content to keep trusting Him in the face of severe trials and the constant threat of death.

And what of the young men John addressed? These were the ones who were of the age to serve in the military. Perhaps John saw them as the “soldiers” in the army of God who had learned to overcome the enemy and were called to stand guard over the people of God. Perhaps they had done time in the Roman army, protecting the borders of the empire and preserving peace and stability in its colonies. From their military experience they knew what it meant to keep the enemy at bay.

However, they also knew that soldiers in the army of God were not to fight – Jesus had already overcome the enemy. It was their task to stand – to identify the enemy’s subtle tactics and unmask him by exposing his lies. Their weapons were not of the world but spiritual, faith as a shield and the sword of the Spirit – truth which would reveal his lies and leave him naked and defenceless.

They knew that the battle was not in their circumstances but in their minds. The devil tried to lure them back under his authority by sowing lies into their minds, but they would use the truth of God’s word to expose his lies and neutralise his power over them.

Unlike the idols of their day who were no more than an expression and extension of the worst of human nature, John’s readers knew that the forgiveness of their sins was real, that they had come to know the Father intimately and that they had the weapons and the knowledge and experience to overcome the enemy within.

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.