Scripture Text: Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Memory Verse: And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4
Lesson Aim: To highlight the ultimate responsibility of parenting and examine how it relates to how God parents us.
Key Points
- The primary responsibility of parents is to nurture, discipline, and admonish their children in the Word of God
- A parent can only be as effective as God desires if he/she is first yielded to the authority of Christ.
- No one can influence a child’s destiny like the child’s parents.
It is interesting to note that while parenting is one of the most challenging and most important tasks one can assume, no particular credentials are required and often no competency training is provided prior to assuming the role. The responsibilities of parenting are great, but at a minimum, parents have the mammoth task of raising their children to be responsible, productive, and morally upright citizens.
“God has delivered our children’s bodies, souls, thoughts, lives, and futures into our hands. No person can influence another’s destiny more than parents can their children’s.”[1] God has committed parents to their children as divine stewardship, and He will demand an account from parents of how they cared for their children whom He has entrusted to them.
To execute parenting, as God would have it to be, parents should seek to counteract one of the biggest threats to Godliness, which is rebellion. Rebellion is a major factor, which is influencing, and in many cases, corrupting our children. It is the responsibility of parents to not only know and respect the authority of God, but to infuse this same characteristic into their children. Rebellion is from the beginning and its consequences are great. Satan became Satan because he overstepped God’s authority. He wanted to compete with God and to stand in opposition to God. Rebellion is the cause of the fall of Satan.
In the whole universe, God is the ultimate authority. God appoints all other authorities. Therefore, when parents teach their children to respect them, and other authority figures they are in turn teaching them to respect the authority of God. Rebellion can best be displaced when parents, as children of the Lord, learn and model submission to authority. By so doing, children will learn to know and obey authority, realizing that all authority has its source in God (Romans 13:1-7).
Parental guidance is essential for the development of human virtues. Children must be raised according to the standards of culture. The more children are trained according to culture, the better it will be for them. Children must be trained to honor their parents, to love their siblings, to behave properly toward their neighbors, to be good students in school, to obey all laws, and to respect their teachers and other adults. However, more importantly, the primary responsibility of parents is to raise children who become God-fearing disciples of Christ.
Parents must remain absolutely dependent upon the sovereignty of God for their children’s spiritual well-being. They must exercise the utmost care, shepherding them with much cherishing and nurturing, and a rich model for Jesus Christ. When parents consider the responsibility of raising children, they must always keep a sharp awareness of the charge to nurture their children in the discipline and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Parents should not rely on the latest trends in the world of pop psychology to determine how their children should be trained, disciplined, or given their rights as human beings. The Bible should be the standard that governs how parents care for their children whom God has committed into their hands. Therefore, parents must first be those who are faithful to read the Word and pray diligently on a daily basis.
[1] Nee, Watchman. Do All to the Glory of God. Richmond Virginia: Christian Fellowship Publishers, 1980. p. 72.
Questions and Discussion
- What specific actions are parents advised to take in raising their children? Ephesians 6:4
- Define and discuss the following terms…
- Nurture –
- Discipline –
- Admonish –
- Ephesians 6:4 tells us that parents should discipline their children. Does our heavenly Father discipline us and if so, how? Proverbs 3:11-12; Amos 3:2; Hebrews 12:7-8
- What is the purpose of God disciplining us? Hebrews 12:4-11; 1 Peter 1:16; Ephesians 5:27
- Considering the means by which and the purpose of God disciplining us, how does that parallel with earthly parents’ discipline of their children?
- What are some things that parents can do to accomplish the goal of parenting as God sees it? Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Proverbs 13:24; 23:13-14