But His Father Was A Greek

But His Father Was a Greek

By Pastor Jim May

In the life of every child there are two people who, above all others in their lives, stand out as examples for them to follow. Nearly all of the lessons learned in the early years of childhood are learned from those two people. From Mom and Dad they learn about love, commitment, dedication, morality and discipline. We live in a world today where many of our kids are not learning the proper values for life and we don’t teach them the right values then they will develop their own set of values and most of the time, what they learn, they will learn from other kids.

Since the heart of a child is all about what they want and they aren’t concerned with society as a whole, or what is right or wrong, then we find that as time goes on, these kids grow up to be selfish, self-centered adults, who then have children of their own who learn these same moral values and it gets worse from there.

The Bible tells us in Matthew 24:12 that, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." As the moral fiber of our nation is changed with each passing generation, anarchy begins to surface. Anarchy gives kids power over parents, and in a nation where there is no love in the family anymore, we lose the ability to teach the proper moral values and we become a society that is heading for self-destruction.

Every day we hear of younger kids committing terrible crimes.

Just a few weeks ago St Paul, Minnesota police arrested a 14-year-old girl and charged her with murder because she killed her newborn daughter by tying a sock around the baby’s neck. Why is a 14-yr old child having a baby in the first place?

Juvenile Delinquincy has escalated to epic proportions, and it’s not just in the inner city anymore. No neighborhood is safe, no streets are safe, no playground is secure – and our kids are the main target of every deviate and pervert, of every bully and kidnapper and of every drug dealer in America.

Why have our kids become so rebellious? Quite often we hear people blaming our schools and the teachers. Others blame the church. Others say its peer pressure. And while all of these do play a part in the process, the main source of juvenile delinquincy starts right in the home – with Mom and Dad.

In New York City, the Juvenile Correction Department did a study to try to find out why there are so many teenage criminals in the city. What they discovered with astound you and amaze you.

They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and many months studying the problem and finally came to the conclusion that kids were bad because they didn’t have a good home life or good examples in their parents to train them right. Wow! What a surprise!

They discovered that bad parenting had a considerable impact in the kids. Well – DUH!

One study involved only white children who were sent to a psychiatric clinic for “anti-social behavior”. (That’s politically correct terminology for being bad.) What they found was that the father’s of these kids had a lot to do with what the kids had become. Now there’s another great surprise! 36% of these bad kid’s fathers were alcoholics; 21% either couldn’t or wouldn’t keep a job; 26% neglected the kids and wouldn’t even provide for their basic needs; 20% were cruel and abusive; and 48% of these kids parents were mentally disturbed or mentally handicapped.

The second study only involved children from black families. They found father’s who were convicted felons tended to have convicted children who had copycatted the crimes of dear old Dad. One young kid, by the name of Nathaniel Abrahams, had been with his Dad and watched his every move. He learned his lessons well and at the age of 11 Nathaniel killed, robbed and flashed guns to intimidate. At 12 years of age he was sentenced as an adult to a maximum security prison for life. Hey, great job DAD! You taught your son lessons that cost him a lifetime behind bars.

Here’s another surprise for you. These social study geniuses also discovered that

Discipline is another part of family relationships that affects delinquency. It just amazes me that they could have so much wisdom and understanding of how society works.

After much research they found three factors that related to increased likelihood of delinquency: 1) careless or inadequate supervision by the mother or surrogate mother, or significant other; or live-in step-mom; or girlfriend or whatever you want to call them.; 2) erratic or overly strict discipline; and 3) lack of cohesiveness of the family unit.