“Nurturing Parents”
Children obey your parents who are to bring them up 6:1-4
REVIEW
Last week we covered children’s responsibility before God toward their parents.
Obey them
Honor them
Treat them respectfully
Live wise and godly lives
That is also how we honor our heavenly Father.
Care for them compassionately
We honor our heavenly Father by caring for others.
CLARIFICATION
Last week we mentioned the possibility of diverting tithe to the care of your parents.
Just to be clear, that is not the first approach but if there was no other way, God would have us honor Him by honoring our parents. “In that you give to the least of these you give to Me.”
Introduction
Today we want to focus on what God has to say to fathers. Try as I would, I could not get the passage to include mothers. This is not addressed to parents but fathers. If he would have wanted to include mothers he would have used the same word he used in verse one “children obey your parents”. The following instruction is addressed primarily to FATHERS! The wife is the willing support in this responsibility but not the primary responsible party. It is the father’s responsibility and privilege to take the lead in the training of the children in the home. It is the opposite of the current trend. It is the opposite of what was practiced in Paul’s day. Men have abandoned their God-assigned role as trainer in the things of God. Today there are more and more single parent homes. New studies come out every day revealing the devastating effects of absent or abusive fathers. The father’s role in the home is vital to the healthy development of children.
Being and producing followers who genuinely love a obey God and effectively love and serve people begins in the home with the fathers. Children long for the approval of their fathers.
Mothers are wonderful and admired but there is some vital dynamic to the role of the father in the healthy development of a child both male and female. Some who are now adults continue to seek and pursue the approval and blessing of their father.
A 2009 study reported that there were 13.7 million single parent homes up from 9.8 million in 2000. 84% mothers and 16% fathers. The majority of those nearly 22 million children grew up without fathers.
The facts clearly reveal the negative effects on children who grow up without fathers.
Incarceration Rates. "Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families... (Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University cited in "Father Absence and Youth Incarceration." Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.)
Suicide. 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of the Census)
Behavioral Disorders. 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (United States Center for Disease Control)
High School Dropouts. 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
Educational Attainment. Kids living in single-parent homes or in step-families report lower educational expectations on the part of their parents, less parental monitoring of school work, and less overall social supervision than children from intact families. (N.M. Astore and S. McLanahan, American Sociological Review, No. 56 (1991)
Juvenile Detention Rates. 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
Confused Identities. Boys who grow up in father-absent homes are more likely that those in father-present homes to have trouble establishing appropriate sex roles and gender identity.(P.L. Adams, J.R. Milner, and N.A. Schrepf, Fatherless Children, New York, Wiley Press, 1984).
Aggression. In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed "greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than from boys in mother-father households." (N. Vaden-Kierman, N. Ialongo, J. Pearson, and S. Kellam, "Household Family Structure and Children's Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 23, no. 5 (1995).
Achievement. Children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes. Almost twice as many high achievers come from two-parent homes as one-parent homes. (One-Parent Families and Their Children, Charles F. Kettering Foundation, 1990).
Delinquency. Only 13 percent of juvenile delinquents come from families in which the biological mother and father are married to each other. By contrast, 33 percent have parents who are either divorced or separated and 44 percent have parents who were never married. (Wisconsin Dept. of Health and Social Services, April 1994).
Criminal Activity. The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families. Source: A. Anne Hill, June O'Neill, Underclass Behaviors in the United States, CUNY, Baruch College. 1993
A book was written back in 1947 in which historian Carle Zimmerman compared the deterioration and ultimate disintegration of various cultures with the parallel in the decline of the family unit in America.
? Increased and rapid easy causeless divorce.
? Decreased number of children, population decay and increased public disrespect for parents and parenthood.
? Elimination of the real meaning of the marriage ceremony.
? Popularity of pessimistic teachings about the early heroes.
? Breaking down of most inhibitions against adultery.
? Revolts of youth against parents so that parenthood became more and more difficult for those who did try to raise children.
? Rapid rise and spread of juvenile delinquency.
? Common acceptance of all forms of sex perversions.
If you add to those issues the fact that even though the father may have been there, they were still absent in personal interaction. One survey of 300 7th grade boys reveled that their fathers spent an average of 7 minutes a week individually with them.
Not only does the Bible expose ungodly children but inept fathers. David, Eli.
Paul presents us here with the most succinct yet complete instruction for a healthy family ever written.
Fathers, stop continually enraging your children, but continually nourish them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4
Fathers, stop continually provoking your children, lest they become discouraged. Colossians 3:21
1. DON’T PUT YOUR CHILDREN DOWN
Paul’s instruction to the Ephesians began with a negative; what not to do. His instruction to the Colossians included only a negative. Paul cautions fathers to stop enraging their children.
It was a practice currently taking place. He used the stronger word for anger here. It is a word that describes a seething kind of anger that builds over time. It is a deep seated anger as opposed to the flash of anger that momentarily reacts but goes away quickly. This word is often translated “wrath” and the other “anger”.
Paul told the Colossian fathers to stop provoking or exasperating their children. He uses a word that means to stimulate, or goad or stir up or aggravate. The reason is so that they won’t become discouraged. The word translated discouraged rises out of the word for anger or passion with a negative. Such treatment will deflate their passion, pop their bubble, close their spirit. Here the consequence of exasperating or stirring up children is that they lose a passion for life. It is within the capacity of fathers to rob children of their zeal for life. Fathers are not to provoke their children to a deep settled anger that defiles their soul with bitterness, revenge, anger. We need both angers in our life. That passion that causes us to act against evil as it rises and to stand in the face the junk hurled at us from a fallen world. We need that godly anger that burns in the depths because of deep convictions concerning good and evil, that passion that God feels toward sin and wrong.
What caused anger to well up in you or resentment to build?
2. TRAIN YOUR CHILDREN UP
Rather than put our children down we must train them up.
How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways.
When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, Your children like olive plants around your table.
Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion, and may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.
Indeed, may you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel! Psalm 128:1-6
Paul brings a father’s function into focus when writing to the Thessalonian church.
You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. 1 Thes 2:10-12
Look at the words; exhorting, encouraging, imploring as a father would his children.
The goal? They may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
The root word for nurture here was used in a variety of ways.
The Father nurtures (feeds) the birds. Matt 6:26
Jesus was nurtured (raised up) as a boy in Nazareth. Luke 4:16
Mothers nurture (nurse) their babies. Luke 23:29
Moses was nurtured in his parents’ house for three months. Act 7:20
Timothy was nurtured by the words of faith and sound doctrine. 1 Tim 4:6
Husbands nurture their own flesh and cherish it. Eph 5:29
What then is included in this nurturing? Of course it includes providing for the physical needs.
But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Tim. 5:8
Paul focuses however on the development of the soul and spirit end of things. They are to bring them up or nurture them in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. The world can provide discipline and admonition. This is a special kind of discipline and admonition that is from and about the Lord.
DISCIPLINE OR TRAINING OF THE LORD
Noun – training, education, nurture, discipline, correction
Verb – to educate, train, cause to learn.
Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians.
Paul was educated in Tarsus.
God’s grace instructs us to deny ungodliness.
Those whom God loves He disciplines (trains).
Such training involves learning how to live according to God’s ways. It includes practice of godly principles in the home. It includes the discipline that will expose and eradicate foolishness from the heart. The whole book of Proverbs is a curriculum for training children in how to live wise and godly in an ungodly world.
The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,
To receive instruction in wise behavior, Righteousness, justice and equity;
To give prudence to the naive,
To the youth knowledge and discretion,
A wise man will hear and increase in learning, And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,
To understand a proverb and a figure, The words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Hear, my son, your father's instruction, And do not forsake your mother's teaching;
Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head, And ornaments about your neck. Proverbs 1:1-9
I have included a page of proverbs on discipline at the end of your notes.
We have little trouble making the training of the world a high priority for our children. Work with homework. Watch the grades. Keep them in school. Assure “training” five days a week, six hours a day. This training is important and can supply them with important knowledge, but pure information or data without a Theological basis does little to instill character and knowledge of the ways of God. Where are they going to get it? More and more youth drop out of church once they leave the home because they never got a firm foundation. The nurturing of our children necessitates the discipline, training of the Lord! How concerned are we about their nurturing in the discipline of the Lord? Our children will be trained. Will it be toward destruction or the discipline that enables us to share in His holiness? The training of which Paul speaks here is the responsibility to train children in the wisdom of God, to provide them with the foundation blocks of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
The other word used in regard to the nurturing process is admonition of the Lord. Again it is a process linked to the ways of God.
ADMONITION OF THE LORD
This term comes from the marriage of two Greek terms. The term “mind” or intellectual capacities and the term “to place”. Resultant word came to mean to “to place into the thinking”. To establish good thinking, to renew the thinking. The admonition of the Lord describes the act of establishing God’s truth into the mind. “Discipline” of the Lord focuses on activities necessary to facilitate the development of godly character and life. “Admonition” of the Lord focuses on instruction and truth, the renewing of the mind by the truth of God.
Both the noun and the verb form of this couplet appear several places in the New Testament.
It is translated in several different ways. Instruction, warning, admonish.
Fathers need to provide for the instruction of their children in the things of God. Good reading, Sunday School training, Scripture reading and scripture memory, discussions of the truths of Scripture, theological discussions. There are so many tools out there and available.
It will take a commitment. It will take a reprioritizing. So many times these truths taught early will become the life line that draws them back after a period of struggle.
PROVERBS
3:11 My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord, Or loathe His reproof,
6:23 For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching is light; And reproofs for discipline are the way of life,
12:1 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, But he who hates reproof is stupid.
13:1 A wise son accepts his father's discipline, But a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.
15:5 A fool rejects his father's discipline, But he who regards reproof is prudent.
15:10 Stern discipline is for him who forsakes the way; He who hates reproof will die.
15:32 He who neglects discipline despises himself, But he who listens to reproof acquires understanding.
19:18 Discipline your son while there is hope, And do not desire his death.
19:20 Listen to counsel and accept discipline, That you may be wise the rest of your days.
19:27 Cease listening, my son, to discipline, And you will stray from the words of knowledge.
22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.
23:12-13 Apply your heart to discipline, And your ears to words of knowledge.
Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you beat him with the rod, he will not die.
1 Cor. 10:11-13 Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 12Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 13No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.
Titus 3:10-11 Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, 11knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.
Acts 20:31 "Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.
Romans 15:14 And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able also to admonish one another.
1 Cor. 4:14 I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
Col. 1:28-2:3 And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. 2:1For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, 2that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, 3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Col. 3:16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
1 Thes. 5:12 But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction,
1 Thes. 5:14-22 And we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all men. 15See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all men. 16Rejoice always; 17pray without ceasing; 18in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 19Do not quench the Spirit; 20do not despise prophetic utterances. 21But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; 22abstain from every form of evil.
2 Thes. 3:14-15 And if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that man and do not associate with him, so that he may be put to shame. 15And yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
