Responsibilities Of Christian Parents

Responsibilities Of Christian Parents

Ephesians 6:1-4 "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

God personally established the institutions of marriage and family when he gave Eve to Adam and united them in holy wedlock in the garden. He then commanded them to be fruitful and multiply and populate the earth. All the records, commands, precepts and examples given afterward in the Old and New Testaments, testify to the importance of following God's plan in the matter of marriage and family.

The rules, roles, relationships and responsibilities of marriage and family, were first clearly set down in the Old Testament. There is nothing in the New Testament that would negate any of the principles the Old Testament teaches about the importance of parents and the responsibilities of parents before the Lord. It is obvious, even to the non-Christian psychologist, social worker, government leader and the ordinary man in the street, that unless parents once again accept their responsibility and take seriously the role of parenting, families of our nation are doomed to further disasters and our nation to ultimate destruction. Someone has truly said, "As goes the family, so goes the nation.."

The responsibility and authority of parents under the Jewish law was clear. The law of Moses required the father to accept absolute responsibility for the physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual welfare of his children. (See Duet. 6:1-9) The failure to obey God's command to honor one's parents had a very serious consequences as well. Filial duty and obedience were of such prime importance that almost any outrage against a parent was deemed worthy of capital punishment.

The New Testament presents a consistent view of the responsibilities and relationships involved in parenting when it speaks of the Father's relationship to His own dear spiritual children. Principles of parenting are often directly related to the ideal of God the Father's relationship to we who are His children. God has a standard that would describe the kind of parents He would haveChristian parents to be. The scriptures establish an ideal to which all fathers and mothers who love the Lord should aspire. But just what does the scriptures teach us about THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CHRISTIAN PAR- ENTS IN THE HOME?

CHRISTIAN PARENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE TO SUBMIT (MEET THE NEEDS OF) TO THEIR CHILDREN IN THE LORD. In our examination of this key passage in Ephesians dealing with the responsibilities of Christian family members, we have determined that the key concept is submission. This concept could correctly defined as: " . . . to lovingly and sacrificially place ones self at the disposal of another; to purpose in Christ to live ones life for the Godly benefit of another; to humbly and willing determine to sacrificially strive to meet the real physical, emotional and spiritual needs of a significant other in your life..." It is not difficult to scripturally apply this concept when examining the scope of Christian parents' responsibilities to their children in the Lord.

It is obvious, both from the scriptures and from common sense observa-tion of the world around us, that children have great needs to be met in our day and time. In fact, the negative and destructive influences are such that many young parents, even Christians, soberly question the advisability of bringing children into today's world.

Notice these excerpts from a letter published by a newspaper columnist a few years back, "We would never become parents if we had it to do over again. Children are the most ungrateful creatures under God's heaven. We worked and slaved to provide our three children with the best clothes, toys, medical care, musical instruments, music lesson, vacations to every part of the country; well just anything a child could want. And what kind of thanks did we get? We sent our oldest son to an expensive university. He got mixed with a radical element and has now gone underground to avoid prosecution for crimes he committed. Our second daughter got to running around in high school, had to drop out because of pregnancy, had an abortion and is now 'shacking up' with a guy. Our youngest son got mixed up with drugs, ran away from home and we haven't seen him since. Why any parent today desires to bring a child into a mixed-up world like this is more than we can understand" It does not take a rocket scientist to wonder if the materialism and parental indulgence expressed in this letter could well be the primary problem. After this letter was published, the columnist received hundreds of similar letters. But hundreds of others were received as well speaking of the joys and rewards of parenting were also received.