I am impressed at how much the Bible speaks toward parenting. We don’t hear enough about it.
Why is that?
Perhaps it is because parenting is such a loaded subject for Christians. Not only is parenting challenging, it is also complicated. And not only is parenting challenging and complicated, it is also sensitive. For these reasons, Christians have not looked to God’s word enough (and therefore haven’t learned enough from God’s word) to have a solid, Biblical understanding about parenting. The result is that the topic is often neglected and avoided. Thinking about our church specifically, this is concerning. We cannot afford to have this many children around and for us to not be ultra-focused on training, equipping, and assisting parents in this beautiful God-given endeavor! So we have decided to be proactive and go heavy on discussing the topic of family and parenting.
By the time we get to the end of February, Lord willing, we will have devoted six full church services and messages to the study of parenting. That is about 6 hours total worth of Bible teaching. It is our prayer that the Lord will bless this work, and that many mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers will be helped as they labor to love and disciple the young people underneath them. We have been praying for this Focus In February series.
To be clear, the 6 services are: 1) Sunday evening, January 21: Matt McBroom preached on the stewardship of the family. 2) Sunday morning, February 4: I preached on “How God Uses Parents to Shape Kids.” 3) Sunday evening, February 4: I taught on “Time” in regards to Parenting. And then the next 3 Sunday evenings will be on Parenting as well. For a total of 6 services.
If you are in the parenting stage of life or if this subject is simply of interest to you, we hope that you will listen/watch these messages. We trust they will be very beneficial to you.
I said earlier that I am impressed at how much the Bible speaks toward parenting, so I want to point out a few examples:
In Genesis 22:5 Abraham says, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship.” What a strong little statement! Parents, we need to speak to our kids in this way. When has a parent ever said to their kids, “We are going to worship.”?
In Exodus 13:8 God says, “You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me.’” Again, when have you heard parents telling their kids what the Lord has done for them?
In Exodus 20 when God gives the Ten Commandments, one of the commandments is to honor mom and dad. Honoring your parents is so important that it made the Ten Commandments. Do not kill. No other gods. No adultery. In the middle of these laws from God to govern His whole creation, He included, “Honor your father and mother.” We need to see that the parent/child relationship is that critical.
God’s Word is profitable, and we are prayerful that these messages will bless our families and homes.
(Also, I have recently written about 3 Common Mistakes in Parenting. You can check that out here.)