Bring Up Your Children In God's Instruction (Eph. 6:4)
1
A mother crab rebukes her child for his way of crawling:
"Child, why are you not crawling correctly?"
The child crab asks his mother:
"How should I crawl, mother?"
The mother crab tells her child:
"Look how I crawl! You should crawl straight."
Yet she crawls sideways.
The child crab tells his mother:
"Mother, that is exactly how I crawl."
There was a wise Chinese man, one of Confucius' disciples (Zengzi).
One day his wife was about to go out for shopping in a market. Her child kept crying to follow his mother. The wise man's wife coaxed her child: "Be a good boy. If you stay at home, I will make pork for you when I come back."
When she came back from the market, her husband, the wise man was about to kill a pig.
She abruptly stopped him, asking: "Why are you killing a pig?"
The wise man said to his wife: "Did you not promise the boy that you would make pork for him?"
She answered: "Ah, that was just to coax him not to follow me. How can you kill a pig for the boy?"
The wise man said to his wife quietly: "You cannot tell a lie to your children. They will always follow parents' words and conducts. To tell a lie to your children is to teach a lie to them. If children do not trust their parents as their parents always tell lies, their parents cannot educate them properly.
The Book of Proverbs include many good parental instructions to children.
1:8-9 says: "Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck."
Here, the child's father or mother instructs or teaches the boy according to God's words.
3:11-12 says: "My son. do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in."
3:21-22 says: "My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight; they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck."
It goes on and on.
So, as parents, you may read the instructions in Proverbs to your children.
A mother's prayer makes her child a successful person and a pious Christian.
St. Augustine (354-430) once confessed: "O Lord, if I am your child, it's because you first gave me the mother who is your child." John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), the 6th president of the United States tells, "My mother made me of now," and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the 16th president tells, "My present and all that I hope for in the future are thanks to my mother."
Paul says to Timothy, his spiritual son in 2 Timothy 1:4-5: "Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you." For a child to have faith in God, parents first should have faith in Him.
In church we grownups may sometimes neglect our children.
Sometimes we do not show a good example of faith.
Some other times we treat them and their relationship with God lightly.
Sometimes we expel them out of the sanctuary, the place of worship, for the purpose of our own quiet worship, against our Lord's instruction.
People brought their children to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked the children's parents.
But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (Luke 18:16-17).
"Child, why are you not crawling correctly?"
The child crab asks his mother:
"How should I crawl, mother?"
The mother crab tells her child:
"Look how I crawl! You should crawl straight."
Yet she crawls sideways.
The child crab tells his mother:
"Mother, that is exactly how I crawl."
There was a wise Chinese man, one of Confucius' disciples (Zengzi).
One day his wife was about to go out for shopping in a market. Her child kept crying to follow his mother. The wise man's wife coaxed her child: "Be a good boy. If you stay at home, I will make pork for you when I come back."
When she came back from the market, her husband, the wise man was about to kill a pig.
She abruptly stopped him, asking: "Why are you killing a pig?"
The wise man said to his wife: "Did you not promise the boy that you would make pork for him?"
She answered: "Ah, that was just to coax him not to follow me. How can you kill a pig for the boy?"
The wise man said to his wife quietly: "You cannot tell a lie to your children. They will always follow parents' words and conducts. To tell a lie to your children is to teach a lie to them. If children do not trust their parents as their parents always tell lies, their parents cannot educate them properly.
The Book of Proverbs include many good parental instructions to children.
1:8-9 says: "Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck."
Here, the child's father or mother instructs or teaches the boy according to God's words.
3:11-12 says: "My son. do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in."
3:21-22 says: "My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight; they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck."
It goes on and on.
So, as parents, you may read the instructions in Proverbs to your children.
A mother's prayer makes her child a successful person and a pious Christian.
St. Augustine (354-430) once confessed: "O Lord, if I am your child, it's because you first gave me the mother who is your child." John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), the 6th president of the United States tells, "My mother made me of now," and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the 16th president tells, "My present and all that I hope for in the future are thanks to my mother."
Paul says to Timothy, his spiritual son in 2 Timothy 1:4-5: "Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you." For a child to have faith in God, parents first should have faith in Him.
In church we grownups may sometimes neglect our children.
Sometimes we do not show a good example of faith.
Some other times we treat them and their relationship with God lightly.
Sometimes we expel them out of the sanctuary, the place of worship, for the purpose of our own quiet worship, against our Lord's instruction.
People brought their children to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked the children's parents.
But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (Luke 18:16-17).
2
If we understand correctly our relationship with our spiritual parent our God, then we may be able to bring up our children properly in God's instruction. Paul explains Christian parents' duties for their children in Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21.
In today's Scriptural verse, Paul defines the two parental duties.
Firstly, parents, especially fathers, should not exasperate their children.
An easy English translation (NLT) paraphrases it as, "And now a word to you fathers. Don't make your children angry by the way you treat them."
Our children may get angry not because we as parents rebuke them for proper reasons and in proper ways but because we pour out our angers on them without any proper reason.
Then, they may be discouraged and dismayed.
Paul says in Colossians 3:21, "Fathers, don't aggravate your children. If you do they will become discouraged and quit trying."
Secondly, parents should bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Parents should bring their children up not according to their greedy desire but according to our Lord's instruction and training.
To do that, we as parents should be ready to follow God's instruction and training.
Otherwise, we may be the mother crab who wants her child crab crawl straight yet she herself crawl sideways.
In today's Scriptural verse, Paul defines the two parental duties.
Firstly, parents, especially fathers, should not exasperate their children.
An easy English translation (NLT) paraphrases it as, "And now a word to you fathers. Don't make your children angry by the way you treat them."
Our children may get angry not because we as parents rebuke them for proper reasons and in proper ways but because we pour out our angers on them without any proper reason.
Then, they may be discouraged and dismayed.
Paul says in Colossians 3:21, "Fathers, don't aggravate your children. If you do they will become discouraged and quit trying."
Secondly, parents should bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Parents should bring their children up not according to their greedy desire but according to our Lord's instruction and training.
To do that, we as parents should be ready to follow God's instruction and training.
Otherwise, we may be the mother crab who wants her child crab crawl straight yet she herself crawl sideways.
3
We parents need to show our parental unconditional and patient love to our children as our God has shown his parental unconditional, long-patient love to us. Our God shows us not only his everlasting fatherly love but also his everlasting motherly love.
Deuteronomy 32:10-12 says, "In a desert land he found him(=Jacob), in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was with him."
Many Korean parents are ready to sacrifice their own lives for their children's education and better-off lives. But sometimes when their children become grownups, their sacrifice and sacrificial lives are not appreciated very much by their children. It's because their parental sacrifice and sacrificial lives are often out of their own personal greed and desire.
Many Christian parents' primary emphasis in their children's education and lives is not faith in God but secular success like non-Christian parents' emphasis. So, we see many well-educated and successful but no-church going grownups whose parents are so-called good Christians.
What should our emphasis and priority be for our children as Christian parents?
What should our lifestyle or conduct be for our children as Christian parents?
Jesus instructs us in Matthew 6:33: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you."
All these things in Jesus' saying include our children's better-off lives in this world.
Deuteronomy 32:10-12 says, "In a desert land he found him(=Jacob), in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was with him."
Many Korean parents are ready to sacrifice their own lives for their children's education and better-off lives. But sometimes when their children become grownups, their sacrifice and sacrificial lives are not appreciated very much by their children. It's because their parental sacrifice and sacrificial lives are often out of their own personal greed and desire.
Many Christian parents' primary emphasis in their children's education and lives is not faith in God but secular success like non-Christian parents' emphasis. So, we see many well-educated and successful but no-church going grownups whose parents are so-called good Christians.
What should our emphasis and priority be for our children as Christian parents?
What should our lifestyle or conduct be for our children as Christian parents?
Jesus instructs us in Matthew 6:33: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you."
All these things in Jesus' saying include our children's better-off lives in this world.
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