Skip to main content

Parenting out of the Gospel, Part 2

By

Exposing our Law-Centered Tendencies in Parenting

Martin Luther said, “the law of God, although beneficial and beautiful, cannot advance us on our way to righteousness because we cannot obey it.” Yet, with children, it is exceptionally easy to reduce the Bible to a moralistic guidebook and wield its authority to impose behavioral standards upon them.

It is easy to take a story such as Jonah and conclude that you need to obey God or else “you too will get swallowed by huge fish.” Or how about David, the mighty warrior? “David was brave and fought Goliath, therefore you too should be brave, just like David.”

No doubt, obedience and trust are fruits that are reflected in Christians. However, those fruits will never be produced through ultimatums. Why not? It is because fruits are produced through the Spirit of God and not through the will of man. Indeed, this is an example of reducing the primary purpose of God’s word to a rule, a moral, a command, or a directive, which by the way, we cannot keep anyway. Of course, the Bible offers us rules for us to keep but our behavior is not the primary theme of the Bible. The primary theme, rather, is Jesus Christ and the work he has already done on our behalf.

Parents, this may seem like a small difference to you but I assure you, it is not. It is the difference between the true gospel and a “different gospel” (Galatians 1:6-9). It is the difference between leading our children to transformation or condemnation, between becoming a Christian or becoming a Pharisee.

Here are some questions to ask yourself about the climate of your parenting. “What percentage of your time is spent in declaring the rules and what percentage in reciting the story?” Or, “am I learning to direct [my child] to their need for Jesus and not their need to do good or to please me?” (Fitzpatrick, Thompson 29). These are excellent questions that can help us know if we are leading our children to conform their external behaviors to please people or if we are leading them to Jesus who has the power to transform their sinful hearts. 

Comments

  1. Shannon RyksNovember 30, 2012 at 10:13 AM

    Thanks for the information and the thought provoking questions to ponder.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Catechisms: Building a Heritage of Sound Faith - By Pastor Kevin Feder

By
This is an article I (Pastor Kevin) wrote in 2005 and updated in 2017. It is featured in a new resource available through Children’s Desiring God called Discipleship through Doctrinal Teaching and Catechism by Sally Michael.  It is our desire to encourage parents to use a children’s catechism as a tool in building and strengthening faith in children. A simple definition of a catechism is “organized teaching.” Catechisms are not the only things that can or should be used to instruct the next generation, yet they have useful purposes. Listed here are ten specific benefits a catechism can uniquely offer. Hopefully these ten points will help parents understand how a catechism can be effectively used in their families. 1.  A catechism is a very clear and complete gospel message. A catechism is, among other things, a very clear and concise gospel message to children. Everything a child needs to know for salvation is embodied within a catechism. The gospel is truly ama...
Post a Comment
Read more