I’ve invited my friend, Pastor Jeff Scott, to write some articles for us directly related to Christian parenting. This is the first in a short series. Jeff Scott has been the pastor of Covenant Grace Presbyterian Church in Roseburg since 2014.
He and his beloved wife, Dawn, have been married for 22 years. The Lord has richly blessed them with five children; Silas (21), Liliana (19), Maran (18), Eden (14), and Elias (10). The Scotts are very committed to Christian education. In addition to Jeff’s ministry, Dawn heads up Classical Conversations in Roseburg. Covenant Grace Church meets 10:30 Sunday mornings at 3510 NE Douglas Avenue in Roseburg.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
Raising our children to…
In a short tract he wrote on the duties of Christian parents, renowned 19th century British pastor, J.C. Ryle, made a distressing observation about the rearing of children in his time that could be said of children from Christian homes in our own. He wrote, “We live in days when there is a mighty zeal for education in every quarter. We hear of new schools rising on all sides. We are told of new systems and new books for the young, of every sort and description. And still for all this, the vast majority of children are manifestly not trained in the way they should go, for when they grow up to man’s estate, they do not walk with God.”
If we could say there was a stream of children from Christian households growing up and not walking with God in Ryle’s day, the volume of them who do the same today has grown to the width of an ocean. If we don’t want to see our children join the hordes of post- and anti-Christian young Americans posting their de-conversion stories on Twitter, we must figure out why this trend is escalating. And I believe, along with Ryle, that the answer is simple: “The Lord’s commandment in our text is not regarded; and therefore the Lord’s promise in our text is not fulfilled.”
I doubt any parent who reads this believes that sending their child(ren) to a Christian school is all there is to fulfilling the Lord’s command for them to train their child(ren) in the way he/she should go. More is required. But do we, as Christian parents, hold tightly to and live out the biblically-informed convictions necessary to complete the task?
Well, in this brief article, I want to point out the main assumption underlying the Lord’s command in our text. Then, I want to challenge us to embrace this assumption as our own personal conviction that should shape our approach to child-rearing. And all of this is to promote the goal that we would see our children walk with God all the days of their lives. I will sprinkle in some more excellent insights from Bishop Ryle’s tract along the way.
The main assumption that is critical to observe from Proverbs 22:6 is that Christian parents are told to train up their children in the way they should go, because our children don’t know the way. They will unavoidably go the wrong way. God’s Word says that “foolishness is bound up in the heart” of our children and they need the rod of correction to drive it from them (Proverbs 22:15). Proverbs 29:15 says that “a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”
The reason these observations are true is, as God diagnosis the situation in His Word, “the heart is deceitful above all else, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) This is why, as Ryle observes, we see in our children from their earliest days “violent tempers, self-will, pride, envy, sullenness, passion, idleness, selfishness, deceit, cunning, falsehood, hypocrisy, a terrible aptness to learn what is bad, a painful slowness to learn what is good, a readiness to pretend anything in order to gain their own ends—all these things, or some of them, you must be prepared to see, even in your own flesh and blood…Children require no schooling to learn sin.”
The wisdom and counsel of God’s Word on this point runs completely counter to nearly all modern models of parenting. The reigning paradigm today tells us it is not our job as parents to shape our children, but rather, we are to encourage them to follow their hearts from the youngest age, even if it requires the surgical removal of sex organs, so that the child’s body aligns with his/her dysphoria. The modern parent’s role is to facilitate their child’s happiness, while desperately trying never to have to tell the child “no.”
But if we wisely turn our backs on the ever-changing wisdom of the age and embrace the wisdom of God, we will recognize that we must not leave our children to the guidance of their own hearts. According to God’s design and instruction, we must show them the way God would have them go in every facet of life. Ryle reasons that Proverbs 22:6 advises us that our children need us to “think for [them], judge for [them], act for [them], just as you would for one weak and blind; but for pity’s sake, give [them] not up to [their] own wayward tastes and inclinations. It must not be [their] likings and wishes that are consulted. [They] know not yet what is good for [their] mind and soul, any more than what is good for [their] body. You do not let [them] decide what [they] shall eat, and what [they] shall drink, and how [they] shall be clothed. Be consistent, and deal with [their] minds in like manner. Train [them] in the way that is scriptural and right, and not in the way that [they] fancy.”
Again, one of the key assumptions underlying the wisdom of Proverbs 22:6 is that our children don’t know the right way to go until we show them. That is why, if we would see our children walk with God, we must parent them with the conviction that they need us to walk alongside of them in all of life, teaching them, as Solomon said it, to acknowledge the Lord in all of their ways, looking to Him to direct their paths (see Proverbs 3:5-6).
Once we come to the conviction that our children need us as their parents to train them which way they should go in all of life, it raises the question, “Where do we begin?” That will be the subject of my next article.
By Pastor Jeff Scott
