I’ll never forget the look in Brian’s eyes. My pastor and I had just tag-team preached a message on the biblical role of parents. God was working in our hearts concerning how families and our church intersected, and we took the last Sunday of the year to cast a vision of what could happen if parents took God’s Word seriously regarding parenthood.
After the service, he grabbed me and said, “I get it. I buy the concept completely. I truly desire to disciple my children, but honestly, Trav, I have no idea where to start.”
Neither did I. At that point, we had merely exposed the need and directed our congregation towards one passage of Scripture. My plan was simply to challenge our church that morning. People were eager to begin, and we had to figure out how to lead them forward. We were unsure what this would look like in the months to come. We were confident that God was giving us a direction, but we had yet to discover the map. Â Â
So I began to study God’s Word concerning parenting. The Bible is full of parental expectations, but in our culture, they are often overlooked because they are not written in bulleted lists like those in a parenting magazine.
The Bible specializes in parenting principles rather than practices.
God didn’t provide itemized lists probably because the practice would shift somewhat from generation to generation. Fortunately, the principles are there, and God’s instructions provide more than an adequate framework for reorienting our homes. Â
For the task of evangelizing and discipling your children, parental responsibility is not a novel concept – the task is a biblical mandate. God chose Israel in the Old Testament (Gen 17:4) and the church in the New Testament (Matt 16:18) to be his chosen body, and the institution of the family has always maintained a critical role in God’s plan. For parents to become the primary evangelists and disciple-makers in their children’s lives, they must comprehend that critical biblical mandate for the sake of future generations. God’s Word is full of biblical passages that reveal parental responsibility concerning the spiritual nurturing of children. Parental spiritual responsibility is not an isolated thought by certain biblical writers but a recurring theme of the entire Bible.
Biblical authors filled the pages with stories about families. Many of the family narratives reveal that God placed a high priority on the institution of the home. Unfortunately, the families of the book of Genesis alone reveal a faithless record, with key family leaders failing to fulfill their familial roles (Gen 3:12), killing one’s own brother (Gen 4:8), becoming shamefully drunk (Gen 9:21), abandoning one’s own wife (Gen 12:13), encouraging one’s spouse to commit adultery (Gen 16:2), deceiving family members for the sake of birthrights (Gen 27:5-10), selling one’s brother into slavery (Gen 37:27-28), and even engaging in sex with one’s daughter-in-law (Gen 38:16). And you thought your family had issues!
The families of the Old Testament did not typically live up to their calling. Throughout these unfortunate events, God spoke directly or through a messenger to remind the people of his unwavering dedication to families. In these Old Testament passages, God required parents to assume responsibility for their children’s development (Gen. 18:16-21), to model unwavering love for the Lord (Deut. 6:4-9), to choose to serve the Lord above other gods (Josh. 24:14-28), and to remember God’s faithfulness to a faithless people (Psalm. 78:1-8).
The Bible doesn’t give a picture of where everyone gets it right. It shows us examples of people who didn’t succeed in hopes that we will learn from their mistakes. The principles are there for us to prioritize. The most important thing to do is attempt something. How are you intentional with the spiritual condition of your family?
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.
