|
The Parents and the Children
Parental Responsibilities, Provisions for the Family,
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 4
When God originally made man, there was something obviously incomplete about him. As Man observed all the animals, each having male and female, he was made aware of his need for a help-meet in fulfilling God’s charge to him (Genesis 2:20). God did a miracle for this first man in building a woman to be with him and to help him fulfill God’s charge. However, there was still a further dimension to be experienced by that first family. Eve was a wife and Adam was a husband, but they were soon to become the mother and father of us all. When they had children, they entered a whole new realm, the realm of parenthood (Genesis 4:1-2).
What is the importance of parents?
Parents are the vessels through whom God desires to promote His eternal purpose in each family (Genesis 1:26-28). Therefore:
Ø Parents are responsible to be fruitful and multiply.
Ø Parents are to aid in the production of godly character and maturity in the family members.
Ø Parents are to help bring forth God’s deposit, potential, and ministry that He has placed in each child.
Ø Parents are to see that their children come to know and experience true fellowship with God.
Parents are the mediators of God’s covenants to the family members and this means that the parents are to their children what the Lord is to them.
v Ephesians 6:1 (Amplified Bible) says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord (as His representatives), for this is just and right.”
v This means that covenant benefits of the parents extend to the children (Genesis 6:18; Exodus 20:5; Psalm 103:17,18; 1 Corinthians 7:14).
v Because parents are so important to God as His instruments, God protects them even as He protects all leadership (Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 19:3; 20:9; Ephesians 6:2).
What are the responsibilities of parents?
God has a great deal that He wants to accomplish through the ministry of the parents. However, these things will never be accomplished unless the parents take the responsibility God has given to them. Parents are not free “to do their own thing”, but they have been given specific responsibilities and charges by God. Parents are to give their children:
· Provision (1Timothy 5:8; Matthew 18:6; 2 Corinthians 12:14)
Provision for one’s family includes more that just food, clothing, and housing. Parents are to provide in all areas of life including spiritual, emotional, social, intellectual, vocational, and moral areas.
· Protection (Ephesians 6:4)
The parents are the ones who are responsible to guard the children and protect them from all the forces, which would destroy the wholeness that God intended (1 Thessalonians 5:23). They are to guard the children from sin, strife, idleness, worldliness, dishonesty, hate, moral impurity, and anything else that would cause them to become less that what God intended for them to be.
· Training (Proverbs 22:6)
The parents are to spend their time training those God has placed under them. All parents train their children, but all do not train them in godliness. Parents train by their example (Psalm 101:2-4), by direct teaching (Deuteronomy 4:9-10), and by loving discipline (Proverbs 13:24). Children learn many things from their parents. They learn:
¨ Attitudes and values
¨ How to respond to problems (theirs’ and others’)
¨ How to respond to situations
¨ How the parents respond to each other
· Guidance (Genesis 18:19)
Parents are not just to sit back and let their children make their own way though life. They are to aid their children and equip their children in the decision-making process of life by contributing their wisdom and experience to them.
¨ When the parents take responsibility in all of these areas, they have truly provided a context and an environment that is conducive to godliness, change, and growth.
What happens when parents fail to take their responsibility?
Chaos and confusion prevail!
When parents fail to take their responsibility, they can expect their offspring to inherit curses instead of blessings (Exodus 20:5; Leviticus 20:4-5; Isaiah 14:21-23; Jeremiah 9:14; Lamentations 5:7). They can expect to raise a generation that will hate them and bring them shame (Proverbs 30:11-14; Proverbs 29:15).
What happens when parents fulfill the charge that God has given to them?
When parents have truly given themselves to the charge that God has given to them, they can expect God to reward them in special ways. God will turn the hearts of the children to the parents (Malachi 4:6). The children will rise up and call them blessed (Proverbs 31:28). Their children will truly be as olive plants about their table (Psalm 128:3).
“Blessed is every on that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways. For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands, happy shall thou be, and it shall be well with thee. They wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about the table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord. The Lord shall bless the out of Zion, and thou shall see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see the children’s children, and peace upon Israel.”
Ps. 128:1-6
Provisions for the Family
Scripture Reading: 1 Timothy 5:8; Matthew 18:6; 2 Corinthians 12:14
“If a man provide not for his household, he is worse that an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8).
It is unmistakably clear that God expects parents to provide for their children. The most obvious question that comes to mind in assuming this responsibility is, “What are parents to provide?” Are parents only to provide food, clothing, and shelter? Is the child a self-developing person needing only the essential external supports to maintain life? If this were so, the State could supply these things and the parents could give themselves to “more profitable” things, as they do in communist countries. Tragically enough though, in a country where parents say they believe their role is greater than just physical provisions, what they end up providing is far too often not much more than that.
|
