Archives for June 2007

On Thursdays, I’ve been meeting with some moms who have a desire to learn what the Bible has to say about child rearing. We talk about how we can each apply God’s Word to our own lives. None of us have all the answers, and it’s most fun when everyone participates in the discussion. We spend a good amount of time praying for each other.

Getting together for a craft day, or a play group, can be profitable, but true biblical mutual edification– that’s priceless.

Yesterday was a catch up day, since two ladies are new, and we started with Chapter 1 of Parenting with Wisdom. The driving question, one that is constantly before me is… what makes Christian parenting truly Christian? Here is the key thought from the book:

Christian parenting is built on the foundation of God’s love and the authority of God’s Word. The primary focus is on raising children for the glory of God, by God’s strength and grace. A non-Christian philosophy of  parenting has as its focus raising children for the glory of the parent through the parent’s skill and ability to provide an ideal environment.

One of the lessons I want our children to learn is how to choose wise friends. This is not something I believe is a “neutral” foundation. If I wait until my children are junior high or high school to start teaching them about choosing friends, it will be a much more difficult lesson to learn.

So right now, without the Holy Spirit in their lives to give them true biblical discernment, my goal is to teach them what qualities are important in a friend. So anytime we get together with other children, we talk about the visit afterwards. Sometimes I’ll ask, Are they kind to their brothers and sisters? or Do they obey their mommy? One of the questions I ask is, Do they love God? Now, I realize that David has no way of knowing the answer to this question, particularly because a number of children who come over are unregenerate, like he is.

The point is, to teach him what is important in a friendship. And when I ask him the question, I’m showing him that I value the relationship with God as an important part of friendship. Yesterday, when I asked that question, David’s reply was, Yes, mom. They go to our church.

Guess it’s time for Part 2 of that lesson!

I’ve often wondered how to communicate our sinfulness to our children. Before they can see their need of salvation, they must understand their hopeless condition. The tendency I’ve heard and seen is to present their depravity to them on a regular basis: make sure to spank, make sure we identify selfishness as sin, make sure we tell them how lost they really are.

I do think it is good to correctly identify sin in our children’s life, but perhaps in our zeal to make our children understand that they are sinners, we forget to teach the holiness of God. Trouble is, without the holiness of God, sin is meaningless.

It’s a good attribute to teach, I think.