Word of Salvation – Vol.40 No.04 – January 1995

 

The Proper Exercise Of Parental Authority

 

Sermon by Rev. B. Hoyt on Ephesians 6:4

Scripture Readings: Proverbs 2 and Ephesians 6:1-4

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The role of a parent is one of the greatest responsibilities and one of the greatest privileges which God gives to any of us.  When one becomes a parent he is given one of God’s greatest blessings.  That is, to nourish and cherish one of God’s covenant children.  When one becomes a parent he is also given one of the weightiest tasks in all of life.  That of rearing the covenant child to become a mature and godly member of God’s kingdom.

God has given authority to parents to enable them to carry out this great task to nourish their children in the ways of the Lord.  Everyone agrees with that.  Everyone agrees that parents have authority over children.  It is true that some people do not agree in principle but they nevertheless agree in practice because they command their children.  Even the most libertarian parents command their children and expect them to obey.

We also learn that parents have authority over children from the way God has made things.  A father begets children and a mother conceives and bears children.  Therefore the children are under the parents’ authority as their own flesh and blood.

But believers understand something more than this from the Word of God.  Not only is it natural that parents have authority over their children, but the Word of God teaches us that parents are to exercise authority over their children.  It is taught in the fifth commandment.  You children can tell me what the fifth commandment is, I hope.  It’s that one commandment that is particularly given to children.  Honour your father and your mother.  In those words God makes clear that your parents have authority over you.  Also, the apostle Paul gives parents authority over their children when he says in Ephesians 6:1, Children, obey your parents in the Lord.  We have read that before.

However the proper exercise of this authority isn’t so simple.  This is where the difficulties come!  How do we teach our children?  How do we train them?  How are we to exercise our authority as parents?  Even when we understand what we are to do as parents, it’s difficult for us to do it because of the remaining sin in our own lives.  And when we don’t understand what we are to do, we certainly can’t do it!  So it’s good for us in both cases to be admonished by Scripture.  It is good, therefore, for us to be reminded of how we are to exercise our parental authority.

We shall consider our text under the following three points:

1. Firstly, The proper exercise of parental authority involves nourishing them tenderly.
2. Secondly, it involves disciplining and teaching them faithfully.
3. Thirdly, it involves following the example of the Lord.

1.  First of all, the proper exercise of parental authority involves nourishing them tenderly. We see that the text speaks to fathers.  This does not mean, of course, that mothers have no authority in the family.  That’s made plain already in verse 1, children obey your ‘parents’, plural.  But the Apostle Paul is speaking here especially to the father as the one who has the ultimate responsibility for the exercise of authority in the home.  He is accountable, finally, for how that authority is exercised.  So the Apostle speaks to him, and through him of course to the mother of the children.

We see here that the father is given a most important command.  That command is translated, ‘bring them up’.  That’s a rather bland translation.  It doesn’t really imply anything in particular about how it is to be done.  But the word in the original does imply something about how it is to be done.  You could translate it this way, “nourish them tenderly.” It’s the same word that’s used back in Ephesians 5:29 where the Apostle speaks of a husband and how he is to love his wife.  He says that a husband is to love his wife as he loves himself.

In verse 29 he goes on, “…for no one ever hated his own flesh, but he nourishes it” (this is the word), “and cherishes it just as Christ also does the Church.”  That word ‘nourish’ is the word here: bring them up.  It implies, you see, a very tender care for, looking out for the well-being of the children.  Back in Chapter 5, when Paul is speaking to husbands, he is talking especially about physical care.  A husband looks after his own physical body.  Here it is more than that.  He speaks about the spiritual and moral caring for these children as well.  But it implies, and that’s the force that I give it now, this tenderness of care.  Nourish them tenderly.

Now, this ought to be natural for you parents.  Aren’t they your own flesh and blood?  And those who are adopted, aren’t they particularly chosen by you to be your own children?  It ought to be natural for you to nourish them tenderly for these reasons.  But how often we fail in this regard.  How often there is a lack of tenderness in our dealing with our children.  This is one of the frequent failures of fathers, to tenderly care for and nourish their children.

Now I know that fathers often feel the weight of the task that is laid upon them to train their children in the ways of the Lord.  And it’s good to feel that weight.  A father sees in them, so often, very little of what he wants to see.  He sees how far short they are of the goal that’s set in Scripture for his children.  He sees how foolish and ignorant and wilful and stubborn and rebellious they are.  At times, because they are his own flesh and blood, he is shamed by their actions.

So, for these reasons he is often led to exercise his authority in a wrong way.  Instead of tenderness he provokes his children.  The Apostle points to this failure when he says even before he gives a positive command to fathers, fathers don’t provoke your children to anger.  He recognises how easily fathers fall into this sin.

Now I want to make it very clear: it is a sin to provoke your children to anger.  You might ask, “Well, how is it that fathers provoke their children.  In what ways do fathers provoke their children?”  I think it’s instructive for us to consider several of the common ways.  The Apostle doesn’t elaborate here, but the Scriptures, by way of example and teaching in various places bring out a number of ways in which fathers provoke their children to anger.

First of all there is what I might call habitual sternness.  That is, holding your children at bay – at arms length if you like, never really coming close to them so that they understand that you are sympathetic with their joys and with their sorrows; that you know where they are at; that you feel with them.  Now some fathers are cold and withdrawn because that is how they have always related to people in general.  So it is hard for them to break through that screen; it seems to always be in front of them.  Even in the family it’s hard.  Some fathers have a misdirected conscientiousness in regard to the rearing of their children.  They are afraid of relating too closely and personally to their children lest, if they get down on the floor and tussle with them, their children would have the idea that Dad is no longer in authority.  Such a home as this becomes a kind of monastery for the children.  The joys and the sweetness that ought to characterise the relationship between the father and his children are gone.  There is always this sternness.  Everything becomes duty.  Life is black and white and severe and hard all the time.  It is never softened by close fellowship.  This kind of habitual sternness can provoke children to resentment, to anger.

Secondly, There is constant exaction of duty.  Have your children learned that whenever they come into your presence you are always going to tell them to do something.  You are always going to place some restriction upon them.  Every word that they hear from you, it seems, when they come into your presence is do this or you are not allowed to do that.  Your children will quickly find ways of avoiding you.  They find this atmosphere in your presence not very pleasant so they find ways of doing things behind your back.  Rather we ought to cultivate an atmosphere in which our children enjoy their father’s smile and in which they know his attentions and where they have ready access to his affections.

Thirdly, a father may provoke his children to wrath (mothers may be included here too) by frequent criticism.  Criticism is necessary from time to time and it ought to always be constructive.  But frequent criticism, because you’re dissatisfied with your children’s performance, because they just don’t meet your standards, is a terrible thing.  It causes your children to believe and see themselves as unable to measure up.  They are never good enough.

Let us remember they are children.  We have them for sixteen or twenty years.  We have a lot of time to work with them.  They don’t have to grow up overnight.  But if they have a constant diet of criticism because they haven’t met your expectations then… well, there are few things that provoke resentment more quickly than a diet of criticism.  To be continually under scrutiny, everything they do you are watching like a hawk, that provokes anger in the hearts of your children and a feeling of bitterness.  It’s better to allow your son to tear his shirt because he plays like a boy than it is to make a more serious tear in his heart because he has to give an account for every little mishap that occurs.  Make sure you praise and commend your children when they do well, when they really try to please you.  They may not do it so well by your standards, but consider their nature and their youth, their abilities for their age and commend and praise them.  They might not reach the standards of piety that are set forth in some children’s stories – maybe Sunday School literature that you have known in the past, or some of the stories from school that I have seen.  But commend them for the piety they do show.  Commend them for their desires that are evident when they try to please you and please God.

Fourthly, a father may provoke his children to anger by favouritism or disparaging comparisons.  Every child in a family has a right to the parents’ affections.  Every child is different from every other one.  Some have greater gifts than others.  Some have a better temperament than others.  They are all different.  God has made each one and placed each one as a gift a precious gift in your home.  But if the child finds that there is partiality or favouritism then his jealousy will be aroused.  He’ll feel himself cast off.  Then he will begin to evaluate everything that you do in that light.  He’ll think even when you are trying to be kind that you are just doing it because you have some ulterior motive.  Be very careful not to show favouritism.

Now that does not mean that you have to deal with each child in exactly the same way as you deal with every other child.  Of course not.  You deal with them according to their character, according to their differences.  Children can understand that.  Be especially careful not to draw disparaging comparisons, like: “Why can’t you be like your sister?”  Think what that does to the child’s self-concept.  “Ever since you were born we have nothing but trouble in this house!”  Think what that does to that child’s self-image.  It may destroy him.  Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.

Fifthly, I would mention chastisement out of anger.  Children know the need for discipline.  God has built that into them.  They know that they need to be disciplined when they break the rules.  And if they aren’t disciplined they will be disappointed.  No, they won’t say that to you but they will feel there aren’t proper boundaries set in the home.  But when discipline is done because the parent is upset, the children feel it and it breeds resentment in their hearts.

Why does it breed resentment?  Because they understand that the parent is more concerned about himself and more concerned about his own things than about the child.  The parent has become upset and that’s why he is disciplining.  It’s not really discipline in that case, it’s vengeance.  It is the first step in child abuse.  You say that this sounds like strong language.  But I ask you what is the difference between child abuse (which the world is so afraid of and which causes them to reject corporal punishment) and a Christian parent laying into his/her child because the child has inconvenienced him causing him to get angry?  Not very much!

How is proper corporal punishment different?  The difference is this: chastisement or corporal punishment is administered for the child’s sake not because the parent has gotten upset.  If you administer chastisement because you are upset, it shows the child that you are bigger; you are able to take it out on him.  “But just wait till I’m bigger” is what the child is thinking.  That is not discipline and in fact it is teaching a wrong view of the authority of parents.

Finally, I would mention the failure to let persuasion gradually replace chastisement.  Your children grow older over the years just like you have.  As they grow older you deal differently with them.  You train them early when they are infants to respond to NO and a slap on the bottom.  They learn that there are certain boundaries they must not cross.  Then as they get older you begin to tell them what the rules are and enforce those rules with spanking.  As they get older still, you teach them the reason for the rules.  You explain why it is good for them to keep those rules.  You explain what danger they will come into if they break them.  In this way persuasion begins to replace chastisement.  You are teaching them to understand the way of the Lord.  You begin to teach them forgiveness as they get older, and how to make things right.

Finally, as the child goes through his teen years, physical chastisement is rarely appropriate.  The child must be taught and learn how to take responsibility when he does things wrong.  He learns how to make things right for himself.  He must learn to recognise the weight of his wrong doing which is now upon his own shoulders.  You don’t give it to him all at once.  But gradually, bit by bit.  You see, when a father or mother doesn’t allow that, when they don’t begin to persuade, then the children grow resentful because they know they are growing up.  They should be able to take responsibility and when they don’t, they know they should cop it for themselves.  Fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but rather nourish them tenderly.

2.  The second thing the Apostle tells us here is that parents, fathers in particular, are to discipline and to teach their children faithfully as the primary means of exercising their parental authority. There are two words that set this forth in the Scripture.  The one is translated ‘discipline’ and the second is translated ‘instruction’.  Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

That word ‘discipline’ involves training through practice.  There are certain rules to be made.  These rules are to be followed.  There are certain guidelines that are set out – a course is mapped out and your child is directed along that path.  It is practice and training.  That is what discipline is.  Then, of course, when the rules are broken and the child deviates from the path that is set out, there has to be discipline.  Corporal punishment is given, therefore, to the parent as a means by which he instructs and disciplines his child.  The pagan writers in ancient times used this word merely to mean educate and they didn’t include the idea of corporal punishment.  The pagan writers didn’t really understand the nature of a child, i.e., that his heart is sinful, bound up in foolishness.  We have the same kind of paganism today in our own society.  It’s believed that if we can just educate our children, then they will be all right.  The Bible does not teach that.  The Bible makes it plain that if you withhold the rod from the child you will lead him to hell because his heart is bent in the direction of foolishness.

Proverbs 22:15 and 23:13-14 teach us about the hearts of our children.  Let us read these verses.  Proverbs 22:15, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.”  Proverbs 23:13-14, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.  Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.”

The foolishness mentioned here is the deep seated belief that what is good for me is what I want.  The child that does not receive correction will continue on the way to hell.  The rod is given to the parent as a means of grace.  It is a means that God places in the hands of the parent by which the parent may discipline, instruct and train the child; change his foolish beliefs into correct ones; turn him back when he goes astray.  Spare the rod and spoil the child is far too weak.  Spare the rod and the child will continue in sin which leads to eternal death.  Spare the rod and damn the child would be more in accord with the teaching of Scripture.

The second word is translated ‘instruction’ and this means verbal communication of the truth.  This is the teaching that must go on and gradually replace the corporal punishment that is necessary in the earlier years.  The nourishment that fathers are to exercise for their children, that tender nourishment is especially to be done as they teach them and as they instruct them and as they lead them morally and spiritually in the ways of the Lord.  We don’t desire a merely automatic response from our children.  It’s not as though we give a command and they do it and that’s all there is to it.  That’s not the point.  You can get a dog to do that.  But God wants us to bring our children to maturity.  That is why He uses these words.

Disciplining them, guiding them, helping them practice the ways of the Lord and also teaching them to understand the ways of God.  This is changing their beliefs to those of God’s – teaching them to think His thoughts after Him.  We want a thoughtful, understanding, heartfelt obedience to Him.  That is what God wants from us and that is what we want our children to learn, so that when they are mature they will have the kind of faith and understanding, heartfelt trust in the Lord, which leads them to obey Him because they love Him.

There are a lot of advantages that a parent has – advantages that aren’t available in any other situation.  I’ll just mention a couple which you should use to greatest advantage.  Seize these advantages.  A child is a minor, as I have mentioned, for sixteen to twenty years.  There isn’t any other situation in life where you are able to train someone for sixteen to twenty years.  But God has placed these children in your hands for this length of time.  That means that you don’t have to accomplish everything in a day.  You don’t have to try to accomplish everything in a year.  You can take the most important things one by one and lead your children in the ways of the Lord.  You can deal patiently and gently with them even though they often turn aside because you have many years.

A child is extremely dependent upon his parents.  That is a great advantage for you as a parent.  You see, you care for him and provide for him in every way.  He couldn’t live without you.  Oh, I know there are a few examples of children being reared by dogs and wolves and so on.  It’s extremely exceptional and they are certainly not nourished in the ways of the Lord.  You see, the child is dependent fully upon the parents.  Use that to your advantage.  It’s the greatest motivation he has to listen to his parents, because they care for him.  It’s the greatest motivation for him to love his parents, because they care for him and love him.  So seize that opportunity.

And also, you should remember that a child is naturally believing.  He naturally believes what you tell him, especially in his early years.  Use that to advantage and teach him the truth.  Teach him the ways of God early.  Thus he will learn to evaluate all the knowledge that he gains in the future in that light.

May I mention a couple of physical factors about family life that I have come to appreciate in my own family?  That is that the older children set an example for the younger children and give instruction themselves to the younger children.  If you are faithful and firm in teaching your first-born so that he learns to submit to his parents and learns to walk in the ways of the Lord early on, then your discipline needn’t be so severe and you’ll be able to rest a little bit because of the help you get from your older children.

As they set an example, it becomes clear to the younger children that there is a certain law in this home: we walk in the ways of God; we submit to the authority of our parents; we don’t go around moaning and complaining and rebelling.  That is just not the way things are done in this household.  Then little children see their older brothers and sisters and they learn from that pattern.  That is a great advantage in a family of several children.  Seize these advantages early and you have every right to expect God to fulfil His promise given to your children at their baptism, that they would grow to maturity and in faith walk in the ways of the Lord.

3.  Finally, parental authority must be in accord with God’s Word. That is taught to us by the Apostle in those three little words at the end of the text, of the Lord.  Fathers do not provoke you children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.  I believe that is to be understood in the following sense: that the nurture and the discipline and the instruction of our children is to be that which the Lord prescribes; that which He exemplifies in His dealings with us.  God is our pattern in everything, isn’t He?  Everything the Lord God does in His dealings with us is a pattern for us as to how we should live.  He doesn’t call Himself our heavenly Father for no reason.

One of His reasons is to teach us how a father is to deal with his children.  It’s one of the reasons why the Old Testament, where God sets forth his dealings with His children in history, is so important.  It’s important to instruct your children in that history.  It’s valuable for you as a parent to learn how God dealt with His children in their immaturity.  The Apostle Paul says that God dealt with the people of Israel as a people in their immaturity.  Therefore we can learn from that dealing.

Now I know that God was dealing with them in an immature spiritual condition.  I understand that the immaturity Paul refers to is due to the fact that Christ had not yet come.  The great and final work of God had not yet been done and the Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out.  But from the method God uses to deal spiritually with His people, we can learn much in dealing with our children.

In another place the Apostle quotes from the Book of Proverbs to make it clear that the dealings of God with His people are to be a pattern for us in bringing up our children.  How does the Lord deal with you?  That’s what you should ask yourself.  How has God dealt with His people?  Well, He has been ever so patient with them over long periods of time.  How stubborn we are.  How wilful we are.  How unthinking we are.  How difficult it is for us to overcome the common sins in our life.  And the Lord deals patiently with us.  Should not you as a father, as a mother?

Consider how gentle our heavenly Father is with us.  How stupid we are so often.  How unthankful we are.  How often we disregard the Word of God, and yet God deals so gently with us.  Do you have any right to react in anger; to throw things at your children; to yell and scream at them for the same things about which the Lord deals so gently with you?  Consider His sacrificial love.  He gave His only begotten Son for our redemption; for our eternal well-being.  Giving himself.  Then we must ask, shall we not give ourselves for our children’s welfare, for their eternal well-being?

Consider His forgiveness.  Forgiveness of your sins, the thousands of sins He has forgiven you.  For some sins you have gone to Him and asked for forgiveness so many times that you are ashamed to go again.  Yet he still forgives.  Should not you as a parent deal that way with your children?

In all these ways our loving heavenly Father provides an example for us as parents.  It’s an example of the proper exercise of parental authority.  May the Lord grant us grace to nourish our children out of concern for their well-being; their spiritual and eternal well-being, not merely their physical well-being; not merely their temporal well-being, but their eternal well-being.

May God grant us grace so that we can lead our children and instruct our children and impress upon them God’s wisdom, as the Proverbs do.  As in the passage we read earlier from Proverbs: “My son, if you will receive my sayings and treasure my commandments within you, then you will discern the fear of the Lord; then you will discover the knowledge of God, for the Lord gives wisdom; He preserves the way of His godly ones.  Wisdom will enter your heart.”

May this Word of the Lord be always upon our hearts as we teach our children and as we tenderly nourish and discipline them; as we care for them as God cares for us.  May God’s grace be upon us.

Amen.