Charles Hodge on Education

Last week the local newspaper here in Morgantown, The Dominion Post, wrote an editorial disparaging a new homeschooling law, which gives homeschoolers more freedom in their educational choices. I plan on responding to the article as well as writing several blog posts explaining why Christians must give their children a Christian education. In the meantime, here is a blog post I wrote in December 2012 which should help prime the pump. The initial quote is from Charles Hodge's commentary on Ephesians. Hodge was a professor at Princeton in 1800's, when it was still Christian. He was of the great American reformed men in 1800's. 

“This whole process of education is to be religious, and not only religious, but Christian. It is the nurture and admonition of the Lord which is the appointed and the only effectual means of attaining the end of education. Where this means is neglected or any other substituted in its place, the result must be disastrous failure. The moral and religious element of our nature is just as essential and as universal as the intellectual. Religion, therefore, is as necessary to the development of the mind as knowledge. And as Christianity is the only true religion, and God in Christ the only true God, the only possible means of profitable education is the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That is, the whole process of instruction and discipline must be that which he prescribes and which he administers, so that his authority should be brought in constant and immediate contact with mind, heart and conscience of the child.  It will not do for the parent to present himself as the ultimate end, the source of knowledge and possessor of authority to determine truth and duty. This would be to give his child a mere human development. Nor will it do for him to urge and communicate every thing on the abstract ground of reason; for that would be to merge his child in nature. It is only by making God, God in Christ, the teacher and ruler, on whose authority every thing it so be believed, and in obedience to whose will every thing is to be done, that the ends of education can possibly be attained. It is infinite folly in men to assume to be wiser than God, or to attempt to accomplish an end by other means than those which he has appointed.” (Charles Hodge on in his commentary on Ephesians 6:4)

Hodge makes some excellent points in this paragraph, a couple of which I would like to draw you attention to.

First, education must include the will and the moral character if it is to be called education at all.  I would add that education will be religious and moral in nature. The only question is will the religion be explicit or hidden. Public schools train our children to worship and form their moral character all the while claiming that they are morally neutral.

Second, God, since he is the only God, is the only right source of education. To try to gain a proper moral formation apart from God is like doing heart surgery with a butter knife. 

Third, notice how Hodge says that the child’s heart, mind, and conscience must be brought into constant and immediate contact with God’s authority. This is a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 6:7. And here is why an education that excludes the Lord is a lie and is no education at all. God really does rule the world through His Son Jesus Christ and we really are to trust in Him and obey him and his Word really is the foundation for everything. To eliminate God’s authority from education is to eliminate the primary lesson that is to be learned.

Fourth, God is to set the curriculum. That curriculum is to make our children like their Savior Jesus. That does not eliminate math or science or literature. But it does eliminate math or science or literature without Jesus.  This also means that returning some vague, amorphous “god” to public education is not sufficient.  It must be “God in Christ.” This also means the goal of an education is not to pass a test, get a job, get to college or make a lot of money. 

Fifth, any attempt to educate our children any other way is infinite folly and is a guaranteed disaster. We cannot eliminate the Creator and the Savior from our education and not also ultimately eliminate wisdom and joy and beauty and truth and righteousness. 

Similar Posts
C.S. Lewis on Education
A Plea to Flee Public Schools

No, It Really Isn't That Hard

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Wendy Davis, a Democratic politician from Texas who tried to become governor said this:

She is angry about the threat of Planned Parenthood being defunded. She thinks abortion is great. She thinks it is unfair for women to have carry children to term. 

Several thoughts went through my mind as I read this. First, the use of "literally" is like, totally, lame. 

Second, no one is forcing women into being child bearing vessels. They are born that way.  God made women to bear children. They do not enter this world with no reproductive organs and then some scientist inserts a womb. They enter this world with wombs and breasts, which are for carrying, giving birth to, and feeding children. 

Third, very few women are forced to bear children. The only exception would be a pregnant rape victim. All other women know that having sex can lead to children and they chose to do it anyway. If they don't want children then they shouldn't have sex. Typically we see in this statement by Ms. Davis the divorcing of sex from procreation. She wants to chant, "Make love, not children." The world doesn't work that way. 

Finally, is it really that hard to feed and educate a bunch of children? Raising children is hard work. But feeding them and educating them is not the most difficult part. In fact, I have never had a problem feeding or educating my children. One year I made less than thirteen thousand dollars and my children (at that time I had four) were still fed, clothed, and educated. Currently, I have nine children. My wife has not worked for money in many years. I am a pastor. In other words, I am not rich, have a lot of children, and my wife does not work. You might think I would struggle to make ends meet. But that is not the case. We feed our children just fine without using government money.  We home school our children and they regularly score above the national average on tests. In other words, I pay for my kids school and I pay for someone else's kids school. My church is kind to me, but I know that even with nine children I could feed and educate them on a lot less than what I currently make. 

Everyone does not have to do it my way, though I think you should avoid the schools of Molech. And I know there are hard cases where it is difficult to pay the bills. But most people by hard work, careful use of resources, sacrifice, and a refusal to buy everything being sold by the advertisers can feed and educate their children, even when they have a lot of them. It is getting harder to make ends meet. But that is because of all the taxes being taken from the people to fund overseas wars, public school, welfare, and Planned Parenthood. We can feed and educate our children as long the Republicans and Democrats will let us keep our money.  So the answer is not more government programs or abortion. The answer is lower taxes, hard work, and lots of little feet. 

Parents as Idol Worshippers

This is a post from 2012 that I thought was worth reposting.

Paul Tripp in his excellent book  Age of Opportunity lists several idols that parents have.  He notes that these idols often keep them from effectively parenting their teens. Here is the list of idols with a brief explanation from Mr. Tripp.

Idol 1: Comfort
"Secretly in our hearts, many of us want life to be a resort. A resort is a place where you are the one who is served...I am afraid that many of us live for comfort and bring this entitlement mentality to our parenting...Scripture warns us that life is far from being a resort. Life is war."

Idol 2: Respect
"Is respect a good thing? Of course! Is it something that parents should seek to instill in their children? Yes! But it must not be the thing that controls my heart or I will personalize what is not personal, I will lose sight of my role as God's representative, and I will fight and demand what only God can produce."

Idol 3: Appreciation
"Children should appreciate their parents. Yet being appreciated cannot be our goal.  When it becomes the thing we live for, we will unwittingly look with hyper-vigilant eyes for appreciation in every situation...If parents have forgotten their own vertical relationship with God as they've ministered to their teens, if they think of it all as an 'I serve, you appreciate' contract between parent and child, they will struggle with lots of discouragement and anger during the teen years."

Idol 4: Success
"We tend to approach parenting with a sense of ownership, that these are our children and their obedience is our right...We begin to need them to be what they should be so that we can feel a sense of achievement and success.  We begin to look at our children as our trophies rather than God's creatures...When they fail to live to our expectations, we find ourselves not grieving for them and fighting with them, but angry at them, fighting against them, and, in fact, grieving for ourselves and our loss."

Idol 5: Control
"The goal of parenting is not to retain tight-fisted control over our children in an attempt to guarantee their safety and our sanity. Only God is able to exercise that kind of control.  The goal is to be used of him to instill in our children an ever-maturing self-control through the principles of the Word and to allow them to exercise ever-widening circles of choice, control, and independence."

The Heart of a Serial Killer

I am not sure how closely TV matches reality, but if the show Criminal Minds is near the truth then FBI profilers have an interesting job. In the show, a group of behavior analysts try to catch serial criminals (usually killers). The focus is on the psychology of the criminals, not the forensics of the crime. What is it that makes these killers tick? Why does that guy burn down houses? Why does that woman kill other women? Why does that man rape and kill women and then carefully bury them with their arms cross? Mixed in is a lot of Freudian non-sense. I am not necessarily recommending the show. I am not sure about shows that claim to be against violence, but often glorify the violence they claim to oppose.

What I found interesting about the show is the criminals do what they do to fill a need. A common phrase on the show is, "The criminal does [fill in crime here] to fill a need." Determining what need the criminal has will often help them catch the criminal. Of course, lurking in the background is secular psychology and no concept of sin, repentance, and salvation. However, it got me thinking about how we all try to fill our needs and the results of trying to fill those needs. In the show the needs are often emotional.  A man needs power so he rapes. A woman hates her father so she burns down houses with unfit fathers. A child abandoned by his mother beats another child. A man needs control so he kidnaps kids. And so on.

We want there to be a chasm between us and those criminals. Sounds outlandish doesn't?  Abusing others to meet a need in ourselves is not what we do. Right? Right? Of course, we do.  That is one of the reasons the show makes sense. Humans function from a deficit. We are all running on empty. All of us are needy.  The show merely gives us the big, bloody, terrifying truth about all of us. We use other people to fill our own souls. We take from others to give to ourselves. Our cup is half-full so we suck from those around us.

Many of the criminals on the show believe they are doing good. As Christians we can take the same approach. We do good things and ask others to do good things, but the reason is to fill some hole in us. Christians don't kill others. But we manipulate them to get what we want. Christian parents do not usually physically abuse their children, but they chain them in other ways, such as making house rules into God's rules. Christian wives do not usually shoot their husbands, but they will use verses such as Ephesians 5:25 to make sure their husbands don't lead, but give in to their whims. Christian husbands do not usually treat their wives in wicked ways sexually, but they will view them as objects, there to satisfy their needs. Our hearts often function in the same way as those serial killers. We are empty and needy and therefore we take from others.

The answer, the only answer to our emptiness, is Christ. He is the only one who fills our needs. With Christ we are full. Therefore we do not need to take. With Christ we do not want (Psalm 23:1) and therefore we are free to give to those around us. If you are not being filled by Christ then you will stay empty. If you are not being filled by Christ you will drain those around you dry. You will wither and those around you will wither. If you are empty, look to Christ, who gives water that quenches all thirst (John 4:13-14).

A Few Words for Children Who Were Home Schooled

This article is meant to be read in conjunction with the one to parents. They balance each other out. I was home schooled and I am currently homeschooling so I have been on both ends of these blog posts. I think there is much here for all children to learn, but I have addressed this specifically to home schooled children.  

The world of home schooling has blown up over the last year, especially with the ugly sins of Doug Philips and Bill Gothard being exposed. These men influenced home schoolers in significant ways. This has led to blog posts, web sites, etc., by adults who were home schooled, where they decry their upbringing. Often these articles have good points, but, at times, there is an underlying attitude that can leave a bad taste in my mouth. Here is what I would say to adults who were home schooled and look back with disappointment on their growing up years.

First, don't blame your parents and your upbringing for your sins and your problems. Sometimes these articles can be summed up as: Mom and Dad left me with a lot of baggage. All of our parents did that. You will do that to your kids. If you see problems in your life, don't whisper to yourself, "It was my parents' fault."  Don't allow your heart to echo, "If only my upbringing was different." Your upbringing was fine. You did not have it any worse than anyone else. This victim mentality fits in well with American culture, but isn't befitting someone claiming the name of Christ.

Second, stop trying to show your parents all the things they did wrong. Often you should make different decisions than your parents. The problem is not making a different choice than Mom and Dad. It is making a different choice and making a point with that different choice. Make the choices you think are best according to the Scriptures, but don't poke your parents in the eye while doing it. Treat your parents with respect even when you disagree with them or do things differently.  As an aside, grown children should be cautious about calling out their parents, especially publicly. Your parents did sin against you, as you will sin against your children. But grace covers sin. Cover your parents' sins.

Third, rules do not equal legalism. Just because your parents made you wear denim jumpers or wouldn't let you watch R movies does not make them a Pharisee. The word legalism is tossed around too easily today. Different rules from the ones you have for your household does not mean you were raised as a Pharisee. Legalism does exist in homeschooling circles. But it should be carefully defined and then proven. Saying your parents were legalists may score you rhetorical points, but it doesn't prove your point.

Fourth, in most cases your parents were first or second generation home schoolers. They were pioneers. When my mom home schooled me the choices were limited. Now they are almost unlimited. Blazing a trail is different from settling down and building a city. They had to cut down their own trees. There were no paved roads. That means the path was rougher and maybe they got off track here and there. Be gracious and humble. They did a good work by trying to bring you up in the ways of Christ. Was it perfect? Of course not. Were there things about the home schooling movement that were off track? Of course. As 2nd or 3rd generation home schoolers we need to keep building the city, but not with a pride that looks down on those who got us here.

Finally, give thanks for the parents God gave to you. I do not mean a warm, fuzzy feeling just above your rib cage. Tell them how thankful you are for what they did. Tell your children how thankful you are for your parents. Call them often and tell them of your love. Speak well of them in public and private. All of us could find things wrong with our parents. All of us could snipe and pick and bite them. But as Christians is that what we are supposed to do? Doesn't love cover a multitude of sins? Would you want your grown children sniping at you that way? Didn't the same God who sent His Son to deliver you send those parents to raise you? Be grateful for what they gave you, not bitter over what they didn't.

Biblical But Not Magical: Joel Beeke on Spanking

I am enjoying Joel Beeke's book on raising children, Parenting by God's Promises. It is a great blend of paedo-baptist confidence with warm, evangelical piety. Here are some quotes from his chapter on spanking. All formatting and Scripture references in the following quotes are Beeke's.

We must  be careful not to fall into the following errors. The first is the error of love without correction. A parent says, "I love my children so much I can't spank them." The Bible says we do not love our children if we do not spank them or correct them (Prov. 13:24). Children need correction, and without it they are not likely to put any great value on our love. 

The second problem is a rod of correction without love. We then spank out of anger (whether piping hot or icy cold), and our children feel nothing but physical pain and the equally bitter sting of our wrath. They see that we are not really grieved when we spank them, and they do not feel we are doing it in God's name. They know we are punishing them because we are angry. Proverbs 15:18 says, "A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife." Angry discipline is counterproductive as a means of training our children in godliness. 

I like how he notes that anger can be both hot, which is what we usually think of, or cold. Sometimes parents can be angry and mean without ever blowing their tops.

He goes on to say that we should have faith in the means God has given us for raising godly children.

Faith in God's Word gives us confidence to use the means God has appointed for parenting. Teaching the Scriptures, praying for our children, and disciplining them in the context of participation in a local church might seem insufficient measures to shape children. But God has given these means in His wisdom. We must trust Him and not try to second-guess the Creator. We dare not lean on our own understanding or the pop psychology of the latest parenting book. Instead, we must trust in the Lord and keep using the means He has ordained.

In the quote below, he makes an excellent point about the purpose of spanking. Often we do not evaluate whether our discipline actually worked. Do we even know what is the goal of spanking our children?

The aim of corrective discipline is to lead children to repentance; it is educational and reformative...Administering punishment to encourage repentance makes us sensitive to how children are responding. When disciplined, children must show signs of recognizing that what they did was wrong. A broken and contrite heart draws forth our mercy and affection. Stubbornness and hardness of heart may call for further punishment. Beware of false responses, for many children try to say the right things to get out of trouble. Look for sincere hearts of penitence over sinning against God (Pss. 32; 51). 

In a great section on appropriate punishment he says:

The more serious the offense, the greater care we should take in punishing it. Discipline that is in inappropriate to the situation-either too severe to be warranted or too lax to be effective-will undercut all we are hoping to accomplish with our children. 

We must administer discipline with firmness if it is to accomplish its goal. A few love taps will not work; it must hurt. God actually made some of his children "sick and weakly" even to the point of death in order to discipline them (I Cor. 11:30). Psalm 89:31-33 says: "If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." God disciplines us as much as is appropriate and effective. As parents, we are to apply the same principle to our children. 

Note Beeke's emphasis on what is appropriate and what is effective. Our discipline needs to fit to the sin, but also needs to produce a certain type of fruit in the child.

Finally, this quote is full of wisdom:

How often should we spank our children? Some children need very few spankings to bring on a sincere flood of tears and repentance. With others, more spankings are required. If we find ourselves spanking the same child several times a day, we should pause to reflect on the total situation and what other factors may be at work to undercut the effectiveness of corporal punishment. The law of diminishing returns applies to corporal punishment as it does to many other aspects of life. If other important parts of nurture and training are lacking, frequent corporal punishment may prove to be only a tragic way to produce a very hardened young sinner. 

Beeke's point in this quote is that spanking is but one part of training a child. If your spankings are ineffective the answer is not to drop the spankings, but to instead look at everything else that is going on. Spanking is biblical and should be done. However, it is not a magic bullet that will make your child more holy. If the overall situation with your child is one of sacrificial love, nurture, walking with them before God and pointing them to Jesus, then spankings will generally be effective. But if you think that spankings can substitute for other types of love, affection, exhortations, rebuke, attention, etc., you are mistaken.

As a parent, I read these quotes and find myself encouraged and rebuked. What Paul said of preaching I say of parenting, "Who is sufficient for these things" (II Cor. 2:16)?  And with Paul I say, "Our sufficiency is from God" (II Cor. 3:5).

A Most Fearsome Specter

More from Steven Ozment:

It is a great, self-serving myth of the modern world that the children in former times were raised as near slaves by domineering, loveless fathers who owed them nothing, the home a training ground for the docile subjects of absolute rulers. To the contrary, from prenatal care to their indoctrination in schools, there is every evidence that children were considered special and were loved by their parents and teachers, their nurture the highest of human vocations, their proper moral and vocational training humankind's best hope. Parenthood was a conditional trust, not an absolute right, and the home was a model of benevolent and just rule for the "state" to emulate.

In the sixteenth century children were raised and educated above all to be social beings; in this sense they had more duties toward their parents and society than they had rights independent of them. This did not mean that the family lacked an internal identity or that loving relationships failed to develop between spouses, between parents and children, and among siblings. Privacy and social extension were not perceived contradictory. The great fear was not that children would be abused by adult authority but that children might grow up to place their own individual rights above society's common good. To the people of Reformation Europe no specter was more fearsome than a society in which the desires of individuals eclipsed their sense of social duty. The prevention of just that possibility became the common duty of every Christian parent, teacher, and magistrate. 

How striking this last paragraph is when compared to modern rhetoric about rights.  Almost every child in this country is raised to think about themselves, their needs, their wants, and their desires. The fundamental question they ask is, "What can you do for me?" They come not to serve or do their duty to family, state, and community. Rather they come to be served. Service to their fellow man is the least of their concerns. Their own rights their greatest concern. In that way children of today are raised to have a fundamentally different orientation that children of the previous generations. The blame for our children turning out this way is to be found in Ozment's last sentence. Parents, teachers, and magistrates fail to teach selfless duty and fail to model it.

Spanking in Reformation Europe

Here is an interesting quote from Steven Ozment's book When Fathers Ruled.  All punctuation and italics are Ozment's.

When the unpleasant task of spanking was necessary, always as last resort, the housefather books, summarizing generations of advice on corporal punishment, instructed fathers never to punish a child to the point that he became terrorized, embittered, or moved to anger against a parent; fathers, after all, are not "hangmen." A proper spanking should be timely, coming on the heels of the infraction; "coolly" administered; calmly explained and justified in advance (a spanking was a rational exercise); and accompanied by profuse assurance of parental love...Spanking a child also required a degree of humility on the part of the parent because its very occurrence attested to the incompleteness, if not also the imperfection, of his child rearing.

Questions About Family Worship

Here are some common questions that come up when family worship is discussed.

Will family worship make my children super-spiritual?
Okay, no one actually says this, but it is often an unspoken assumption. We believe that family worship is some great key to unlocking our children's potential holiness. It is not. It is one of the many things that we can do to help our children grow. But it is not magic. Many families have practiced family worship and yet not brought their children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Do family worship, but don't expect it to do too much. There are many other tools we must use alongside family worship to raise godly children.

What if I am not capable of teaching my family God's Word? 
All men who lead their family in worship feel inadequate.  However, if you are the father, then God expects you to lead your family in learning God's Word. The usual problem here is that we think we need to be John Piper or Mark Driscoll every time we have family worship. But you don't need to be an amazing speaker to lead your family in worship. You don't need to be profound. In fact, when we try to sound profound often we lose our children's attention. All you need to do is give your family one clear truth from Scripture each time.

How do I practice family worship with young children?
Family worship can be difficult with young children. My encouragement would be to keep it simple and short. If you have a three or four year old read them a little Scripture, sing a short song, and pray with them. After you read them the Bible explain what it is saying in short, clear sentences. Young children understand a lot more than we think they do. You can read them stories from the Bible. But you can also read them books like Ephesians. For example, you could read Ephesians 1:7-10. If I was talking to little children I would explain that Jesus died for us and that we can run to him to have our sins taken away. That is about all I would say. Illustrations are very helpful with young children. Sin is like mud and Jesus makes us clean. It may not be Charles Spurgeon, but it is true and clear. And that is all that is necessary.

How do I practice family worship with a broad age range?
This follows naturally from the above question. What if I have numerous age ranges? A good shepherd understands how to minister to various kinds of sheep. This is easy to do one on one, but in a group it is more difficult.  The key is to try balance the increasing inquisitiveness of the older children with the short attention spans of the younger ones. Here are my two suggestions. First, talk directly to the little ones as you do worship. Look them in the eye and ask them questions on their level. For example, "Elijah (my three year old) what does Jesus have coming out of his mouth?"  Second, let the older ones ask questions, but don't allow them to go on and on. With older children, you will want to set aside time to discuss spiritual issues with them outside of family worship. Sometimes I will tell one of my older children to wait until after family worship and then answer their question privately.

Can I use a story Bible instead of the real Bible?
Using a story Bible can be a helpful way to supplement reading the Bible. But I would not encourage using it in place of reading Scripture. Even with young children I would read at least a little bit of the "real" Bible.

Can the wife lead family worship in the husband's absence? 
A wife can lead in family worship in her husband's absence as long as she does it in a way that supports her husband and does not undermine him. The woman in  Proverbs 31 has wisdom on her tongue and the law of kindness in her mouth (Proverbs 31:26). It might also be worthwhile to have older sons lead family worship occasionally to get practice.

What if a woman is married to a non-Christian husband? 
This is a difficult question. The wife is stuck here between two competing obligations. First, she wants to give her children God's Word. Second, she wants to respect her husband's wishes. Ideally, she would graciously approach her husband and ask to have a short Bible time with the children. I think most non-Christian husbands will be fine with this. She should ask what time he would like her to do it so it does not cause him unnecessary interference.  If he says no, then she is stuck. I would encourage her to not implement family worship without her husband's consent. If there is no family worship, she should make sure she is giving her children God's Word all day. (Deut. 6:7) If the husband will not allow it then she needs to make sure her children are getting the Bible other ways. Family worship is not explicitly commanded in Scripture so her husband is not forcing her to disobey God's Word.

Note: Several of these answers were influenced by Jason Helopoulos' book A Neglected Grace. 

A Primer on Family Worship

Family worship should be a regular part of the life of a Christian family. However, most of us did not grow up with family worship. Naturally we have questions about how it is to be done. When I started family worship I expected way too much. I went way too long and was pretty boring. My children's eyes quickly got that look of chained up prisoners instead of joyful participants.  I thought I would describe my family's practice in hopes that it might help you avoid some of the same mistakes.

What are the Parts of Family Worship?
We tend to make this more complicated than it actually is. There are three core elements of family worship: Scripture, song, and prayer. You can also add Scripture memory and/or catechism if you wish.

Here is our current practice in order. My practice is not Scripture.

Memorization-Usually I read the verse we are learning, the children repeat after me line by line, then we all say it together. A few days of this and we usually have it down.

Scripture Reading-I read a passage of Scripture and try to bring out one clear point to leave with the children. I open it up for questions and comments at the end. I have children ranging from 1 year to 14 years. I try to keep the younger ones involved by asking questions or making them repeat phrases, such as Satan is the great dragon. (We are currently reading Revelation.) I also try to answer the questions the older ones have without letting it get too long winded.

Singing-We sing a song, usually one we will be singing the following Sunday in corporate worship. Since many of our children cannot read we try to learn the song by hearing it instead of reading. This means we will often sing verse one until we get it. Then we will move on to verse 2 the following night. If you are not musically inclined, get one of your devices and sing along to the song on Youtube or another website.

Prayer-We end with prayer. I vary this up quite a bit. Sometimes I just pray. Often I will have a couple of the children pray. The older the child is the more freedom I give them. For example, with my thirteen year old I would just say, "Son can you pray for someone at church?" With my 6 year old I would say, "Amelia, can you please give thanks to God for Mrs. So and So's new baby?" Don't make this prayer time too long.

All in all, this takes about fifteen minutes. As the kids get older, don't be afraid to go a bit longer or dismiss the younger  kids and keep the older ones around for some more instruction.

How Can We Be More Consistent?
Consistency is probably the greatest difficulty in family worship. We will do it for a few nights or a week, but then something will happen and we will stop for a while. Then we will pick it back up again. Here are some things I have learned that help with consistency.

We try to get it in every day. This may seem obvious, but doing family worship once a week will not help with consistency. Even on Sunday we will often sit down and read together in the afternoon. Sometimes I will vary Sunday up by reading some of the kids favorite passages. If you try for every day you will often get it in 4-5 times a week. That is enough to produce consistency.

We do family worship at the same time. By this I do not mean 7pm or 6 am. I mean we fit it in the same slot everyday. We do ours right after dinner. We clear the table then gather in the living room for family worship. It might be 6, 6:30, or 7. The exact time is not as important as the children learning that worship immediately follows dinner.

We do it in the same place. As 21st century Christians, we tend to have deficient view of place We think that worship is worship no matter where you are. There is some truth here. But there is a great benefit to using the same place for the same thing every time. It provides consistency and a trigger for the children.

We don't do it if it gets too late. How does this help with consistency? We can become reluctant if the last family worship experience was terrible. If all the kids have bags under their eyes then get them to bed and try to get to it earlier tomorrow. The same goes for having family worship in the morning. If the children were up too late, let them sleep.  If you find it getting too late several nights in a row you will want to adjust some other things to make sure you have time for it.

When we miss a few days, we don't get discourage. Family worship is a wonderful way for a family to experience God's grace. God's grace means we don't fall into self-pity or act like family worship is a work we do to earn God's favor.  Let it go if you missed it. Move on and try to get it in next time. Don't get discouraged.

I wanted to end with the great quote from Thomas Chalmers. He was a pastor in England in the early 1800s. His quote is a good reminder that regular, small efforts are what make the greatest difference in our lives.

“It is not by irregular efforts that any great practical achievement is overtaken. It is by the constant recurrence and repetition of small efforts directed to a given object, and resolutely sustained and persevered in.”

Temptations When Parenting is Going Well

As I prepared my sermon on parenting last week, I thought of several temptations that come when parenting is going well and other temptations that come when parenting is going poorly. I would like to address the first today and the second later. 

There are temptations we face when things are going poorly, but these temptations are usually obvious. When things are going well and our home is in harmony and everyone is happy we tend to let down our guard. Satan loves to attack during these times. My father always told me that I should be ready for an attack just after a victory. There is a lot of wisdom in that statement. So what should be looking out for when parenting is going well? (Some of you may be saying, “I don’t have to worry about this because my parenting never goes well.” Just humor me and read the post anyway.)

Pride

This is the most obvious one, and yet the sin we tend to ignore.  When we are doing well a subtle pride can creep in where we start thinking a lot of our parenting skills. We start believing that we have answers for all those people around us.  

Sign We Are Falling Into this Sin: We become critical of others. A critical, biting spirit is a sure sign of pride. You do not have to say anything to others for this spirit to be present. 

Self-Righteousness

This is more like 1b instead of 2. Pride and self-righteousness go hand in hand. When things are going well we tend to forget God’s grace. We begin to believe it is our hard work that has gotten us here.  We believe we have fixed our children. Our schedule and our discipline are the keys to how well our children are behaving. Our family worship is the central reason we see them loving God. Our great attitude has helped our children have a great attitude. And so on. 

Sign: We stop giving thanks. See below for more on this.

Idolizing Our Children

Our children become trophies of our work instead of trophies of God’s grace. This ties in very closely with the first two.  Christ told us to do good works so that our Father might be glorified (Matthew 5:16). But instead we do works so we might be glorified or our children might be glorified.

Sign: We want other people to see how well our children are doing. We look for men to praise our children and our parenting. If we long for the praise of men there is usually something wrong in our hearts.  

Complacency

When things are going well we tend to relax, which can lead to spiritual lethargy. That anger, which we worked so hard to keep in check, we let run free. We stop loving our children as we ought to. We stop diligently training them in righteousness. We get slack in praying for them.  We stop pointing them to Jesus. 

Sign: We let our little sins slide.  We excuse and justify our own sins. When we do this spiritual rigor mortis has set in.

Resisting These Temptations

When our parenting is going well how can fight against these sins?

First, we need to give thanks. Thanksgiving is the key to defeating so many of Satan’s strategies. The first three temptations I list are defeated when we give thanks. Giving thanks causes us to recognize God’s hand in all that has happened. If our children are growing in obedience and love for God it is His work, not ours that has brought this about.  We stop seeking the praise of men when we give thanks to God for his work. Thanksgiving is great antidote to spiritual pride and self-righteousness. 

Second, we need to repent. Pride is the death of repentance. If you find yourself not confessing your sins and not asking forgiveness from your children then you have probably fallen into one or all of these sins. 

Finally, we need to remember God's grace to us. To quote Paul out of context, "What do we have that we did not receive?" (I Cor. 4:7) No parent ever merits good children. We do labor for them. We do pray for them. We do work for them.  But in the end, even one day of peace and harmony is a gift of God's grace. 

Obedience is the Door to Joy

Reformation begins with a Spirit-given desire to submit fully and completely to the Scriptures. It does not matter whether this reformation begins in the home or the church or in the community. Sitting humbly under the Word is an essential ingredient.

In my home one of the ways I have worked towards reformation is by getting my children to obey me. This is not easy in our culture where both authority and submission are despised. By getting my children to obey, I am learning to obey. But as with any good thing there are dangers. One of the great dangers of teaching my children to obey is to view their obedience as the goal instead of the means to a greater goal. The Westminster Shorter Catechism very succinctly names the goal we should have in life:

Question: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: The chief  end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. 

In a delightful phrase that I, unfortunately, just found, The Belgic Confession says that God is the "overflowing fountain of all good." (Article I) The goal is enjoying God, not obeying him. Now, you cannot have joy without obedience. But it is possible to have a type of obedience that does not lead to joy. It is possible to teach our children to obey without ever leading them through the door to joy.

Do we teach them to obey so they might enjoy the goodness of God? Do we view obedience as a door to a mansion where all the rooms are filled with the wonders of God or do we view it as the last stop on the train? Is teaching our children to obey a way setting them free or a way controlling them? Let me use the dinner table and bedtime as examples of what I mean.

At our table we have rules. These are not written in the Bible, but they are "house rules" that my wife and I have set up for our table. If I was going to use a Bible verse to justify these rules it would be Ephesians 4:32, "Be kind to one another." Manners at the table are a way of being kind. Some of these rules are: wait until mom and sisters are seated before the men sit, chew quietly, do not interrupt, do not eat with your fingers (with exceptions for pizza, fried chicken, and PB&J), etc. The point of having and enforcing these rules is not just to keep our children under control. These rules make our table a place of joy. (Needless to say it does not always work out this way.) We sing at the table. We tell jokes and puns. We tell stories. We listen to stories, even from the littlest ones. We ask questions. We discuss world events and events in our homes. We learn what our children are thinking and what they care about. None of this is possible without obedience. But obedience is not the goal. The goal is joy around the table.

Bedtime is the same way. I do not make my children obey at bedtime so I can simply say, "Bedtime" and they all snap to it. I teach  my children to obey at bedtime so we can pray together, talk a bit, maybe sing. In other words I teach them to obey so we can end the day enjoying God and each other.

The goal in all of life is to find great joy in God, his people, and his world. Obedience is a door to this goal, but it is not the goal itself. To stop and sit in the door of a great house would be an insult to the master of the house.

Here are three questions to consider:

First, are you teaching your children to obey? Do you know that by allowing them to disobey you are keeping them from enjoying God and this world? Disobedience brings bondage.

Second, you parents who are trying to get your children to obey are you leading your children to joy through obedience or are you sitting in the door examining the hinges? Is your house filled with joyless obedience? If you have obedient children, but no joy then neither you nor your children are being obedient, no matter how well they listen.

Third, parents how do you view your own obedience? Do you view obedience as a means to enjoying God? Or do you view obedience as the end, the goal itself?

Bartering and Blessing

If you want to read the first part of this post go here. I am now going to address two objections to the idea that we should not give to get and then end with some ways to have a more biblical mindset when giving, whether it is time, energy, or possessions.

But Doesn’t God Promise Blessing to Those Who Obey?

                It could appear that what I said previously contradicts the idea the God blesses us for obedience. If we give to God won’t we get back from God? God does promise blessing if we obey and we should strive after those blessings. And we should seek to obey everything God has commanded. But this is not the same thing as trading with God so he will give us what we want. And while the difference is not always easy to discern it is real and important. Paul knew he had fought the good fight and had a crown of glory laid up for him. But he also knew that God owed him nothing.  Paul did not treat God like a puppet.

                The trick here is the definition of blessing.  Usually for us blessing means I get what I want when I want it. In the Scriptures there are blessings in this life that come with obedience. So yes the man who avoids sinners and meditates on God’s Word will be blessed (Psalm 1).  But those blessings are not defined by us. We don’t get to say, “Lord, I will trade you a good prayer life for a new wife.”  “Lord I will read my Bible every day and you will make sure my job doesn’t fall through.” (Remember these trades are usually unspoken.) You could read God’s Word and meditate on God’s Word and get fired for obeying it. Even in Psalm 1 the ultimate blessing is in the end when we stand with God’s people after the wicked have been driven away (verses 4-5).  The problem with a bartering mindset is that we set the rules. We say, “I will trade you this for that.” That is not the same thing as saying, “I know God blesses obedience, so I am going to obey him and he will bless when and how he sees fit.”  The first views God as if we are a consumer. The second views God as if we are his sons and heirs.

                And of course, the greatest blessing is God himself.

But Shouldn’t Relationships Have Some Give and Take?

                One person commented on my post by asking about friendships.  They said, “Shouldn’t friendships be built on a give and take type relationship?”  The answer to this is, “No.” Friendships should be built on giving. We should pour ourselves out for those around us, whether it is family or friends or our brothers and sisters at church.  Of course, we will benefit from most friendships when we pour ourselves out for others. This is seen clearly in passages like Ephesians 5:28 where it is said that the man who loves his wife loves himself.  Throughout Proverbs there is the idea that a man who disciplines his son benefits with the son giving honor to the father.  In other words, the Bible teaches  that we are blessed when we give.

                But this is not the same thing as giving so we will get. The question is not do we receive blessing when we give to others. We do. The question is do we think we deserve it. Do we believe that if we give x they must give y? And as with God, we often trade for a specific thing. If I am nice to her she will help me with my children. If I serve at church in this way, then the leaders will give me more responsibility later. We should not have this mindset. We should not be giving so others will give to us now or in the future. We should give freely to our friends and family and let God bring blessings through them when he sees fit.

Learning to Give Not Trade

                First, learn to give in circumstances where there is no immediate benefit.  Care for a child when the child cannot give anything back to you.  Show respect to someone who doesn’t respect you.  Do a good deed that no one else will see.

                Second, drink deep of God’s many kindnesses to you.  The more we meditate on God’s kindness the easier it will be for us to express that same undeserved kindness to others.

                Third, do things for people secretly. This does not mean every gift must be a secret. But doing things secretly can show us the state of our heart.  If it is hard then we know we give because we like praise.

                Fourth, learn to say thank you instead of trying to pay someone back for a gift.

                Fifth, strive whenever you do something for your children or spouse to do it for their good and their good alone. Our hearts are very deceitful here. We can often do something that appears to be the right thing, say teaching our children to do chores, but instead of doing it for the good of our children we are doing it for our good. We are trading, bartering with them instead of giving to them. 

Giving So We Can Get

                As a boy I loved to trade baseball and football cards with my friends. We would meet on Saturday morning, go to the local supermarket, buy a few packs, open them up and then decide what we wanted to keep and what we wanted to trade.   Of course, what you could get from your friends always depended on what you had. If I got a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card or Brett Favre special edition then I could get something in return. But if all I had was a lame 15 year veteran who had never really done much then I was stuck.

                I was talking to a friend last week and we were discussing how we treat our wives and God and it became clear that even as grown men we still like to trade. But now instead of trading cards we are trading good deeds for good deeds. I will do this for you, if you will do this for me.  We give so we can get. The more I thought about this the uglier it became. I realized that as Christians we often approach life like we are trading cards (or whatever girls traded when they were young).  Here are some ways we do this:

Parenting

                I never traded a card if I did not think I was getting something better in return.  Parents can adopt this same mindset. They do not give for the sake of the child, but for the sake of the parent. This can work a thousand different ways, but here are some examples. I bought you those clothes so now you must show me respect.  I spent time playing a game with you, so now you should happily do your chores. I spent my time and money to educate you, so now you must get a job that I approve of.  We can do this with spanking as well. Spanking can become a way of getting from the child instead of giving to the child. We are trading some swats for what we want. Now obviously all of these things, buying clothes, playing games, etc. are good things and we should do them. But there is often a spirit behind them that does not reflect the love of God towards us. The things we do become hooks in our child to bind them to us instead of training for our child to be free to follow God. The parents do not spend their life giving. They spend their life trading.

Marriage

                Spouses do the same thing in marriage.  The wife cooks all day and thinks her husband should now be nice to her because of her labor in the kitchen. The husband treats his wife to a nice dinner on Friday night so he can watch football on Sunday afternoon.  The wife submits to her husband in one easy area so she won’t have to in another more difficult area.  The husband is kind in public so he can be a jerk in private.  The possibilities are endless. Just like the parents the spouses here are trading, not giving.

Are Homeschooling Girls Maturing Too Fast?

            Recently I read an article by Tracy Keen about homeschooling girls. The article argued that there is a “disturbing trend” in homeschooling where young girls are forced to grow up too fast. The article made some good points. The dangers she mentions are ones that any homeschooling family should think and pray through. But the article was not very clear at certain points and thus produced some “yeah, but” moments as I read.  Some of this might be due to the nature of a short article and the fact that we run in different circles. However, I still thought it good to clarify some points. You will not understand my points thoroughly if you do not read her post. I would encourage you to do that then come back here. I do not know Mrs. Keen and have never read her before. So this is simply and interaction with this article and not an attack on her. 

            Mrs. Keen's thesis is stated thus, “too many young girls in the Christian world are also losing out on their childhood innocence as their parents push and prod them to mature faster than they are ready.” She then goes on to give four specific examples; girls are being given too much responsibility at a young age, they dress like their mothers, they cannot talk with their peers, and they are being called on to teach older women about running their homes when they themselves have not run a home. She closes by saying,

“Girls raised in Christian homes need to be free to still be innocent, fun-loving children, tweens, teens, and then young women. If the heart of your daughter has truly been changed by Christ and she is given the time she needs to mature as a result of your Godly training, you will begin to see her develop into a Godly young woman first and then on to a Godly woman.”

There are several good points in the article.  

First, we should be careful about crushing our daughters under duties that only a grown woman is supposed to have. We need to pay attention to their development and pray how best we can help them grow in godliness. This is especially true of large families with daughters. There is a temptation to keep piling on.

Second, it is a great point that younger women should not be teaching older women on topics that older women have experience on.  This would include parenting, homeschooling, etc. I agree this trend is bad. There are topics young ladies may be able to lecture on that older women could benefit from. But this should certainly be the rare exception.  The young ladies in our communities should be content to sit under, listen to, and learn from the older women at their church and in their homeschooling community. Moms should also be content for their daughters to do that and not push them to the podium too quickly.

Third, there is a danger of making our daughters into trophies for the world to admire instead of tools for Christ to use.  This is a danger in any environment with high standards. Of course, that does not mean we drop high standards. It means we pray for and cultivate humility in our daughters and teach our daughters dependence upon Christ’s shed blood and not their own labors.

Fourth, a daughter does need freedom to develop godly individuality.  A daughter is to be modest, but this does not mean she must dress just like mom or act just like mom. It is a temptation for moms to make daughters in their own image. However, what if the daughters are imitating mom because they love her and not because mom is squishing their individuality? If a mother is keeping the daughter on too short a leash this should be addressed. But just because a daughter dresses like mom does not mean the mom is being too heavy-handed.

Here are some points of clarification or disagreement.

Qualities of a Spiritual Warrior

Paul Tripp gives five signs that our teenagers understand and participate in the spiritual battle. While he is addressing teenagers, the list is a good one for all of us.

1. He will have a heartfelt, internalized fear of God...He does what he does not because someone is watching, or out of fear of the consequences, but ultimately because of a deep, worshipful love and reverence for God.

2. Second to fear of God, but directly related to it is submission to authority...If a person fears God, he will be submissive to the authorities that God has placed in his life.

3. The next quality evident in a person who is engaged in spiritual warfare...is separation from the wicked...If a teenager is serious in his desire to participate in the spiritual struggle, if he is seriously seeking to live a life pleasing to the Lord, and if he is living in a willing submission to authorities in his life, then he is going to want to spend his time with people who share his values.

4. It is impossible to participate in the spiritual struggle if you do not have the ability to think through your faith and apply it to the situations of life. What a teenager needs, if he is going to live a God-honoring life, is a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures that allows him to apply its commands, principles, and perspectives to the many different situations that arise in everyday life.

5. The final piece of this goal of focusing on the spiritual struggle is biblical self-awareness...We want to be used of God to produce teens who can regularly examine themselves in the perfect mirror of the Word of God and who can humbly accept what is revealed there.

Why Children Leave Home Early and Unprepared

"I have counseled many teenagers and their parents, it has become very clear to me that few teenagers leave because of the rules. No, they leave because of the relationship. They leave because the relationship with their parents has gotten so bad, so angry, so confrontational, so adversarial that they cannot stand to live under the same roof with them.  Sadly, this happens frequently in the homes of believers." (Paul Tripp,  Age of Opportunity.)

Five Goals for Shepherding Teenagers

Paul Tripp gives five specific goals each parent should have as they shepherd their teenagers.

1. Focusing on the Spiritual Struggle: Do not allow the seen to trump the unseen.

2. Developing a Heart of Conviction and Wisdom: Teach your children how to obey the Scriptures and to apply wisdom to those places that the Scriptures do not speak directly to.

3. Teaching a Teenager to Understand and Interact Redemptively with His Culture: He must neither reject the culture altogether or drink culture in without a second thought.

4. Developing a Heart for God in Your Teenager: There should be day to day evidence of your teenager's hunger for God.

5. Preparing Teenagers for Leaving Home: "This is the goal of all those years of parental labor."

All We Need We Have

"We need to walk into the rooms of our teenagers saying to ourselves, 'I have everything I need to do what God has called me to do.' In these moments we can experience a little more of the inheritance of character that Christ has provided us through his death." (Paul Tripp,  Age of Opportunity)

Words, Body, Tone

Lou Priolo has an excellent chapter on biblical communication being the key to dealing with anger. Here is a quote, " I don't believe you will ever solve your anger problems without making it your goal to become proficient in biblical communication." (p. 54) But what struck me most about the chapter was the way he addressed all three ways we communicate. He noted that we communicate by words, tone of voice and with our body (non-verbal communication). Here is another quote. "It is not enough to choose the right words. We must say the right words in a tone that is appropriate." (p. 56) His point throughout the chapter is that we must train our children to respond appropriately using all three modes of communication.

I am often happy if my child voices the words, "I'm sorry." Or "Yes Sir." But I am not nearly as diligent to make sure their tone and non-verbal communication is respectful and godly. As I have begun to work on those two other areas I have noticed that it is much more difficult for a child to fake all three modes of communication. Usually, their words are fine, but their tone is not. When I ask them to fix their tone it can take a while. They may need to sit down and think about how to respond. All in all I feel that by addressing all three areas of communication I am getting deeper into their heart.