PARENTING-INFLUENCE
Parents must
be aware of the personal value of truth for their own sakes and not just for
the sakes of their children. We cannot simply make a child believe in a truth
because it’s good for them. Their perceptive spirits will sense when we are
doing something to engineer or manipulate a certain response. Instead it is the
authenticity of parental commitment to truth apart from the lives of the
children that brings freedom to share or pass on that truth to them. In other
words, a mature motive for passing on truth is that as a parent I hold that
truth to have value for my life, independent of my children and their response
to it.
Tom
Cohen
Eternity magazine, May 19, p. 35.
Parenting –
not politics, not the classroom, not the laboratory, not even the pulpit – is
the place of greatest influence. To suppose otherwise is to be captive to the
shriveled secular delusion. We must understand that it is through the godly
family that God’s grace, a vision of God, a burden for the world, and a
Christian character are most powerfully communicated… Parents,
don’t abandon your place of influence. It is still true that “the hand that
rocks the cradle rules the world.” Believe it.
Disciplines of a Godly Family, Crossway
Books, 2004, p. 16.
Who you are
is more important than what you say. Bottom line: The quality of your own
spiritual life is of greatest importance to your child’s spiritual development.
This was one of the most important insights of the Puritans on the subject of
the family. Here is what two of them wrote: “Precept without patterns will do
little good; you must lead [children] to Christ by examples as well as counsel;
you must set yourselves first, and speak by lives as well as words; you must
live religion as well as talk religion” (Eleazar
Mather). “Be sure to set good example
before your children… Other methods of instruction probably will not do much
good, if you don’t teach them by a godly example. Don’t think your children
will mind the good rules you give them if you act contrary to those rules
yourselves… If your counsels are good, and your examples evil, your children
will be more like to be hurt by the latter, than benefited by the former”
(Benjamin Wadsworth).
Kent and Barbara Hughes
Disciplines of a Godly Family, Crossway
Books, 2004, p. 61.
God has so
designed that children, in their formative years, naturally look to their
[parents] in order to emulate them… "Mold me – impart to me what's most
precious to your hearts." But so often a child sees behind all of the religious garb of his parents and finds what is
really precious to them! He sees patterns of heart which lure them toward a
pursuit of wealth, leisure, athletics, entertainment, television, shopping or
religious busyness. A child can easily see when these things are more exciting
to his parents than devotion to Jesus Christ! When this proves to be the case,
a child will embrace those same affections – to the detriment of his own soul!
Jerry Marcellino
Family Worship, Audubon Press, 2002,
p. 18- 19.
I was cradled
in the home of piety, nurtured with the tenderest
care, taught the gospel from my youth up, with the holiest example of my
parents, the best possible checks all around to prevent me running into sin
C.H. Spurgeon
55.352.
Train up a
child in the way he should go – but be sure you go that way yourself.
C.H. Spurgeon
You see, if
you aren’t talking to your kids, someone else is. The statistics indicate that
teenagers are spending three hours a day watching TV. Preschoolers are watching
as much as four hours per day. If teenagers are listening to three hours of TV
every day and averaging five minutes a day talking with their dads, who is
winning the influence battle? If your preschooler watches four hours per day,
how many hours is he hearing from you about how God runs His world? It doesn’t
take X-rated violence, sex and language to have an ungodly influence. Even the
“good” programs for children can be “bad company” if they offer an exciting,
satisfying world that ignores (or denies) the sovereign God of the Bible. Do
you really want your children to get the impression that it’s okay to ignore
God most of the time?
John A. Younts
Everyday Talk, Talking Freely and Naturally about God
with Your Children, Shepherd Press, 2004, p. 19-20, Used by Permission.
Parents, take
inventory in your own hearts. Do you thirst for God as the deer pants after the
water? Or is your own life sending your children a message of hypocrisy and
spiritual indifference? Is our own commitment to Christ what you hope to see in
your children’s lives? Is your obedience to His Word the same kind of
submission you long to see from your own kids? These are crucial question each
parent must face if we really want to be successful parents and good role
models for our children. Parents who are lax in these areas virtually guarantee
that their sons and daughters will fail spiritually.
John MacArthur
Successful Christian Parenting, Word
Publishing, 1998, p. 23-24.
To be a
mother is by no means second class. Men may have the authority in the
home, but the women have the influence. The mother, more than the
father, is the one who molds and shapes those little lives from day one.
John MacArthur
Successful Christian Parenting, 1998, p. 194.
If we measure
our success as parents solely by what our children become, there is no
inviolable guarantee in Scripture that we will experience absolute success on
those terms…The true measure of success for Christian parents is the
parents’ own character. To the degree
that we have followed God’s design for parenting, we have succeeded as parents
before God.
John MacArthur
Successful Christian Parenting, 1998, p. 17.
As a general
rule, parents who follow biblical principles in bringing up their children will
see a positive effect on the character of their children. From a purely
statistical point of view, children who grow up in Christ-honoring homes are
more likely to remain faithful to Christ in adulthood than kids growing up in
homes where the parents dishonor the Lord. The truism of Proverbs 22:6 does
apply. We’re certainly not to think that God’s sovereignty in salvation means
the way we raise our kids is immaterial. God often uses faithful parents as
instruments in the salvation of children.
John MacArthur
Successful Christian Parenting, 1998, p. 18.
Above all, we
[as parents] must make sure that the open book of our lives – our example –
demonstrates the reality of our instruction, for in watching us they will learn
the most.
Kent Hughes
Disciplines of a Godly Man, Crossway Books,
1991, p. 53.
Let your
children have this conviction in their hearts, “If there are but two real
Christians in the world, my father is one, and my mother is the other.” It is dreadful
– but not uncommon for children to employ themselves in contrasting the
appearance which their parents make...at the Lord's Table – and at their own
table; in the house of God – and at home!
John Angell James
A man ought
to live so that everybody knows he is a Christian…and most of all, his family
ought to know.
D.L. Moody
May God
deliver us from a ho-hum attitude. Young people can
read their parents. They can see right through their teachers, and they turn
away in disgust from a make-believe faith.
George Sweeting
Who Said That? 1994, Moody,
p. 245.
Good
instructions are to be accompanied by good example. That teaching which issues
only from the lips is not at all likely to sink any deeper than the ears.
Children are particularly quick to detect inconsistencies, and despise
hypocrisy… How they need to be constantly on their guard against anything which
might render them contemptible in the eyes of those who should respect and
revere them!
A.W. Pink
A Word to Parents.
A father that
[disciplined] his son for swearing, and swore himself whilst he [disciplined]
him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction.
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 95.
If parents
would have their children blessed at church and at school, let them beware they
give their children no corrupt examples at home by any carelessness, profaneness,
or ungodliness. Otherwise, parents will do them more harm at home than both
pastors and schoolmasters can do them good abroad. For
the corrupt example of the one fighteth with the good
instruction of the other, which is so much the more dangerous because that
corrupt walking is armed with nature, and therefore more forcibly inclineth the affections of the children to that side.
Richard Greenham
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 203.
Training a
child to follow Christ is easy for parents. All they have to do is lead the
way.
Author Unknown
Instruction,
and advice, and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the
pattern of your own life. Your children will never believe you are serious, and
really wish them to obey you, so long as your actions contradict your
instruction. One minister I know made a wise remark when he said, “To give
children good instruction, and a bad example, is the same as pointing out to
them the way to heaven, while we take them by the hand and lead them down the
road to hell” (Tillotson).
J.C. Ryle
The Duties of Parents.
Fathers and mothers, do not forget that children learn more by the eye
than they do by the ear… Imitation is a far stronger principle with children
than memory. What they see has a much stronger effect on their minds than what
they are told.
J.C. Ryle
The Duties of Parents.
Children are
very quick observers; very quick in seeing through some kinds of hypocrisy, very
quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all
your ways and opinions. You will often discover that, as the father is, so is
the son.
J.C. Ryle
The Duties of Parents.
Parents, be
exemplary. Your example may do much towards the salvation of your children;
your works will more work upon your children than your words; your patterns
will do more than your precepts, your copies more than your counsels.
Cotton Mather
A Well-Ordered Family, Soli Deo Gloria, 2001 (first printing 1699), p. 18.
Here’s what
we should learn: If we want our
children to hear the gospel from us, they must see the gospel's impact upon us.
How we live before them powerfully preaches the gospel and its implications for
our lives.
Jim Elliff and Steve
Burchett
The Godliest Parents, Christian Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by Permission.
The secret of
homemade rule is self rule, first being ourselves what we want our children to
be.
Andrew Murray
The greatest
stumbling block for children in worship is that their parents do not cherish
the hour. Children can feel the difference between duty and delight. Therefore,
the first and most important job of a parent is to fall in love with the
worship of God. You can't impart what you don't possess.
John and Noel Piper
The Family: Together in God's Presence, www.DesiringGod.org.
The most
fundamental task of a mother and father is to show God to the children.
Children know their parents before they know God. This is a huge responsibility
and should cause every parent to be desperate for God-like transformation. The
children will have years of exposure to what the universe is like before they
know there is a universe. They will experience the kind of authority there is
in the universe and the kind of justice there is in the universe and the kind
of love there is in the universe before they meet the God of authority and
justice and love who created and rules the universe. Children are absorbing
from dad his strength and leadership and protection and justice and love; and
they are absorbing from mom her care and nurture and warmth and intimacy and
justice and love – and, of course, all these overlap.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008,
p.143-144, www.DesiringGod.org.