The First Step to Becoming the Parent God Wants You to Be

As we begin our series on Parenting with Gentleness, we must establish right away what the basis of our study is.

I can tell you all day long how to parent your children, but all I would be doing is offering my own opinions.

Instead we must turn to the wisdom of the Bible.

Not only does God's Word establish our authority over our children, but we must allow the Bible to have authority over our own actions.

We can't pick and choose which parts of the Bible are worth obeying.  We can teach our children that God says to “obey your parents”, but that's quite hypocritical if we're not willing to obey God's word ourselves, especially as it relates to our relationship with our children.

Parenting is about so much more than simply teaching our children to obey us.

Parenting is about teaching our children to obey God.  And there is no better way to do that than through our example.

So what are some of the things the Bible teaches us in regard to parenting?

Well, most of us are probably familiar with the common verses that talk about the parent-child relationship, such as:

Proverbs 22:6  Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

and

Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your children in the Lord, for this is right.

If you're not familiar with what Scripture has to say about parents and children, (and even if you are!) I encourage you to do your own study about what God specifically teaches regarding parents and children.  Set aside the parenting books for now, and just look solely to scripture and let God speak to your heart about his plan for your relationship to your child.  Grab a concordance and look up words such as “children”, “child”, “mother”, etc. and you will find enough material to keep you busy for a good while.

But, for the purpose of this particular series, I want to move away for the most part from the typical parent-child verses and turn our attention to the remainder of Scripture.

You see, if we think about the first couple of verses that come to mind regarding parents and children, what are they likely to be about?

Children needing to obey.  Parents needing to train their children.

Am I right?

Those are Biblical concepts, and we certainly have a responsibility to train our children and our children have a responsibility to obey their parents.

However, if we focus entirely on turning out obedient children, we are overlooking a great deal of other things that Scripture has to teach us.

What about:

Ephesians 4:32  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

OR

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Are we only to act with kindness toward other adults or toward children who aren't our own?  What about love or patience or gentleness?

I'm afraid that too often we say, “Yes, I need to practice kindness.  Or, “Gentleness is an area in which I should be more submissive to the Holy Spirit.” But we forget that we can and should practice those things beginning at home with our own families!

We are so focused on making sure our children obey that we forget that the rest of Scripture ought to have the authority over our interactions with them as well.

So today, parents, I ask you – is the Word of God truly your authority in how you parent your children?  Do you seek out all of what it says and not just the well-known parts about teaching children to obey?

Biblical authority must be the first step in the journey to becoming the parents God wants us to be.

This post is part of the Parenting with Gentleness series.