PARENTING & AUTHORITY

Tedd Tripp writes an excellent and very helpful article for parents entitled Embracing God's Plan for Authority. Here is a sample.

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A major portion of your task in parenting is giving your children a distinctively Christian culture. Cultures are always built upon the answers to the most fundamental questions: What is real? What is true? Where did I come from? The answers to these fundamental questions shape a culture’s ideas of morality, purpose, etc. Because our culture today is badly off the tracks with regard to these fundamental questions, it presents a distorted picture of the world. We need to provide our children with a coherent and accurate model of reality, a model of how God has made things and how they are all supposed to function. Our goal must be greater than simply forcing or persuading our children to obey God’s commands. Our goal must be to help our children understand and embrace the world God has made.


If you are going to get beyond merely teaching your children to obey, you must provide a more thorough picture of God’s world than "Obey or you’ll get in trouble." Or "Obey and I’ll give you. . . ." You must give them a vision for how obedience reflects an understanding of the world God has made. You are not looking, ultimately, for children who can be threatened or persuaded to follow your commands. You are looking for children who live self-consciously and joyfully in God’s world as people who submit to God and to the authorities whom God has ordained. The best place for children to learn to live that way is in the home, under the authority of Mom and Dad. To live joyfully in the world, as God has ordained, is the most glorious and dignified way for creatures to live. It is, indeed, sweet and seemly.
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To read the whole thing, click here.

(HT: marriedlife)