Written by Reuben M. Bredenhof |
Saturday, October 1, 2022
Proverbs 22:6 speaks of a general principle; namely, that the parents’ direction of their children is usually formative for the rest of their lives. It does not mean that every child raised in a covenant home or sent to a Christian school and summer camps will become a true believer. The pain and regret over unbelieving children are all too real for many parents. Nevertheless, this text underlines the importance of parents striving to fulfill this God-given calling in his strength and by his Spirit, despite our many weaknesses.

For instance, how does it apply when either the children are living in rebellion against the authority of the parents, and/or when the parents are failing to carry out their task according to direction of Scripture? By ‘dysfunctional family,’ we mean a family whose structures and relational roles do not accord with the norms of Scripture in serious and sustained ways.
In such difficult situations, we are grateful to rely on the steadfast love of God and the sure wisdom of his Word. Here I suggest five principles drawn from Scripture.
1) Maintain the obligation of children to give honour to their parents.
When confronted with the complexities of applying God’s law, it is natural to prefer simple—and sometimes simplistic—answers. In a situation of domestic rebellion, our visceral response might be black-and-white: children must obey dad and mum, full stop. This simplistic approach can be unhelpful if it doesn’t take into account the context of the situation.
Nevertheless, we have to grapple with the weight of the commandment. God entrusts to parents a role that is imbued with authority. The failure of a parent to relate to a child in a way that is consistent with the Lord’s commands doesn’t take away the child’s obligation to think through this commandment carefully and to strive to obey it diligently. Says Ursinus on this commandment, “The office must be distinguished from the persons who are invested with it; so that whilst we detest the wickedness of the men, we should nevertheless honour their office, on account of its divine appointment.”[i]
In its explanation of the fifth commandment, Lord’s Day 39 includes a realistic and most helpful phrase with a key bearing on our question. In speaking about the honour that I should pay to “my father and mother and…all those in authority over me,” the Catechism also instructs me,
to have patience with their weaknesses and shortcomings, since it is God’s will to govern us by their hand.
Parents will fail, yet children should still maintain honour, love, and faithfulness. Christ himself modelled this submissive behaviour toward harsh authority during his ministry (1 Pet 2:18-24). Even so, this commandment is not to be considered absolute, as we’ll see shortly.
2) Maintain the obligation of parents to fulfill their baptismal vows.
According to Scripture, believing parents have the weighty obligation to bring up their children “in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Eph 6:2). This obligation is echoed in the baptismal vow in Reformed churches, when parents promise to “instruct your child in this doctrine … and to have him/her instructed therein to the utmost of your power.”
Once again, we shouldn’t take a simplistic view of the expected outcomes of fulfilling this obligation. Russell Moore points out that we sometimes have a “transactional view” of childrearing, that it is roughly equivalent to raising cattle or programming code into a computer.[ii] That is, if we teach and model this creed and conduct, we will be assured of this good result. Christians might regard Proverbs 22:6 as an absolute promise that God will save their child: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
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The command here is nearly identical to Ephesians 5:18, but instead of the command being to let the Spirit fill us, the command in Colossians 3:16 is to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. The implication is that these are related concepts, and thus the content of the filling is the Word of Christ.

Likely the most important truth about the Holy Spirit’s active work that we must remember is that the Holy Spirit always works through his Word. Through his illuminating power, the Spirit opens our minds and hearts to accept and submit to the authority of the Word that he inspired. And thus it is through such submission to the Word that the Spirit sanctifies us. This is critically important to recognize: the Holy Spirit will not sanctify us apart from his Word.
In fact, this is exactly what is indicated when Paul commands us to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18). Like Spirit baptism and illumination, Spirit filling is another work of the Spirit that has been significantly confused in by errant teaching, but careful attention to the biblical text will give us clarity as to the exact nature of this work of the Spirit.
Sometimes in Scripture, language of filling is used to describe the special empowerment that the Spirit gave to key leaders of God’s people during important periods in redemptive history. In the New Testament, these all appear in Luke and Acts, where Luke uses the term pimplēmi, in which the grammar clearly indicates that he is the content of the filling. These leaders were filled with the Spirit in a unique way that empowered them to lead God’s people.
In contrast, Luke uses the adjective plērēs five times in which the grammar indicates that the Spirit is the content of the filling and that this is a figurative expression. In other words, these cases describe individuals who are characterized as being “spiritual.”1 Similarly, in one case Luke uses the verb plēroō in Acts 13:52 to describe the disciples as characterized by spiritual joy. This is similar to when we might describe someone as being a “spiritual” person or a “godly” person. What we mean is that the person’s life is characterized by qualities that identify him with qualities of God himself.
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Those who see their young people becoming believers and staying in the church are those who are clear on the need for young people to convert and who equip parents to take their responsibilities for teaching the gospel to their children seriously. The answer is not raising up godly young people through better youth work, but raising up godly parents who will teach and train their own children.

I am amazed by the number of people who seem to think that youth work and children’s programmes are the key to raising up a new, godly generation of believers. Now, don’t get me wrong, these things can be a wonderful benefit to the church. But I am utterly convinced that if we want a generation of new believers being raised up, we will best achieve it by building up godly parents.
There is often a reflex that assumes teenagers drift away from church because there wasn’t anything on for them. This line of thinking typically ignores the fact that if teenagers are only coming to church because there is a youth work, we haven’t actually won them to Christ. If we haven’t actually won them to Christ, all the time and effort poured into keeping them with youth work seems entirely pointless. Indeed, if they haven’t been won to Christ, we can’t be that surprised that they do not want to stay in the church.
As I noted here, the number one reason youth drift away from the church is because they never actually became believers. The responsibility for teaching and raising our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord lies with families. Youth do not drift off from church because there weren’t enough programmes on for them, they drift off because they never came to trust in Jesus. The responsibility for teaching and training our children lies with the family unit, particularly with fathers.
What this means is that, if we want to see a godly generation of new believers raised up in the church, the answer may not lie in putting on more activities for the youth. The answer lies in building up the parents so that they can better teach their children at home and equip them as those God holds responsible for the spiritual state of the family. As I noted here, ‘It is not good enough to outsource all of our children’s spiritual teaching and then wonder why they never came to faith given we sent them out of the service for half an hour every week. This is neither talking of the scriptures in your house nor the incorporation of them into your everyday life that Deuteronomy expects. It is likewise not fulfilling the imperative of Ephesians 6:4 that fathers are responsible for the spiritual teaching and training of their children.’
Indeed, as I argued here (and I would encourage you to read the full post), the fruit of such thinking was noted back in the 80s by Roy Joslin in Urban Harvest, but his comments continue to go unheeded. He wrote:
For all the dedication of godly Sunday School teachers over many years, it appears that much of that effort was like pouring water into a badly holed bucket or, to be more biblical, like trying to catch fish with some badly torn gospel nets. Why was it that so many children who swam into the gospel nets in their earlier years had on the whole swum out again before adult years had been reached?
Elaborate doctrinal teaching may be inculcated in childhood, but its influence is not likely to last unless maintained by the atmosphere of the home or unless supported by social usage.
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