Category Archives: Parents and children

Proverbs 22:6 – ‘Train a child’

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

This well-known proverb has been understood in a variety of ways.

In popular Christian thinking, it is thought to constitute an unconditional promise to parents.  It is taken as a guarantee of the success of early training of children.  But not a few parents find that, despite their best efforts at bringing up their child ‘in the way he should go’, when he is old he does turn from it. …

Train a child in the way that he should go

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According to this article in Christian Today, half of American Christians think that casual sex is ‘sometimes or always’ morally acceptable.

More than half of American white evangelicals say that cohabitation is acceptable if the couple plan to marry.  And almost half of evangelical Protestants aged 15-22 who were not currently cohabiting or married said they would probably or definitely cohabit in the future.  (But Christian commitment did make a big difference: those young people who attended church at least twice a month were least likely to approve of cohabitation).…

Don’t overspecify the biblical text!

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Mark Ward comments on the (otherwise excellent) conference speaker who, referring to Titus 2:4, said that because phileo is ‘friendship love’, it’s important for husbands and wives, and parents and children, to be friends.  Although there may well be some truth in this (Ward remarks), as far as the text in Titus is concerned, it is reading too much into the word; it is ‘overspecifying’ the text.  Husbands and wives are to be lovers, and not just friends. …

‘A better story’ – 10

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The sexual revolution has, in effect, declared war on the weak, namely, our children.

As our communities become more fragmented, our education system more unequal, and our families more broken, the gap between the more privileged and the less privileged is becoming ever wider.

Here’s a stark fact: by the time they start pre-school, children from professional families will have heard 19 million more words than children from poor backgrounds.

Although many factors are at play, the stability of home life is a critical one. …

50 maxims for men

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Full title: ’50 Maxims for Men in an Age of Toxic Masculinity and Identitarian Craziness’.

Michael Bird has created/collected a set aphorisms by way of advice that a father might give to his son.

Unusually (for me) I’m reproducing the list as it comes from the pen (or typing finger) of Michael:-

# 1: Marriage is a lot like a US airport, by law it must always be under construction and improvement.

# 2: Real men do not hit women.…

50 politically incorrect thoughts for men – 4

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31. Boys need rough and tumble.  They need to be trained, through sports and other activities, to ignore pain, and to sacrifice themselves to a worthy cause.  Women shouldn’t be taught to fight because they’re smaller and weaker and because they are reproductively too valuable.

32. Don’t defend yourself.  Unless you’re in physical danger.  Be assertive, not defensive.  If you’re wrong, say so and back down.  If you’re right, say so and don’t back down.

33.…

50 politically incorrect thoughts for men – 1

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Eggs are Expensive, Sperm is Cheap, by Greg Krehbiel.  Crowhill Publishing, 2014.

Subtitled ’50 politically incorrect thoughts for men’, this little book aims to unsettle modern assumptions about women and men.  Krehbiel invites us to consider that the ‘traditional’ way of understanding the two sexes may not be as oppressive as we have been told it is, and that today’s ideology may actually be very harmful to us all.  He develops this in a disarming, amusing, and gently outrageous way.…

Guidelines for parents

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  1. Acknowledge that your child is a gift from God. (see Ps 127:3, GNB)
  2. Dedicate your child to the Lord to be used in his service. (see 1 Sa 1:11, RSV)
  3. Make a personal commitment to God to grow as a Christian parent.
  4. Identify your values and convey these values consistently in your behavior.
  5. Express to your children love and acceptance.
  6. View discipline as an ongoing process of helping your children ultimately to become self-controlled and self-disciplined.
…

Duties of parents

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  1. Encouragement, 1 Chron 28:20.
  2. Reproof, Pr 19:18.
  3. Instruction, Pr 22:6; Eph 6:4; 2 Tim 3:15.
  4. Provision, 1 Tim 5:8.
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