Page 94 - Family Life Student Textbook

Study Section 16: Biblical Parenting (Part 1)

16.1 Connect
Building a Godly heritage for the future requires Godly parenting of children. Parenting is
work. It requires selfless effort and strategic planning. New parents have only been able to
observe other parents in action. They have never parented themselves. Suddenly, they find
themselves in situations in which are unexpected. Many times parents learn lessons about
parenting the hard way - by observing the negative consequences of their failed parenting in
grown children. How do we prevent this from happening? We will have to take our responsibility of
parenting very seriously and learn all we can from God’s Word and from others more experienced.

16.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to learn some key principles about Godly parenting.

2. The student should be able to focus primarily upon the spiritual and emotional aspects of raising
Godly children in order to increase our effectiveness in raising up a Godly heritage.

16.3 Parenting Defined

Recognizing that God has called you to function as his agent, defines your task as a parent. Our
culture has reduced parenting to providing care. In sharp contrast to this, God has called you to a
more profound task than being a care provider. Your job is to shepherd your child on God's
behalf.

If you are going to shepherd your children, you must first understand what makes your children tick. As we
study Psalm 23, we see a shepherd who understands every need of his sheep and how to meet that need.
Pastors, who are shepherds of their people, need to understand the needs of those people and minister to
them in order to help them be the most healthy and effective Christians possible. And parents need to
shepherd their children, understanding their unique personalities, meeting their unique needs, and training
them to become godly individuals.

Love your children with unconditional love

Too many children grow up frustrated because they can never please their parents who love them
conditionally based upon performance. Parents do not love their children conditionally on purpose. It simply
comes naturally. It is natural to reward a child for good behavior. That is something we should do to teach
them that God rewards good behavior. But God loves us unconditionally, regardless of our behavior. And
parents must love their children unconditionally, regardless of their behavior.

There should be no favoritism on the part of parents towards various children. God loves every person
unconditionally. And parents ought to love each and everyone of their children unconditionally.

In his book entitled “Finding Our Fathers: How a Man’s Life is Shaped by His Relationship with His Father”,
Dr. Samuel Osherson describes research he conducted, whereby he interviewed one hundred very
successful businessmen. Many were leaders of companys. He would begin the interview by allowing them
93