The average teen in America in 2024 spends 7 hours 22 minutes on their phone per day (Cosmo, Feb 24, 2024, “Average Screen Time for Teenagers in 2024”) This totals over 50 hours a week compared to an hour in church and an hour in youth group for Christian teens. This 25-1 ratio caused the late Tim Keller, when asked to identify the must critical issues his church needed to address going into the future, to say, “Considering the sheer volume of hours our children consume the messages and values of social media, it is clear that our children are being catechized by social media not our churches. It is clear that we need to help our families take back this responsibility” (ByFaith Video June 2018). What do you think about his observation? How much do you think you can rely upon today’s culture to instill biblical moral values into your children and grandchildren?
Today, we begin our celebration of National Fatherhood Month with the June series, “Fathers Giving the Moral Foundation to Their Children That the Culture Won’t.” This episode examines the biblical practices we need to follow to construct a biblical/moral foundation in our children. We begin analyzing the process of instilling moral values into the hearts of our children by asking the question, “How do you get anything done in life that requires sustained effort over time” It was this question that motivated Charles Schwab, when he was president of Bethlehem Steel, to issue a challenge to management consultant, Ivy Lee, “Show me a way to get more things done. If it works, I’ll pay anything within reason.”
Lee handed Schwab a piece of paper and said, “Write down the things you need to do.” He was referring to Schwab’s job description. Schwab made the list. “Now number these items in the order of their real importance to your organization,” Schwab did that. “The first thing tomorrow morning,” Lee added, “start working on number one and stay with it until it is completed. Next, take number two and don’t go any further until it is completed. Then proceed to number three, and so on. If you can’t complete everything on schedule don’t worry. At least you will have taken care of the most important things before getting distracted by items of lesser consequence. In summary, “Evaluate the relative importance of the things you must get done…establish priorities…record your plan of action…and stick to it. Do this every working day. After you have convinced yourself of the value of this system, have your employees try it. Then send me a check for whatever you think the idea was worth.”
In a few weeks, Charles Schwab wrote a check to Lee Ivy for 25,000.00 (which would be the equivalent of over $100,000 today.) We observed Schwab following 3 common sense management steps 1) He had a clear understanding of his job description, from which he 2) formed a target of clear objectives he needed to reach to do his job well, 3) shaped and worked his plan to achieve his objectives. This June series is built around following these objectives—covering management steps 1 and 2 in this episode and starting down the 3rd management step.
MANAGEMENT STEP 1: OUR JOB DESCRIPTION AS FATHERS
The environment that God chose for growing a child to physical, emotional, and spiritual health is a family where the child is loved by both a father and a mother. Creation itself tells us that the nuclear family is not merely a social construct. The biological fact that conception takes place in the context of husband and wife making love speaks volumes about the best environment in which a child is nurtured to healthy adulthood—a home in which both his mom and dad are in love with each other.
When Paul explains the family responsibilities of Christians in Ephesians and Colossians, he addresses wives, then husbands, then children—commanding them to obey their parents. So, we might expect the next group Paul addresses to be parents; but it is not. How about mothers? No. Elsewhere, Paul does command older women to train the younger women to love their children (Titus 2:4). But it is striking that when Paul addresses the training of the children, he doesn’t mention mothers but gives commands to fathers. This pattern of responsibility began with Abraham, the father of the Christian Faith. Right after announcing to Abraham that his wife, Sarah, would have a son, the seed through whom all the earth would be blessed, God said he had chosen Abraham that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him (Gen 18:19). Clearly, God assigns to covenant fathers the responsibility to build a biblical foundation into their children. God did not assign this responsibility to Eve, though obviously wives are a great help in the process.
MANAGEMENT STEP 2: FORMULATE A MASTER PLAN OF OBJECTIVES FOR INSTILLING BIBLICAL MORAL VALUES
Here is a humble attempt at master plan as a starting point for covenant fathers. It may also stimulate the thinking of grandfathers, since we always remain the covenant head of our tribe. This master plan is on our website; the show notes contain a link to it. We will be following it over the next four weeks:
Master Plan: Instilling Biblical/Moral Values
A. Get a biblical overview of this process.
- Three Principles of Child Rearing (Ephesians 6:4)
- Four Steps to Teaching Scripture (Deuteronomy 6:4-8)
B. Answer worldview questions (many answered in New City Catechism).
- ME Questions: Why do I matter? Where did I come from? Where should I be going to fulfill my purpose? What is the origin of my sense of right and wrong?
- WORLD Questions: What's wrong with the world? How did it get this way? What's the solution?
C. Teach Jesus' summary of the bibical commandmenst--loving God, first 4 commandments, loving neighbor, second 6 commandments.
D. Teach God’s Moral Law: The Ten Commandments (covered in NC Cat).
E. Practice biblical principles of discipline.
- Train a child to obey his conscience.
- Teach the law of sowing and reaping.
- Teach a child self-control, i.e. to master his desires.
F. Teach and inspire godly attitudes: Character is a consistent attitude. (The fruit of the Spirit, the Beattitudes, Peter's golden chain of virtues)
G. Help them celebrate God’s glorious design of manhood and womanhood differently to complete one another.
Preteen-early teen years
H. Teach God’s glorious design of sex.
I. Help them know they are perfectly designed for their mission. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10).
J. Teach them how to cope with peer pressure and to choose friends wisely.
K. Inspire them to pursue wisdom. When I was a son with my father, he taught me and said to me, the beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you (Prov 4:3ff)
L. Expose them to portraits of Jesus in the gospels to show that he is a leader worthy of their whole-hearted allegiance.
Teen years (Research from Before You Lose Your Faith, published by the Gospel Coalition from The Anatomy of Deconversion by John Marriott, and Another Gospel, by Alisa Childers strongly suggests these final three components of the equipping we must do with our kids before they leave home.
M. Ground them in sound logic, learning to recognize logical fallacies.
N. Thoroughly teach them the reasons for our the (I Pet 3:15 apologia).
O. Equip them to respond to current worldviews with a biblical perspective. Admit that Christians have at times failed to oppose unjust racism as they should have, and often failed to be as generous as Jesus commanded in helping the poor.
(There is strong evidence that children raised in Christian homes are at strong risk of abandoning their faith unless their parents and churches have followed through on these last three steps.)
This is just a starting point. But every faithful father needs a target on the wall—a curriculum he wants to impart to his child before she leaves home. The old adage is true; if you fail to aim, aim to fail. So, step 2 is “formulate you master plan.”
MANAGEMENT STEP 3: TURN YOUR OBJECTIVES INTO A PLAN & WORK IT
A. Get a Biblical Overview of the Process
1. Three Principles of Child Rearing (Eph 6:4). Paul writes, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). We are not told why mothers are not specifically addressed, even though children are commanded to obey both parents. Perhaps giving this command to fathers is necessary because one of the primary results of the fall is that men inherit Adam’s passivity. Adam failed to step up, defend Eve against Satan’s temptation, and lead the way to flourishing, by being obedient to God’s command not to eat the fruit. He failed in his masculine calling to protect those in the garden and to cause them to flourish (Gen 2:25). A passive hesitation in training the children makes men’s discipline reactive instead of proactive. It ends up being haphazard, random, and inconsistent. Inconsistent discipline is one of the fastest ways to provoke anger in a child. One moment, he gets away with murder, the next time he barely steps across the line and is slammed with punishment. That will provoke hot anger. Notice that in Ephesians 6:4 Paul begins by saying this is NOT the way fathers are to raise their kids.
In contrast, fathers are to provide consistent discipline that trains a child to know what he is and is not responsible for. It is not a harsh, seat-of-the-pants, reactive discipline that only provokes anger. Instead, Paul says to fathers, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Three important words in this phrase describe the biblical approach to rearing children. First, dads are NOT to watch their children grow up but to bring them up. Paul uses the Greek word EKTHREPHO from EK out of + THREPHO nurture. It is used for the care given by a nursery worker to a small, tender sapling, or the care given to infants and toddlers. This word is also used by Paul for the way we treat our own bodies, which speak to us about how they feel. The point seems to be that our training plan needs to be exercised carefully, relationally, with sensitivity to the one we are training. Leadership influence is built through caring relationships. Leaders build their relationship with their followers through empathy, affection, affirmation, truth-speaking, compassion and time together. Leaders win their followers’ hearts by serving them. Our parenting plan must be shaped in the context of a real relationship with each child and an understanding of each child’s uniqueness, progress, and needs.
The second word (ESV discipline) is PAIDEA, from which we get pediatric. It means the training of children’s behavior through appropriate discipline. i.e. giving consequences. A father’s authority is never to be used selfishly, or reflexively. Rather, it is to be part of a TRAINING plan. The third word, instruction, means literally “to put into the mind.” Every effective father must have in mind a specific set of content—a curriculum he will use for his moral instruction of his child. So, the first step in building a child’s moral foundation is understanding that doing so is a father’s responsibility. Certainly, his wife is perfectly gifted to assist in this task; but it is Dad’s job.
2. Four Steps to Teaching Scripture (Dt 6:5-8) 1) You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 2) And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 3) You shall teach them diligently to your children, and 4) shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
Step 1: Love God with all your heart. The fundamental motivation for the entire Christian life is offering myself as a living sacrifice, returning love to God because he first loved me. The power of my influence in other’s lives always flows from my heart, especially with those closest to me, because they see my heart.
Step 2: These commands shall be on your heart. What is God’s love language? It is loving, knowing, and obeying his Word. There is no substitute for spending time in God’s word and committing it to heart. After 6 decades of ministry, I am still working at Scripture memory. Right now, I am trying to re-memorize the book of James. Why? I believe Proverbs 3:15 God’s wisdom is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. If this verse is true—how can I not be radically committed to taking in God’s Word?
Step 3: You shall teach them diligently to your children. The Hebrew word for teach means to impress or to imprint the way the stylus imprints the ink on parchment. It refers to rote memorization. This is why the church has historically used catechisms along with Bible memorization. Failure to follow this discipline prevents us and our children from taking the next step.
Step 4: You shall talk of them all through the day. The two pairs of opposites, sit/walk, lie down/rise suggest any and every time, place, and activity. This teaching is by example as we lead from our lives, loving God, demonstrating the proof of that love by putting his Word into our hearts, intentionally structuring time to teach our kids, and model the application of Scripture in our own lifves.
The second objective in the Master Plan: Instilling Biblical/Moral Values” is:
B. Answer Worldview Questions
Although the New City Catechism is a modern version of historic catechisms, it is striking how relevant the questions are for today. Consider Tim Keller’s words about what worldviews a modern catechism must counter. He says, “One feature to counter would be the (culture’s view) of self, which comes down to this: You have to be true to yourself, and nobody can tell you who you are, and you have to look inside yourself and not base your understanding or identity on anything outside but on only what’s true to you.” Now, consider how relevant the very first question of the New City Catechism is. What is our only hope in life or death? The answer: That we are not our own but belong to God. Notice how this question refutes secularism's message that life is about me. It also gets to some foundational worldview ME questions-- Why do I matter? Where did I come from? Where should I be going to fulfill my purpose? This catechism comes with an awesome curriculum to use to teach the concepts behind each question. Here are some parts of that guide for this first question, “What is our only hope in life and death?” That we are not our own but belong to God.
Big idea: Certain hope is found only in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ
AIM: To help your children understand that children of God belong to him and should long to live for him.
Leader’s Notes: Children may not be inclined to regularly consider the purpose of their existence, but they will daily encounter messages that seek to teach them about the meaning of life. The media, school, friends, and family are all seeking to shape and focus children for the future. Some will say that the purpose of life is to be successful and earn money; others will teach that the purpose of life is simply to be happy. Children’s hearts are often nurtured to put their hope either in themselves or in created things rather than in the Creator. This lesson aims to help the children understand that they were made by God and for God.
Introduction: Ask the children if they can figure out which stories these sentences refer to: The prince’s only hope was to find the owner of the glass slipper Cinderella. The rabbit’s only hope was that Mr. MacGregor would not find him in the watering can. Peter Rabbit. The children’s only hope was Aslan. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Then ask what they think the phrase their only hope means. Highlight for the children that hope often requires trusting somebody or something. Ask the children, “What kind of things do you hope for in the future?”
Activity: Lay out two pieces of large paper. On the top of one of the papers write, My Family. On the top of the other write, God’s Family. Ask the kids to identify the things that are great about belonging to their particular family. Write down their answers. Ask the children what would happen if another child were adopted into their family. Would he benefit from all of these great things as well? Then ask them to identify and list the great things about being part of God’s family. Explain that God brings people into his family and makes them his children through adoption. Remind the children that being adopted into God’s family means that we get all the great things that come with being a part of God’s family. He wonderfully blesses us in this life and will wonderfully bless us even after we die.
Let me close this episode by pleading “please find some time to construct your own master plan for building moral and biblical foundation into your child.” Charles Schwab knew he couldn’t fly by the seat of the pants and do a good job of leading Bethlehem Steel. Neither can you fly by the seat of your pants and disciple the children in your family well—And your children are much more important than a steel company.
