Bringing Up Children

 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

          Remember the story of Frankenstein? The doctor of the story stitched together corpses and re-animated the composite person. There are other similar stories, a pianist whose hands are irrevocably damaged in an accident receives the hands of an executed murderer and finds himself continuing the homicidal rampage. The stories are scientifically off base, but they frighten us anyway. Why? Because there is a sense in which they’re true.

          When you visit a website, listen to a lecture, take a class, read a book or do anything else that involves ideas and information. The uproar over Black Lives Matters is a great example. Who would not want to be associated with a group that stands against unjust treatment of people of color? But if you read their mission statement, that’s only a small part of what they hope to achieve, and the philosophical foundation undergirding everything they do is Marxism.

          Evolution is another example. What’s wrong with believing that genes can vary and can follow trends? Maybe nothing, but those who accept it tend to also reject the idea that there is a God. If they believe that God exists, chances are still good that they will reject large portions of the Bible.

          When you Frankenstein your mind by stitching an idea into your thinking, you are bringing along the ideas that are attached to it.  Your mental monster may end up with 50 hands, or 19 eyes, and some of those ideological hands and eyes are still attached to the ideology from which you tried to take them. Wisdom requires that we figure out how to tell whether an idea or a practice is safe to add.

          What does your family, or your church teach about Scripture? Salvation? God? Parenting? Family? Friendship? Ecology/Conservation? Divorce? Death? Cooking? Sewing? Housecleaning? Household repairs? Stewardship (time, talent, treasure)? Sin? For that matter, what do you know about any of these? What could you teach?

          Let’s make it even harder. What do you know, or what can you teach about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control? Do you know how to have a productive argument?

          Parents have the #1 responsibility for teaching their kids everything their kids need to know. The problem is, they don’t know it all, either. They look to others for help, not knowing what Frankensteining is going on. We’re failing our children. We’re failing ourselves.

          At my church, we have offered lots of different classes and made a variety of groups available. We have an active youth group, but I find myself wondering… do we “require” our high school students to go through a teen version of Financial Peace University? Do we have classes on relationships? Do we send them to college with enough knowledge about nutrition that they can fend for themselves in the cafeteria or kitchen? If we offer any of these to people attending our churches, do we also offer them to outsiders?

          For Evangelicals, sometimes these things get pushed to the side. What’s important is salvation! OK. Do we teach an in-depth, comprehensive understanding of spiritual matters like the authority of Scripture? Do we learn enough about the Bible that we can give a synopsis of the spiritual content of each of the books contained in Scripture? Are we actively promoting memorization? Do we have prayer meetings even once a month?

          While should all of that mundane stuff matter? Because it prepares us to deal with life. Because it builds relationships between teachers and students. Because it allows us to monitor the ideological content, to detaching worldly ideas from what we teach and strengthening the sound, Scriptural basis. And, it allows us to turn every moment into a “teachable moment,” because it’s not enough to explain how to be good stewards. We need to raise them in the practices of good stewardship, and being available to help those who have not learned at home.

          Quoting one of my characters, who was quoting me: “We are woefully under-educated.” And we and those around us are suffering for it. We absolutely must teach Scripture. We must lead others to Christ and teach them the basics of Christianity. But what we face today we face in part because we tried to pretend that we could teach “Christianity” on Sunday mornings, and let the world teach everything else the rest of the week.