Paul DeCelles gave this talk at a 1994 Youth Ministry conference. He compared what some child psychologists say about raising children to what the Bible says. He also underlined the importance of parents believing in and taking into the account the existence of evil. He ended with two stories about stealing: a modern one and a historical one from the church father Augustine’s life.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
PAUL: Iâd like to begin with aâjust a short description of a particular case study that was published in Parenting [sic; Parents] Magazine. Theyâa lot of the columns that were originally published in Parent[s] Magazine areâwere collected in this book, called We Have a Problem: A Parentâs Sourcebook [By Jane Mark, American Psychiatric Publishing Inc., 1992].
So I want to say a few th- âIâm gonna give aâthis is âSueâs Story,â it says, and Iâm gonna read part of it. I wonât read the counselorâs reply, but I just want to indicate what weâre dealing withâwhat the subject matter is today, in my talk.
It says:
âWe felt lucky about having our kids in the most enriched and challenging school in the city,â said Sue Malcom, 33. âWhile our daughter Sidney (10) had emerged as a superior and even super-enthusiastic student, Adam, in first grade, devoted most of his energy to being a wise guy.â
Okay, so Adam is six years old.
ââIâm smarter than you!â he said, gloating, when I couldnât guess his riddle. He said the same thing when he found the screwdriver my husband Rick had misplaced. Nor would he accept any advice or criticism. When I tried to get him to slow his piano playing down to the beat of the metronome, his response was, âSo? Youâre not perfect.â [Light audience laughter.]
âThis âdonât-try-to-tell-me-anythingâ attitude was getting worse by the day and I didnât know what to do about it. Sometimes, it wasnât even what he said so much as the faces he made as if he couldnât believe that his mother could say anything so dumb. But if I tried to call him on it, he was full of denial. And his teacher said he was fine there. Adam has some good friends,â she continued, âbut he feels he should be able to handle everything and he hates to ask for help.â
Et cetera.
She said, âSometimes I think he has a lot of self-doubt. Anyway, I was left with mixed feelings, relieved that Adam wasnât misbehaving at school, and yet concern over whether he felt insecure, and if so, what about?
âThat evening I tried to draw him out. I talked about how we all have problems and how itâs better to share them than to suffer in silence. [Scattered laughter.]
ââYou must be feeling something isnât right,â I persisted. Adam said, âMom, quit it, or Iâll shoot you.â âLet it go,â Rick urgedâRick is a professor of social workâRick said that the less we reacted to Adamâs rudeness, the sooner he would overcome whatever was bugging him. Was he right? [Laughter.]
âI had to admire the way Rick could remain unruffled when Adam called him âdimwit.â [Laughter.]
âOne evening when Rick started playing the piano, Adam howled like a dog and said, âYou stink, Dad!â But Rick went on playing, and sure enough, Adam settled down and even gave Rick a hug. Rick could sidestep the rudeness and Sidney, with all her activity, was gone too much to be a good target, but despite my efforts to play it cool, I was still getting the brunt of Adamâs disrespectful behavior, and it was wearing me down.
âTake the swearing, for example. [Paul and audience laugh.]
âLike Rick, I teach college, but he leaves earlier, so I take the kids to school. One morning, Adam bumped his head getting out of the car and he swore. At me! As punishment I told him he couldnât have a friend over after school. Adam insisted he hadnât said what I had heard. He looked so innocent. So what could I do? I tried to reason with him. âI never would have dared to speak to my parents that way,â I said. âI donât like to punish you, but how else can I make you understand that your rudeness is unacceptable?â No reaction.â
Et cetera. Thereâs several episodesâmore things, here. Letâs see. Letâs skip to another one.
âThen there was the game of Monopoly at our friendâs house. Rick and Adam were a team against our host, Rickâs colleague Dave, and his little girl Toni, whoâs five and very shy. âWeâll whip âem, wonât we, Dad?â Adam said, crowing as the game began. But Adam and Rick had to mortgage all their properties to pay the rent, and finally they went bankrupt. [Laughter.]
ââI could have won,â Adam railed at his father, âif I didnât have a dad with raviola [sic] for brains!â [Laughter and groaning.]
âDave laughed, but Rick was furious. He yelled at Adam, who cried. Rick told him, âYouâre going home right now!â but there was nobody there to watch Adam, so we had to let him stay for dessert. [Laughter.]
âApparently, Rick could take what Adam dished out in private, but in public, he couldnât handle it at all.
Oh, it justâit gets worse, actually. [Laughter.]
âThere was a PTA meeting at our houseââ
âshe says.
ââYou can say hello and have a cookie, Adam, then itâs off to bed for you, young man.â I told him I was counting on his best behavior. He was good. He greeted the other parents, shook hands and smiling [sic]. In the wake of Adamâs recent behavior, Iâd almost forgotten how charming he could be. When I said it was bedtime, Adam scampered upstairs, waving goodnight, and I blew him a kiss.
âBut it was only minutes before he was back for more cookies. And then he flopped noisily into a chair. I gave him a âWhatâs this?â look. âMilk,â he whispered loudly. I shook my head. âMom,â he interrupted, âstop talking and get me some milk.â I excused myself and turned to Adam. âYou can get it yourself,â I said through clenched teeth, âand then right back to bed.â Adam shook his head. âIâm comfortable,â he said grandly. âYou go get it.â âAdam, go to bed.â âWhy donât you?â he retorted. [Laughter and shocked exclamations.] âDo what I say, or youâre in deep trouble.â [Paul and audience laugh.]
Anyway, he wouldnât leave, and:
ââThis meeting is so dumb,â Adam muttered. I tried to ignore him, went on talking. But he ran over and covered my mouth with both his hands. âMom, shut up, will ya?â he said. âI want my milk.ââ
Et cetera. Well, anyway, thereâs some advice for this person. [Paul and all laugh].
Thatâs what weâre talking about. Raising such children.
Weâre in aâsuch a changing situation in the world today, which everybody knows a great dealâI mean, weâve reflected on this many times in many different situations. I want to just set the scene for what Iâm gonna talk about now.
Because the world has become so much âone world,â and we have so many different cultures and religions interacting with each other, itâs clear that the leaders donât quite know what to do about this. How can we effectively teach anything? What is going to be the basis of our behavior? What will be the fundamental principles of our teaching? How shall we form society? Especially since not everybody is Christian or Jewish, they think, we canât have a Judeo-Christian set of ethics anymore, and weâre not going to communicate that.
And so, there is really a genuine effort on the part of educators and people who deal in this trade of writing about such things, to try to say something to help society get on, but in a situation where it is no longer a Christian society, or a Judeo-Christian society. And so, the problem is: is there anything that we can agree to that we can teach our children, an approach that we can have in a common way, that willâan approach to building society?
So, in a sense, everybody is pretty much adrift. Nobody knowsâif we canât use the Bible, then what will we use? Well, we will use science, maybe, or something like that. Or we will investigate and see what we can do: pseudoscience, social science, or something like that.
Well, at any rate, I mean sincerely, this is a very deep concern. What do weâhow do we approach children from so many different strata and religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, in the Western world?
And, so, while I think thatâwhat Iâm trying to say here is that the efforts that people are making in this direction are really well-motivated, and we should appreciate their effort to do this, and to do it right, as well as they can. Iâm going to describeâIâm going to mention a few ways that we triedâthat the world is trying to cope with this problem, how to raise children.
Iâm going to refer to this book called Parenting in Contemporary Society [by Tommie J. Hamner and Pauline H. Turner]. Iâm not recommending it, particularly. Itâs a textbook for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students. It was published in 1994 [Allyn & Bacon], so itâs quite up to date. And in here, they give a nice description of about nine different approaches that you can take. The most common approaches that are extant. Iâll mention a few of them.
Basically, we have a situation which is a neo-pagan rationalism that is in our schools to teach children and parents how to relate to each other. Itâs honest people trying to figure out what to do.
First one Iâll mention isâIâm just going to rattle names off, here, and then Iâm going to stop and talk about one of them at some length, to expose the principles of this particular one. But the principles are very similar in all of them, really. There are significant differences, enough that you can name them differently, but they all share pretty much the common things Iâll be talking about.
After that, Iâll talk about what Scripture has to say about raising children. So, the situation is, we are Christians in this complex situation, and we can deal with our children in a Christian way. And we need to do that. But we need to understand that theyâre also going to be dealt with by other people who are approaching them from a non-Christian way. Not necessarily an evil way, but a different way. And we need to understand the clash, and the crisis that the children experience in such a world, and also, we need to fortify ourselves so that we donât get swept up in something which is really pretty non-Christian. Which is not the same thing as saying âterribly evil.â But just non-Christian.
First one is Parent Effectiveness Training, P-E-T, or PET. It was developed by Dr. Thomas Gordon.
Another one is Systematic Training for Effective Parenting, which is called STEP, developed by Dr. Don Dinkmeyer and Dr. Gary McKay, based on the work of Dr. Rudolph Dreikurs and Dr. Alfred Adler.
Third one mentioned in here isâor, another one mentioned in here is Behavior Modification, which is based on the work of Dr. B. F. Skinner and applied to parenting by numerous psychologists and educators. This focuses almost exclusively on rewards and punishments. James Dobson, at least in his early days, came out of this school of thought.
The fourth one is Active Parenting. This is an updated version of STEP.
Another one is How to Talk so Kids will Listen, developed by Ms. Adele Fabish [sic; Faber] and Ms. Elaine Mazlish, based on the work of Dr. Haim Ginott.
And the sixth one is Assertive Discipline, developed by Lee and Marlene Canter, based on their earlier success with this model in a school classroom management situation.
Iâm going to talk about the Parent Effectiveness Training in some detail.
First, Iâll give you the principles; then Iâll talk a little bit about the strategies that are used in this. And what Iâm going to do here is tell you what they say theyâre doing. So, Iâm in their camp now. Iâm going to be speaking as one of them, okay?
The principles are three: we want individualism, equality, and harmony.
âIndividualismâ means thatâshows up especially as, that itâs important to develop and accept âself,â especially your feelings. Itâs important to develop and accept your feelings.
Another fundamental precept of effective child-rearing involves not teaching children they are bad or selfish for wanting. Now this isâIâm quoting here from the book.
Childrenâs desires and wants are an important part of their personal identity. Individuals who progressively turn their backs on their wants and priorities are sacrificing themselves and surrendering a basic part of their identity. All that a person has are his feelings, perceptions, thoughts, wants, and unique ways of coping with his environment and pursuing his priorities.
Thatâs a definition of a human being, I think. The way they define a human being.
If children are implicitly taught to deny their wants and inhibit their desires, they will be progressively debilitated. Therefore, teaching children to be selfless, in the sense of being self-denying and unnecessarily deferring of their own wants, can be very damaging, and later, may seriously interfere with their pursuing goal-directed behavior.
Thatâs PETâs approach to this. So this is a deep insight from them.
Let me now talk a little bit about equality. Thisâequality plays a very huge role in this. Itâs the matrix in which everything else is worked out. Children and parents are fundamentally equal; therefore, children should be free to do what they want, as long as it doesnât step on the toes of another person.
So, basically, all you have is a society of totally equal people; some of them are younger than others, butâwhich will create some conflict, and therefore you have to find ways to resolve the conflict. And thatâs whyâwhat we heard about earlier.
The third thing is that we do want harmony, and therefore parents and children should learn to live together in peace, as equal individuals. And thatâs the model; thatâs the goal. Those are the three principles.
So, now they have some strategies in light of these principles. These are the strategies that they articulated in PET.
First, allow children to express their feelings. Feelings arenât right or wrong; they just are. Itâs equally okay to say, âI love you,â and, âI hate you.â Either one is fine; itâs just a feeling. Just a statement. It has no content. Itâs just a fact.
You need to develop a certain communication style so that the children will be able to learn to express their feelings. And you also need to learn how to express your feelings, adults do. The method recommended is called Reflective Listening. Let children know you understand how they are feeling. Use Reflective Listening, or feedback, to put the childâs feelings into your words and reflect those feelings back to the child.
For example, âJoseph, you look upset.â
âJimmy wonât play with me. He said, âGo away.â â
Then you say, âSounds like you feel hurt and left out because he wonât let you play.â
So you turn his remark intoâyou put it into someâinto your words, and play it back to him, so that he can identify that you understand what heâs saying, and then he will say more about the way he feels.
Parents should express their feelings, too. Real parents donât hide their true feelings. To deal with socially unacceptable behavior, like younger kidsâ, you need to prevent the problems. That is, avoid conflict; reinforce desirable behavior; control the environment by, for example, removing the causes of temper tantrums; anticipate events by, for example, preparing a child for something new.
So you try to arrange the thing so you can avoid difficulties that might come up for the younger children.
Techniques or strategies for changing behavior are these four they recommend. One is distraction, which we heard about earlier. Another one is substitution. Third is natural consequences, that is, let the child experience the unpleasant consequences of his actions. And the fourth one is logical consequences, and this requires parental intervention of a type. A child runs out into the street; such a child is confined to the yard or the house.
So now, this is their comment. Another comment by them:
Some advantages of using natural and logical consequences rather than relying on reward and punishment isâfirst of all, it holds children, not their parents, responsible for the childâs behavior. It puts the ball in the childâs court. You do that; it has its consequence, but thatâs your choice.
Second, it allows children to make their own decisions about what courses of action are appropriate. And third, it permits children to learn from the impersonal, natural, or social order of events, rather than forcing them to comply with the wishes of other persons.
Okay. Another strategy is:
We need to learn to talk in a way that does not evaluate, judge, blame, criticize, or in any way put down a child. Donât attack the personality or character of the child. So, for example, donât use âyouâ statements; use âIâ statements.
For example, âYou should go play somewhere else.â âPut away those pots and pans.â
Use, instead, statements like these: âI cannot rest when someone is crawling on my lap.â âI sure get discouraged when I see my clean kitchen dirty again.â [Laughter.]
WOMANâS VOICE: [laughing]: Howâd you get through all this?
[Paul and audience chuckle.]
PAUL: Okay, another strategy. Figure out who hasâin their language, who âownsâ the problem: child or parent. [Laughter.]
The person who is annoyed, frustrated, hurt, bothered, or angry, that is the person who is the one who has the problem. That is the person who has to deal with it.
For example, the childâthis is an example of a child-owned problem. Child doesnât make the baseball team. Teenage girl had a fight with her boyfriend. Those are problemsâthatâs a child-owned problem.
A parent-owned problem, for example: a child leaves the kitchen in a mess, and a child comes home late. Thatâs a problem the parent experiences, so. . . . Now thatâsâso the kitchen being in a mess is the parentâs problem. Did you get that okay? [Laughter.]
When the child owns the problem, practice therapeutic or reflective listening. So if itâs his problem, you know, then you use these therapeutic techniques and listen. This communicates acceptance; it helps the child release emotions, and therefore cope with them; and it facilitates problem solving by the child.
So, they say:
When a person feels that he is truly accepted by another, as he is, then he is free to move from there and to begin to think about how he wants to change, how he wants to grow, how he can become different, how he might become more of what he is capable of being.
The next strategy is conflict resolution. Itâs bad when parentsâwhen the parent wins, and when the child wins. Rather, they need shared power. [Laughter.] So, when a conflict arises, the parent invites the child to participate in finding a solution acceptable to both. Both parent and child accept possible solutions. So a decision is reached which is mutually acceptable. So they would say, âI respect your needs and your right to have your needs met. But I also respect my own needs and my right to have them met.â
Now, youâre talkingâthis is, for example, talking to a four-year-old girl. [laughter].
âLetâs try to find a solution that will be acceptable to both of us. In this way, your needs will be met, but so will mine. No one will lose; both will win.â
Now thisâthey go on to say:
This communicates to kids that parents think their needs are important too, and that the kids can be trusted to be considerate of parental needs in return. This is treating kids much as we treat friends or a spouse. The method feels so good to children because they like so much to feel trusted, and to be treated as an equal.
Another strategy:
Many problems can be solved by the child himself, or by conflict resolution, but sometimes there is a conflict between the parentâs and the childâs values. So, parents have to accept kidsâ values. They canât use conflict resolution in those situations when the kids feel that they have a right to their values and they cannot see how it affects their parents in any tangible or concrete way. You canât push them to change because that is interfering with another person.
Like wearing miniskirts, makeupâthe daughter wearsâthe child who refuses to go to church, and so on.
So they say, âWhy donât parents understand?â
I think this isâIâm just about finished with this strategy thingâthis is the crowning quotation. Very illuminating.
Why donât parents understand that their sons and daughters are human beings and that itâs human nature to fight for freedom whenever it is threatened by another. Why donât parents comprehend that civil rights must begin at home? Granting children civil rights or certain inalienable freedoms presupposes viewing children as separate human beings or independent persons having a life of their own. Parents can influence a childâs values by their example, but they canât teach, they canât command, they canât demand or direct.
Now, thatâsâI think that thatâs an honest summary, and I think that they would regard that as a favorable presentation of the PET. I think that this particularâjust this one example of approaching children is very seriously flawed. Itâs forâit has a very, very big problem, we would recognize, and that is: it doesnât believe in, or take into account, the existence of evil. It doesnât believe in. . . .
For example. Because of that, it dealsâitâs concerned with how to deal with âsocially unacceptable behavior,â not with something evil. Or another one is, âFeelings arenât right or wrong; feelings just are.â Thereâs nothing âwrongâ here.
We would go also, I thinkâI mean, weâre talkingâthey also donât accept the authority of God, that God has something to say about human beings. And so, all of these theories that Iâve alluded to have these things in common. They donât believe in the existence of evil, they donât believe in the existence of God, and they donât believe in the existence of the order that God has put on the world.
Now, I think you could sayâagain, trying to be generous about thisâand I think we ought to be. In fact, in a lot of the literature that you read from these folks, they do have some very interesting observations to make. These are honest people trying to make things go better. But, fundamentally, their approach has these terrible flaws in it.
Okay. Now I want to shift gears and talk a little bit about what Scripture has to say.
Iâve handed outâyou all have a copy of what ScriptureâScripture passages about parents and children. Iâm going to go through a selection of these. I suggest that you study them all on your own.
One of the reasons I want to do this . . . is I think that itâs not always so easy to understand what such an injunction in the Old Testament might mean in our day today, as some of these things will strike you.
So, Iâd like to talk about, and interpret it for usâfor our purposes, some of these quot- âsome of these citations.
So, first of allâIâm not going to go through this in the order that they appear on your sheet. So, you might want to look in there for them if you see them, and read along to yourself. Unless you want to read alongâyou donât have one?
MANâS VOICE: We donât have one back here.
PAUL: Canâweâre out of them. Yeah, you should have one. You got a spare one? Hereâs a spare. Couple of spares; there we go.
MANâS VOICE: [inaudible]
PAUL: So, this isânow, Iâm going to sayâshifting gears, Iâm going to say now, âThis is what Scripture has to say.â Itâs what the Lord has revealed to us about parents and children, adults and children, etc.
This is from Deuteronomy 29. Let meâIâm going to read this fairly fast. Donât worry if youâre not getting every word; you have the quotation there. And, after I read a couple of them, Iâll make a comment, and then Iâll read another one, and Iâll make some more comments, etc. Okay? So, just sort of sit back and be easy.
Deuteronomy 29:10â13:
You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God. The heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, both he who hews your wood and he who draws your water, that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God makes with you this day.
Again, in Deuteronomy 31:
When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place which he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in his hearing. Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God and be careful to do all the words of this law.
Now, just a couple of observations. One is that everybody here is equal before God. But all are bound to obey. The Old and the New Covenant also are given to Godâtheyâre given to all by God.
So the word of God applies to all, young and old alike.
In Genesis 9, we see:
Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard and he drank of the wine and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their fatherâs nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, âCursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.â He also said, âBlessed by the Lord my God be Shem, and let Canaan be his slave. God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his slave.â
Again, in Exodus 20: âHonor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.â
Again, in Proverbs [30:17]: âThe eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.â
Again, in Exodus 21: âWhoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.â
Okay. These seem pretty strong, donât they? [Paul and audience chuckle.]
Let me say something about the Genesis passage, about Noah. This passage implies on the part of Ham, who is the father of Canaan, contempt for his father. Noah was the one who discovered wine. He didnât know that he would get drunk, drinking that. But his two younger sons covered up hisâthis terrible event that happened there. Whereas the older boy reveled in it, with contempt for his father.
Now, I think ânakednessâ can be taken as psychological nakedness also. Parents shouldnât be too ârealâ with their kids. You donât need to reveal all your feelings to your kids.
Clearly, the remark about cursing your father and mother . . . shall be put to death, is an especially strong injunction regarding the right way for children to speak to their parents. Weâll come back to this again some other placeâI canât remember where now, thatâwhere Iâll say more about this. But this is aâwell, Iâll wait till I come to it.
In Numbers 20:32:
We will build sheepfolds here for our flocks and cities for our little ones. But we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel until we have brought them to their place. And our little ones shall live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land.
So hereâs another principle from Scripture: parents should protect their children. And really, this is rarely spoken about today.
In Exodus 12, verses 24â27:
You shall observe this rite as an ordinance for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, âWhat do you mean by this service?â you shall say, âIt is the sacrifice of the Lordâs Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he slew the Egyptians but spared our houses.â
Again, in Exodus 13:
Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. No leavened bread shall be seen with you. No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. And you shall tell your son on that day (you shall tell your son on that day!), âIt is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.â
In Deuteronomy 9â4; rather. Deuteronomy 4, verses 9â11:
Only take heed and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your childrenâs children, how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, âGather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children so.â
Deuteronomy 6:
Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with all your soul and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your head, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you 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. When your son asks you in the time to come, âWhat is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances . . .â
. . . the manners, etc. etc., you might say [Paul chuckles] . . .
â . . . which the Lord our God has commanded you?â then you shall say to your son, âWe were Pharaohâs slaves in Egypt,â etc. etc.
Joel, chapter 1:
Hear this, you aged men! Give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children, another generation.
So, the moral is: parents should teach. Not just by example, contrary to what PET and other programs say, but by their words. You need to explain why you do what you do, and why they ought to do what you tell them to do. And you need to recount the events of salvation history. You need to tell them, âThis is what God did. This isâthis was my situation, this was our situation, this was the worldâs situation, and God has saved us from this; this is the way he did it.â And you tell them that often, so that that is their story, that is their life, that is their history. Itâs theirs; theyâand you need to communicate that to them.
You ought not assume, as many parents do, that just by being good, that the children will pick up the way to be good. They will learn the way, but they mayâand they often doâmiss the point. They donât understand why youâre doing what youâre doing. And we need to explain it.
We need to explain to our children, for instance, why we live in community. Iâve often talked with children about why they think their parents live in community, and itâs really quite remarkable that they are so confused. They havenât a clue as to why their parents have decided to join the community.
They should be teachingâwe should be teaching our children about the Lord, and willingly answering their questions about the Lord. So adults should be giving their testimonies, telling stories of what the Lord has done.
And in Psalm 78, we see:
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known
that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders which he has wrought.
He established a testimony in Jacob
and appointed a law in Israel
which he commanded our fathers
to teach to their children,
that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God,
and not forget the works of God,
but keep Godâs commandments.
That is, Christianity is intergenerational. Itâs not true that parents donât have anything to offer their children, or that times have changed and that the parents are hopelessly out of touch with life.
Let meâyou can find this in other passages in Scripture. Iâll just skip to Matthew 10, verses 21â22: âBrother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents, and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my nameâs sake.â
You can see similar remarks in Deuteronomy, chapter 13.
The point here is that the gospel can divide families. Family is not the highest value. Although, in some Christian circles, it doesâit seems like they treat it that way. There are more important things than wholesome family life, and that is, faithfulness to the law of God.
Again, in Deuteronomy: âIf a man . . .â this is chapter 21, verse 18â21:
If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chastise him, will not give heed to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the leaders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives. And they shall say to the elders of his city, âThis, our son, is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.â Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and fear.
Again in Exodus 21: âWhoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.â
Exodus 21, verse 17: âWhoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.â
Note that both the fatherâs and the motherâs witness are needed in this. Both have to be treated equal there [sic]. Disobedience, you see, is not just a family matter. A disobedient child is a danger to the whole society. And thatâs why this law takes them out: if theyâre disobedient to their parents, remove this child from our society.
Now, weâre not in the business of stoning, and Iâm not trying to do that. It isnâtâthis isnât meant to beâyou know, to hurt the kid. This isâget this corrupt thingâinfluenceâout of our life, out of the life of our community. So itâs veryâI think that thatâsâthat was one passage in particular I thought we ought to pay very close attention to. Itâs extremely important that we deal with disobedient children.
âFor I, the Lord . . . ( in Exodus 20) . . . your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.â
There are numerousâthereâs Exodus 34, and Deuteronomy 24, and Jeremiah 32âtheyâre all in that same vein. For example, Ezekiel 18:
The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
We are each responsible for our lives. However, we live our livesâhow we live our lives affects those around us. Whether we follow Godâs plan or not means that we are creating a certain kind of society, one that will be a blessing for following generations or one that will cause the next generation to suffer.
I think itâs interesting that youâI donât think one can draw any firm conclusions, but I offer you this as an idea to think aboutâthat theâin the â60s, when there was this youth revolution in the United States, and you could say, something of a massive rebelliousness across the land, where the children sort of organized themselves over against their parentsâhas that rebelliousness been visited on us in these days? Is there any connection between what happened then and what weâre experiencing now?
Again, in 1 Samuel 2:
Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They had no regard for the Lord. Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt. Now Eli was very old, and he heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And he said to them, âWhy do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people.â But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to slay them.
Then the Lord said to Samuel, âBehold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone that hears it will tingle. On that day, I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I tell him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.â
Now, the successful consultant shares rather than preaches, weâre told by conventional wisdom. The successful consultant, or parent, offers rather than imposes, suggests rather than demands. Even more critical, the successful consultant shares, offers, and suggests usually no more than once. The successful consultant offers his ideas, and then leaves responsibility with his. . . .
[short interruption in the tape]
. . . So, no, we had better take responsibility for our children. And when we do, weâre saying something remarkably different and counter to the prevailing conventional wisdom.
In Proverbs 6:
My son, keep your fatherâs commandment, and forsake not your motherâs teaching. Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adventuress.
Whenâin some of these books, thereâs an interesting story of a little girl who was impulsive and prickly, creative and a bit obnoxious. But when she was left in charge of her little sister, she had a âbook,â she said, quoteâunquote, which she consulted. When she doesnâtâshe said, âWhen Iââ when she doesnât know what to do, she says, âI find the right page, and go and do what I wrote there, âcause my mother helped me write the book.â
The psychologist said, âThis is bad, because a child should hold on to hisâher own thoughts and feelings, not her motherâs.â
Proverbs 22: âTrain up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.â
Again, training and discipleship: they goâtheyâre the same thing, basically, here.
Parents and children should work side by side. Modern psychology says that parents can show acceptance of a child by not intervening in his activities. For example, the parent who helps a child plan a party communicates, âYou canât give a good party by yourself.â Therefore, you should stay out of telling children how to have a good party. [Laughter; Paul chuckles]
Proverbs 22: âFolly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.â
Psychology says, rather, you know, âTry to understand how your child thinks and feels; see things from his point of view. If you really understand . . .â These are quotes Iâm taking from the literature. âIf you really understand, you will be changed. It will affect you.â Okay?
Proverbs 23: âDo not withhold discipline from a child. If you beat him with a rod, he will not die. If you beat him with a rod, you will save his life from Sheol.â
Nowâthat is to say, whatâs at stake here is eternal life. What you do with your children has eternal consequences. The goal is heaven, and we have concern for the souls of our children.
Lamentations [2:19]. We say:
Arise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the watches;
pour out your heart like water
before the presence of the Lord.
Lift your hands to him
for the lives of your children,
who faint for hunger
at the head of every street.
That is to say, it is extremely important for us to engage in intercessory prayer for our children. We know, throughout history, of testimony of how people who have been faithful pray- âmothers praying for their sons for 30 years, bringing about eventually the great conversion. So we ought not give up, and some of us have to pray for our children all the time. It is extremely important that we enter into ourâintercessory prayer for our children. And for all children.
Thereâsâletâs see. I forget when we started.
MANâS VOICE: [inaudible] on the schedule, until 3:45.
PAUL: 3:45?
MANâS VOICE: [inaudible]
PAUL: Okay. Shall I try to finish?
Matthew 19:
Then children were brought to him, that he might lay his hands on them and pray. And the disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, âLet the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.â And he laid his hands on them and went away.
The Lord welcomed children. So should we. And we should help the children to go to the Lord.
âAt that time . . .â Matthew 18:
. . . the disciples came to Jesus saying, âWhoâs the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?â Drawing a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, âTruly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.â
We see here: âBlessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.â
Children are needy. They canât just rely on themselves. They are not independent. Theyâre not self-sufficient. Theyâre not self-governing. Help them!
So too, parents should become like them. That is, needy, poor, relying not on themselves but on their heavenly Father for all things.
In Luke 2, we see, âAnd he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. And his mother kept all these things in her heart.â
Jesus was not just obedient to a law; he was obedient to people. In psychology, they say, âUse logical or natural punishment because it permits children to learn from the impersonal natural or social order, rather than helping them to comply with the wishes of another person.â We want it to be personal.
In Romans 1, verse 28â32, thereâs a long list of terribly evil things: âcovetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless . . .â
That is to say, right in the middle of this long list of tremendously evil things, you see âdisobedient to parents.â
âBut understand this,â it says in 2 Timothy 3:
That in the last days, there will come times of stress, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce haters of God, treacherous . . .
. . . and so on. Disobedience is a serious matter.
Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3 are words to fathers about, âDonât let your children become discouraged. Donât stir them up or excite them.â Basically, fathers should help children not to become discouraged but to have hope, and to have strength and courage.
Again, Mark 9:
And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, âWhoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me.â
Reminds me of Matthew 25, verse 35:
For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. . . . As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.
Now, who is there who isâhas not seen a child who is hungry? And when you feed your child, youâre feeding he whoâs hungryâhim whoâs hungry. And you gave him food. Thirsty, you gave him a drink. Strangerâchildren feel veryâtheyâre always feeling like strangers. Theyâre out of place, they donât know how they fit in. â . . . and you welcomed me. I was naked . . .â Certainly the case. Clothing all these naked little babies? â . . . and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me.â Children are wonderful cases of exactly whatâthey are likeâthey are Christ to us. And when we take care of them this way, weâre caring for Christ. âYou did it to me.â
Now Iâm going to tell a story, and counter it with a Christian story. This is a story from Parents Magazine, and Iâll try to make it real brief here.
This wasâthe child, Peter, began stealing. He was 10 years old. There were four episodes. He stole at camp: Peter and two of his friends took several sheets of camp stationery from the staffâs office, and used it to write love notes from one counselor to another. So there was some outcome.
Same three boys at schoolâ itâs a new middle schoolâstole 20 rolls of toilet paper from a supply room, and draped the bathroom, clogged up sinks and toilets, and left a soggy mess on the bathroom floor. There was an outcome for that too; Iâweâll skip on here.
Peter and a new, mild-mannered friend stole two candy bars. The parents took away allowance, the movie privileges until further notice, and Peter looked angry and defiant: âIt was just two stupid candy bars.â But finally admitted his action was wrong.
Although he didnât want to, Peter was visiting his grandfather, who had Alzheimerâs, and when he was left alone in the room, stole his grandfatherâs roommateâs World War I Purple Heart [military medal]. He was caught, says, âI donât know why I took it.â And Peter started to cry. And parents took him to a psychologist.
So, about the time [of] the third incident, Peter started losing interest in schoolwork, getting poor grades. Peter talked to a teacher who saysâhis parents talked to a teacher, who said that Peter seemed preoccupied and uninterested.
Now, this was the psychologistâs answerâcounselorâs advice to this. The underlying supposition of the advice was that stealing is a symptom. You have to understand what stealing means for Peter. So the psychologist talks to Peter, who is uncommunicative, and finally she asks what his grandfather was like, uses reflective listening, and gets Peter to admit how upset he was about seeing his grandfather become increasingly debilitated by Alzheimerâs, and Peter cries.
Finally, Peter tells about the day he stole the medal. He didnât want to go, and at one point when his mom and dad left the room, he was alone with his grandfather. He didnât want to look at him, turned his back; he saw the Purple Heart and impulsively took it. âI didnât know what I was going to do with it. I felt weird.â
So the psychologist offers this explanation: âI explained that his not being attentive or interested in things lately and his poor performance at school were probably signs of depression. Peter has a lot of pain about his grandfatherâs illness; also, he is in a new school. Peter is a bright, healthy boy, but he seems overwhelmed, and he deserves some help. The better he learns to cope with his stress, the less it will come out in symptoms like stealing.â
Okay, so, depression and stress, in the literature, are practically interchangeable words. Theyâre not using depression in the clinical, psychiatric language, here.
âSo Peter told the psychologist that the first two stealingsâepisodes had been high points in an otherwise gloomy six-month period. Peter found thatâŠâ This is a quote.
. . . Peter found the pranks exciting, and they helped him feel close to his friends. The danger of doing something wrong, and even the drama of getting caught, added to his pleasure.
The store incident had been an attempt to draw his new friend into that excitement. For Peter, however, talking the Purple Heart had not been fun, and was a result of a desperate impulse reflecting his sadness over his grandfather. In the course of our talks, Peter saw how he had been trying to shut out his sad and worried feelings by seeking high adventure in stealing.
So thatâs that case, and that advice.
Now I want to turn, lastly, to another case of stealing. In his Confessions, Augustine recounts an incident from his youth, when he stole some pears. Augustine is a great writer, and itâs difficult to summarize him, so, if you have a chance to read it when you get home, itâs in Book 2.
Let me just give you a little background. Augustine is older; heâs 16. He has had to interrupt his studies and spent his whole 16th year idle. And he begins to give in to his lust. He says, âThe briars of unclean lusts grew so that they towered over my head, and there was no hand to root them out.â
His mother warned him, and in hindsight, he sees her warnings as the voice of the Lord. But, âI went headlong on my course.â
Then, Augustine tells of another incident, right after that. Itâsâin a way, it seems, to himâitâs clear that it seems to him that itâs far more evil than his sexual sin. He tells the story of dealing with some friendsâof stealing, rather, together with some friends, some pears from a neighborâs orchard. His understanding of the incident is a revelation from God, and a revelation of God.
He says, âWho is there to teach me, except Him who enlightens my heart and uncovers its darkness? What else is it, that has aroused my mind to seek out and to discuss and to consider these things?â
Heâs not offering an explanation of every act of stealing. Heâs just giving an account of what was going on in his heart, and this was something God revealed to him.
He begins his story with a reference to Godâs law: âYour law, O Lord, punishes theft, and this law is so written in the hearts of men, that not even the breaking of it blocks it out, for no thief bears calmly being stolen from.â
He says his act of theft was unlike others in that he didnât need the pears. He wasnât hungry, and the pears werenât even very good pears. He says:
For I stole a thing of which I had plenty of my own, and of much better quality. Nor did I wish to enjoy that thing which I desired to gain by theft, but rather to enjoy the actual theft and the sin of the theft.
In the garden nearby to our vineyard, there was a pear tree, loaded with a fruitâwith fruit that was desirable neither in appearance nor in taste.
That is to say, he considers himself worse than Eve. When she saw the fruit, it did seem good in appearance and taste.
Augustine and his friends took lots of fruit from the neighborâs tree. They didnât take it to eat. They just threw it to some pigs. âEven if we did eat a little of it, we did this to do what pleased us for the reason that it was forbidden.â
Augustine looks at why men sin. They desert higher goods and choose lower goods. His account of this is psychologically astute. One really has to read it.
A man commits murder. Why did he do so? He coveted his victimâs wife or his property, or he wanted to rob him to get money to live on. Or he feared to be deprived of some such thing by the other. Or he had been injured and burned for revenge. Would anyone commit murder without reason, and out of delight in murder itself?
Augustine asks himself what good he had in thisâin his sin. He says that, alone, he wouldnât have done it. Itâs a difficult passage, but it looks like Augustineâs saying that if he had just liked the pears he stole and merely wished to eat them, he could have done that by himself. The fact that he did it with others, and his friends were a key part of the incident, indicating [indicated] to Augustine that, he says, âMy pleasure lay not in pears. It lay in the evil deed itself, which a group of us joined in sin to do.â
So, Augustine did the same sort ofâhe stole, like this boy. There were four instances in that case I told you. Alex was his name. Fourth one was when he stoleâwhen he was broken up by his grandfatherâs Alzheimerâs. But the first three were of a different type. The psychologist may have gotten the last one right, but Alex never learned what was wrong with stealing. He never reflectedâŠ
Now, Alex was only 10. Augustine is a genius and heâs 16. But, it would help if somebody would explain to Alex what the evil is in what heâs done, and how he ought not break Godâs law.
Augustineâs conclusion:
Behold my heart, O Lord. Behold my heart, upon which you had mercy in the depths of the pit. Behold, now let my heart tell you what it looked for there. That I should be evil, without purpose, and that there should be no cause for my evil but evil itself. Foul was the evil, and I loved it. I loved to go down to death; I loved my fault, not that for which I did the fault. But I loved my fault itself. Base in soul was I, and I Ieaped down from your firm clasp, even toward complete destruction, and I sought nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself.
We need toâlet me draw a few comparisons, and then I promise Iâll quit.
Both seemâIâm sorry, I called him Alex. His name is Peter. Peter and Augustine jump to mind. They both seem to have been involved in rather harmless childish pranks, especially if you think of the first three, in Peterâs case.
The involvement of friends is a key factor for both. Both seem allured by the high adventure of stealing. We canât say that Peter was like Augustine because we donât know what was going on in Peterâs heart. The Lord had uncovered for Augustine the darkness of his heart.
But several things can be said about the psychologistâs interpretation of Peter. One is, Augustineâs point of reference is Godâs law: âStealing is a sin.â The psychologistâs point of reference is, âStealing is a symptom of some underlying sickness.â
It looks like the psychologist leads Peter to understand his stealing in light of the last incident. He was distraught, so he stole the Purple Heart. Quote, âIn the course of our talks, Peter saw how he had been trying to shut out his sad and worried feelings by seeking high adventure in stealing,â unquote.
The 10-year-old Peter can be compared to the 16- âcanât be compared to the 16-year-old Augustine. Still, stealing is a sin, a violation of Godâs commandment, and the psychologist has not helped Peter confront his sin. In fact, now he has an explanation: stealing was just his way of coping with sad and worried feelings.
The psychologist interprets Peterâs first three thefts in light of the last one. Itâs just as possible to explain the last one in the light of the first three. Stealing was fun. It felt good. So, in a distraught moment, Peter turned to it.
Again, many modern psychology theories donât deal adequately with the evil in the human heart. Augustine knew what was going on in his heart: âFoul was the evil, and I loved it.â He didnât flee from his sin; he looked at it. He felt guilty over one little incident, and rightly so. His guilt led him to confess Godâs mercy: âTo your grace and to your mercy I ascribe it, that you have dissolved my sins as if they were ice.â
We cannot ignore evil in our dealings with our children.
So, with Augustine, letâs all commit ourselves to helping our children overcome sin, andâas we try to overcome sin in our own lives, so that we can live pure lives and see God.
Amen.
[Applause.]
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