In this column we are talking about children who grew up in a Christian home, but have not followed the Lord. Last time we began to focus on how parents handle their God given authority over their children. As noted previously, how we handle the authority God has given us as parents is critical to the process of training. We have briefly considered the warnings of Ephesians 6:4. Paul writes, “And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” If we provoke our children to wrath we may be the very reason they reject our Christian training. May no child ever be able to point at his own father or mother to seek justification for his own rebellion against the Lord. But, let there be no doubt that such rebellion will never be condoned by God nor will stumbling over an unjust parent ever excuse a young person’s sin. Still, the Lord gives parent’s severe warnings of the necessity to perform their parenting obligations well.

Another text of caution is found in Colossians 3:21. Paul writes, “Fathers provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.” The King James Version includes the words “to anger”. I have put them in italics, just as the KJV does, to show that those words are not actually in the text. The translators put them there to better explain the text. That practice can be helpful in some places, but here it does not help. The warning of the verse is not against provoking the child to anger. The warning is against provoking the child to discouragement. The word for “provoke” in this text is different than the word for “provoke” in Ephesians 6:4. The term found in Colossians 3:21 conveys stirring up or irritating. Wuest quotes the commentator Lightfoot as saying, “Irritation is the first consequence of being too exacting with children, and irritation leads to moroseness.” We can see why Paul used the term to warn about parent’s discouraging their children. Wuest says the term discouraged means “disheartened, dispirited, broken in spirit, lose heart”. Have you ever seen parents treat their children in that way? I have. The rules are too strict; the expectations are too high and unrealistic. I can remember being too hard on my own children. Having been visiting late in the evening I would tell the kids to put things away and get their coats on. They would sometimes move slowly and I would speak more strongly to them. My wife would tell me they were tired. I would say, “Being tired does not stop them from moving when I tell them to move.” I am glad she finally got through my thick head that sometimes my expectations were too high. I learned. I have since come to deeply appreciate the compassion of the Lord toward us. Psalm 103:13-14, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For he knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.” Let us as parents remember the spiritual and emotional frailty of our own children. More next time.

- Dr. E. Allen Griffith