HOUSE RULES (PART 4)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged.

Colossians 3:21 NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Within Colossians 3, verses 18 through 21, we find a series of four house rules, commands that were to be followed within a Christian household. Today, we look at the final message in this series but before we do, let’s recap the first three rules:

House Rule #1: Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord (v. 18).

House Rule #2: Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly (v. 19). Here we added an additional order from Ephesians 5 that tells the husband that they are to love their wife as Christ loved the church (v.25).

House Rule #3: Children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord (v.20).

And that leads us to today’s final house rule, this one directed at fathers:

House Rule #4: Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged (v.21).

It’s interesting to look at other Bible translations and see whether or not they use the same demand for father to not aggravate their children. Here’s what you find in regard to other words that replace the word “aggravate”:

CEV – Do not be hard on your children.

GNT – Do not irritate.

HCSB – Do not exasperate.

NKJV – Do not provoke.

Five different translations. Five different words used but the meaning is still the same.

Fathers are to be careful in how they treat their children because getting on your children with excess can do more harm than good. That’s the point being made here.

Now, this verse isn’t saying that fathers shouldn’t discipline their children. Elsewhere in the Bible, we definitely see the call to parent a child in a way where they aren’t spoiled but rather corrected appropriately and the scriptures definitely reinforce that any abusive behavior toward children is sinful and unacceptable to God, who is the true Father of all children.

Here, the call is for a father to avoid being overbearing and authoritarian to the point where there is constant criticism of their children. Hearing negativity over and over and over again is discouraging for adults, let alone children who lack the maturity to cope with continually being yelled at or denigrated.

Need an example?

Several years ago, I was volunteering in a program at a local high school, mentoring teens who were failing three or more subjects. One male youth in particular that I helped was actually very intelligent. He just wasn’t believing in himself.

And so I took him under my wing and consistently praised and encouraged him. When I did, he responded with success in his school work. I told him I was proud of him and believed in him to which he asked why I did when his father always told him he wasn’t good for anything.

The student’s words broke my heart and they were a real life example of the consequences that can happen when a father (or mother, as well) continually get down on their children. This boy had lost sight of how precious and valued he was, torn down by the very father who was charged with building him up. 

So how should a father instruct and correct their children?

Go back to the fifth chapter of Ephesians where Paul wrote these words:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. v.4

Here we find the key to parenting as a whole. For a father and mother should be turning first to the Lord as to how they are raising up His children, and every child is a child who belongs to God. God entrusts human parents to bring up His children until the point when they are adults and can then serve Him, eventually raising their own children provided by Him.

When my wife and I were raising our two daughters, we never disciplined them for doing wrong without reinforcing it with the Bible. In other words, we would show them that the wrong they had committed was actually a sin against the Lord and against His guidance in the scriptures. We weren’t just making up a transgression for the pleasure of correcting them. Rather, it was our responsibility to enforce the word of God, especially as it applied to living right and righteously.

Perhaps we would have fewer problems with our youth today if parents would just be obedient to the scriptures themselves and bring up their children “with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord”. For the only way we can be sure we are raising up our kids in the way the Lord wants is to allow Him to lead and guide us to that end.

He will always a father or mother parents in a way that honors and pleases Him.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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