Parenting is a daunting job. It comes with a high cost, yet is one of the greatest blessings. The accolades go to you when you reap big, and the world scorns you when you raise a scoundrel. For Christians, however, a more pertinent issue stands. What implications does the gospel have on one’s parenting?
It is God’s Commandment to Every Christian Parent
When God delivers Israel from Egypt, he turns this rugged group of enslaved people into a holy nation and he teaches them how they ought to live in the land he is going to give them. After the good news of their deliverance, he gives them a thorough, consistent explanation of the Law to which they and their children were to devote themselves from one generation to the next (Deuteronomy 6:5–9, 20–25).
They needed to maintain a faithful relationship with Yahweh as his redeemed people so that they would not fall into the error of their idolatrous neighbors. Sadly, the Old Testament reveals that these parents lost the plot of catechizing their children (Psalms 78).
In a similar manner, the mantle falls on every Christian parent to exposit the Law, its purposes, and final actualization in Christ to raise men and women zealous for God’s Kingdom purposes.
It Gives the Child a God-Centered Mindset
The shorter catechism’s first question begins by asking what the chief end of man is: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
How often do we think of our children as future missionaries?
When a parent teaches their child the gospel, they are training them to permanently remember that the world begins with the living God at work in his world and not with them. This mindset will pave the way for the child to grow into an adult who will become God-dependent and resist the natural inclination towards self-centeredness.
A child who is God-dependent will be aware of the Creator-God and that they cannot please him with sheer willpower. And because this metanarrative will shape their analysis of a sinful lived-out experience—theirs and those around them—they will inevitably be ripe to respond to God’s grace through Jesus. And who is more suitable to help them on this journey than their parents?
It Prepares the Children for the Gospel Mission and Earthly Good
We often pray, rightly so, as our Lord Jesus taught us, praying for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers to the field (Matthew 9:37–38). But sadly, how often do we think of our children as future missionaries? Ultimately, parents must teach the gospel because we live in the shadow of Christ’s imminent second return, and we must arm them with every tool necessary to present the gospel to a sin-infested dying world around us. Imagine how vibrant our churches would be if we infused a gospel mission mindset in our children.
The Puritan collection of prayers has these lines in the prayer on the family:
Sanctify and prosper my domestic devotion, instruction, discipline, example, that my house may be a nursery for heaven.
The nature of the home in which children are nurtured with the gospel becomes a stark foundation for heavenly-mindedness, without which you will not have adults who will be of any earthly good. An English Proverb says, “Charity begins at home.” Charity is a Christian virtue, among many others, with meaning fully pronounced in the charitableness of Christ. These gospel-centered virtues, when harnessed from the home, shape a strong healthy society.
Daphne Byamukama was born in Mubende, Central Uganda and studied Business Administration and Management at Uganda Martyrs University. She is currently pursuing an online MA in Christian Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Massachusetts, USA. Daphne and her husband, Joseph, serve with Veracity Fount in Kampala, Uganda and she also helps coordinate and facilitate a Community Bible Study (CBS), an inter-denominational women’s bible study class. Daphne is a stay at home wife and mother to their 2 boys, Abaho and Abaasa. Read her blog at Kanywani’s Thoughts.
