By What Standard?
In our decadent world, for some parents children have become a fashion symbol. But every Christian parent worthy of the name knows that when God gives a child to parents He is entrusting those parents with a fearsome responsibility. The responsibility is fearful not in the cowardly sense of the word, but in the sense of awe and holy dread.
For Christian parents know that our children come to us from God. Christian parents know that the child first and foremost belongs to God, not to us. Christian parents know that He is entrusting us with the care and nurture of this defenceless and vulnerable little one who is made in His image. Christian parents know that God will require and accounting from us of how we have nurtured and raised His child. We know that God has commanded us to raise our children to fear and reverence the Lord their God all the days of their lives.
In this regard, one of the most sobering and fearful utterances of our Lord was made when He was confronted with Christian adults who were ambitious to make a name for themselves. He placed a child amongst them and commanded them to become as humble as that child. It is a truly humble person who would receive the child in Christ's Name--but if any adult were to cause that little one, or any child to stumble, it would be better for him that a millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18:1--6)
This declaration by our Lord has to cause every Christian parent to drop to his knees in fear and repentance. The command is that we do nothing which would cause our children to stumble, whether in unbelief or disobedience, in their walk before God. It is one of the most trenchant reminders in all of Scripture that our children belong first and foremost to God, and that it is the solemn and fearful duty of every Christian parent to raise them unto God.
It is with this deep duty and obligation in mind that we approach the question of how our children are to be educated. Who will teach them and instruct them is the first issue. Secondly, what our children are to be taught is also in view. Thirdly, how they are to be taught is also vitally important. Every Christian parent must answer these questions one way or the other for it is a responsibility that God has placed firmly and fully upon them. Moreover, every Christian parent must determine how to proceed with their child's education in a way that does not cause the child to stumble in their faith and walk before God.
Imagine a situation where a Christian parent simply "goes with the flow," and palms off the duty and responsibility for the education of their children to the government. To be sure, modern secular governments claim this responsibility. The New Zealand government stands ready and willing to take over from Christian parents. Worse, it makes it more than difficult for anyone who decides not to deliver up their children to the state education system. But it is a claim the Christian parent cannot allow, for the education of one's children is a duty and responsibility which God has given first and foremost to parents, not to the government. Moreover, to Christian parents there is the particular divine obligation to educate our children in such a way that does not cause them to stumble in their trust and belief in the Living God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Carelessness or relinquishing our responsibility in this matter would risk us falling under the interdiction of our Lord's warning in Matthew 18.
But in facing up to our duty to ensure that the education of children must be pleasing to God, first and foremost, and that it must not lead our children into unbelief or disobedience there is an even more fundamental question than the issues of who, what, and how we will allow and require our children to be taught. It is the question of by what standard we will approach and answer these questions.
Right here there is the clearest possible choice imaginable. Either we will decide these issues by the standard of the Word of God, or we will decide by human standards. There is no neutral ground. Before us stands our Adversary, the serpent of old, who in the beginning persuaded our father, Adam to determine for himself whether it was right for him to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fundamental timbre of his seduction was to suggest to Adam and Eve that they were mature enough to decide this kind of issue for themselves. In other words, Satan enticed Adam into sin by suggesting that he was not a child, but was smart enough to decide for himself. He flaunted the seduction of maturity, whereas God requires that we always remain as children before Him, as our Lord made very clear to His disciples.
The seduction of, and lust for, self-determination as part of what it means to be mature has remained the essence of sin ever since. When God graciously grants children to Christian parents the temptation to self-determination can suddenly become much, much stronger. Suddenly we have to make decisions for the well-being of our children. They are decisions which we as adult Christian parents have to make and we are answerable to no-one else upon earth. Our children, being defenceless and dependant, have to accept our decisions, without recourse. This so easily can transform into an "I know best" arrogance that leads parents into making decisions independently of God's Word. When God gives us children He entrusts us to raise them unto Him. He charges us to raise our children by His standard. But the sheer fact of being given such a huge responsibility can very quickly be perverted into an arrogant mindset of being able to call the shots for our children as we see fit.
The disciples had been seduced by this false, Satanic idea. For them greatness and importance in the Kingdom of God meant wielding authority, command, and control--lording it over others, as the Gentiles did (and do). But in God's Kingdom to bear authority is to be under authority; it is to be as a child oneself. But note carefully, our Lord draws a connection between the disciples' kind of Satanic perversion of authority and abuse of our children. What our Lord underscores in Matthew 18 is that unless we, as parents, humble ourselves as children before our heavenly Father, we will cause our children to stumble. The parent who falls into the idea that authority over their children means they can command and control them as they see fit, without themselves being humbly subject to God's Word as they do so, is actually causing the children to stumble. Woe to that parent.
Thus, as we approach the question of the education of the precious children God has entrusted to us, it is absolutely essential that we lay aside any idea that we will decide these things in terms of what might seem good or reasonable or pleasing to us, let alone what might be easier for us. Our children belong to God, even as we do. We, belonging to God, must ensure that the education of our children is according to His standard, to His holy Word. Only then will we, in good faith, be able to teach our children that they, too, must be subject to God's commandments in all things.
If we cannot, in good faith, teach our children that they too must be subject to God in all things even as their parents are, we have already placed a huge stumbling block in their paths.
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