A Parenting Manual for Bad Kids
Many parenting books promise fast results for raising children who always obey, toddlers who never talk back, and teens who keep the faith. The marketers of such books get that we consumers will buy almost anything if it promises speedy outcomes and comes in a tidy list of dos and don'ts.
In their new book, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus (Crossway), mother-daughter writing team Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson write to challenge the assumption that if we raise "nice" kids, our parenting task is complete (17). They believe God has something far greater for parents than raising the most moral kids on the block. Writing from the experience of a mother whose children are grown (Elyse) and a mother currently parenting young children (Jessica), they offer a reflective look back at what should have been, and a helpful look forward at what parenting can be, by God's grace.
Give Them Grace is divided into two sections: foundations of grace and evidences of grace. In the first, Fitzpatrick and Thompson present the gospel story and its implications for parenting. They assert that we often spend our time parenting by rules alone rather than reciting the story of redemption, which provides our children a way to follow the rules. They emphasize that salvation is all of God, which is a parent's only foundation as they raise children:
Raising good kids is utterly impossible unless they are drawn by the Holy Spirit to put their faith in the goodness of another. You cannot raise good kids, because you are not a good parent. There is only one good Parent, and he had one good Son. Together, this Father and Son accomplished everything that needed to be done to rescue us and our children from certain destruction (50).
While our primary goal shouldn't be raising obedient children, teaching obedience is still a large part of parenting. The authors list four types of obedience (initial, social, civic, religious) and show how to differentiate this obedience from true Christian righteousness (30-32). By weaving in examples of how to respond to children when they disobey, they teach parents the importance of pointing children to Jesus, the only Son who obeyed perfectly. They call this "gracious parenting."
The second section, evidences of grace, explores the nuts and bolts of applying grace to parenting. While the authors steer clear of a simple cause-effect parenting strategy, they provide tools for parents in light of the grace-filled framework already established. They provide a chart for parents to use as they think through parenting "of the Lord" (taken from Ephesians 6:4). The chart has five distinct categories: management, nurturing, training, correction, and promises (89-92). Each category includes an example for the believing and the unbelieving child.
Auditing America's Political Integrity
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Anonymous
I wish that God would strike people like Barbara and C. Lee down with a lightening bolt. It's pointless arguing with people like this, because, if you point out another Bible verse that contradicts their beliefs, the only explanation that they can come up with is that God's will is magical and no one really understands it. As far as Barbara's quote ("And not to sound mean, we are told to wipe the dust from our feet if people decide to not accept God and His Word."), it's ironic that after she's done explaining that God will force you to believe if he really wants you to believe, she turns around and says that it's your fault for not believing (and then, of course, can't offer an explanation for why she said it was your choice whether or not to accept God's word). If we lived in a world where God controlled our every move, there wouldn't be sin. The definition of sin is going against God's will. So, according to Barbara, God wills people to go against his will so that he can condemn some of them to burn in hell (while randomly saving others). This is the reason that I don't go to church anymore - ignorance. From what I've experienced in the church, people *chose* to remain ignorant so that they can live their lives however they want to all the while blaming *their* choices on God. I've seen so-called Christians use "everything happens according to God's will" to justify just about anything (not paying taxes, having sex outside of marriage, marrying an unbeliever, etc.). I got sick of arguing in circles with these people years ago, and I *decided* to leave the church.
c. lee
Amen Barbara. Thank you for defending the truth of God's Word. Please, continue to pray for these men and women who are blind, who are being tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Satan, by way of false teachers, and men, by way of a depraved mind, have twisted the Word of God as it was twisted in the garden in Genesis 3. Pray that God would grant them the grace of understanding and open their eyes by the power of His Holy Spirit. Yes, this will only be accomplished by our great God. Pray that God have mercy on them. Jim731, God is not a man. He is not like me, not like you. He is God. Many of His ways are not fully able to be understood by us. Check out Deut. 29:29. My understanding of God and your understanding of God and all of mankind's understanding of God is FINITE. But as Job finds out and Paul tells us in Romans: who are you, o man, to question God? God is infinite. You, in your finiteness, may not understand how God does something, so you try to explain it with human understanding. Heed the Psalmist's warning Jim: Lean not on your own understanding, but in ALL your ways, acknowledge God, and HE will make your paths straight. Seek the face of God Jim. Ask Him for guidance. As Barbara warned, do not super-impose your human ideas and understanding on the things of God. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you eyes that rightfully interpret Scripture. Please Jim seek the Lord while He may be found. Also, you are the dust to Barbara's feet because your teachings are contrary to scripture. You got the basics of the gospel down: Jesus saves. You got that. But whom does He save? Your understanding of the answer to that question is not biblical. Barbara is pleading with you to look at the way God is redeeming a people for Himself for His glory. I once heard a man say that hell is God's unmediated love. He explained that God's love is holy. God the Father sees us, the elect, chosen, redeemed, church, through His Son. When He sees us, He sees Jesus. That is by His grace. By God's perfect design, He purposed that Christ would be the redeemer of God's elect and be their Mediator. He is our Covenant-keeper. We broke the covenant, we transgressed the Law. But Christ kept the LAw for us and was our perfect sacrifice that atoned for our sins. "Our" sins as in the elect's sins, the sins of those chosen by God from before the foundations of the earth were laid. Now back to the hell comment. God is love. God is holy. He cannot look on sin. And in His love he sends unrepentant sinners to hell. His love is so bright, so hot, that it burns all those not covered by Christ. If you are covered by Christ, you enjoy the loving grace and mercy of God shown to you through His Son. This was God's plan. This manifests His glory and causes us to praise Him for His glorious grace. He would not be loving if He simply tolerated sin. He would not be loving if He simply forgave sin or overlooked sin. He forgives the sins of those trusting in Christ as their righteousness. This trust, this belief, is a work of the Sprit. It is turning FROM self and sin through REPENTANCE and turning TO God and all that He is for you in Christ through FAITH. So God will not forgive those who do not trust in the righteousness and death of Christ alone for their salvation. The good news is that God is all about Himself. He is holy. He is perfect and all-powerful. He is committed to His holiness. He hates sin. He will not pardon the unrepentant ones, those not covered by His Son's blood. The ones who come to Christ for salvation will be saved. The ones that come are the ones whom He has chosen. No other ones come. We love God because He first loved us. Think about that. Think about it long and hard. The ONLY reason you "chose" God out of your own "free will" is because He loved you from before the foundations of the earth and chose you as His own. He chose you and by the means of His grace, namely the preached Word, He brought you to Himself. He did this through His Spirit ...
Dave Harris
Judging others can be a two edge sword. Jesus commanded us to be careful when we judge others. Some parents have been blessed with extra strong spirits. In some families these special children may take a temporary detour in their lives. This doesn't necessarily mean that the parents have done something wrong. Proverbs teaches us to continue to love the child and eventually he or she will come back to the fold. Judging other parents can be a slippery slope, there is a good article on defiant teens and judging their parents here. http://www.christianboardingschools.us/parenting/judge-not/ It speaks directly to this subject.
Jim731
dana m, thanks for your supportive response. Please know that I am not seeking answers from Barbara, but simply asking the questions that she should be asking herself in choosing to adhere to Calvinism. I have the utmost confidence that God truly is GOOD, and that in His goodness He will not abandon a singe soul to the hell of Barbara's theology.
Jim731
JbrownCT, thank you for so kindly expressing your opinion. I will simply respond to it with scripture: Rom 8:20-21 "The creation was subject to futility, NOT VOLUNTARILY, but by the will of the One who subjected it, in the expectation that the creation itself would be freed from its BONDAGE to corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Please notice the complete absence of MAN's "free will" in this glorious example of GOD's will being exercised to set mankind free.
Robyn Widmer
@ Barbara, re: your reply to me about labelling kids "bad," you are absolutely right. We are all sinful. So, by your reasoning, there are no "good" kids. I agree. Let's not use these labels at all. Instead, let's view each child as a person created in the image of God, with strengths and weaknesses. And let us strive to raise each of them up with wisdom, without stifling that individuality by trying to fit them into the same mold. In any case, the words "good" and "bad" have very little real meaning.
JIm731
Barbara, thank you for your passion for defending what you think is God's word. I will do the same. "And not to sound mean, we are told to wipe the dust from our feet if people decide to not accept God and His Word. " Do you not realize Barbara, that this statement completely contradicts your theology of election? According to Calvinism, it is not the non-elect who "decide to not accept God and His Word," but God Himself who has chosen not to give them the faith to believe it. Over and over in your comments you insist that it is GOD who chooses (and by the way I agree completely), and that "ONLY the Holy spirit can change the heart," but you then imply, with statements like this, that MAN is the one who chooses. You want to give GOD all the glory and credit, that in His sovereignty He is responsible for our salvation, but you then completely reverse yourself and want to give man the blame for not properly exercising his free will (which you have all along denied is his to exercise). I know that you do not yet see it, for your many lengthy responses prove so, but "election" completely contradicts the notion of "free will," and yet you try to support both. I would ask why, but I know now that I am only "dust under your feet," one of the "non-elect," not good enough for your efforts or God's. "You are the one with no Scripture to back you up, so I have to assume you are an unbeliever, and I'll pray for you." I am sorry, but I thought Rom. 11:32 and 1Cor. 15:22 were scripture, but apparently I was wrong. As to your prayers for me, thank you very much, I do appreciate them. But if God has not elected me to be saved, neither your prayers, nor the prayers of ten thousand others, will ever change that. Or is God waiting to see who you will pray for before He decides who to save? I am not pointing any of this out to offend or insult you, but to encourage you to question this theology of yours that not only contradicts reason, but your own God-given conscience. Peace to you as you hope to be "elect."
JbrownCT
Jim & Barbara, God chose to create us with free will. He created us for the good, but without free will love is forced upon us akin to rape. Free will gives us the right and the ability to choose the good He created and the love He offers us or to choose to try to create that good for ourselves. What Jim describes is the effect of imperfect men and women who have effaced and even erased the good through our choices and actions.
kelly shane
Dana, yes you would certainly want to point someone away from the Bible for a different point of view, because the entire Bible is about how God chooses. I could write post after post, using almost every book of the Bible. There is nobody leading people in the "sinners prayer", and there is nobody saying "choose God, choose God". If you read the Bible, you cannot get away from the fact of who is sovereign in all things. The introduction of Titus 1 is another example, but let's look at Titus 3. I can't imagine how people read the Bible and don't see the obvious.You have to have a blindfold on to not see that God saves us every step of the way. Just open up any book of the NT and you'll see verses, like Paul saying how HE WAS CHOSEN, etc. Here's from Titus 3 and like I said, it's in all the NT books. "HE SAVED US, NOT ON THE BASIS OF DEEDS WE HAVE DONE IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, but ACCORDING TO HIS MERCY (just like it says in Romans 9), BY THE WASHING OF REGENERATION AND RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHOM HE POURED OUT UPON US, richly through Christ our SAVIOR SO THAT BEING JUSTIFIED BY HIS GRACE, WE WOULD BE MADE HEIRS according to the hope of eternal life." How much clearer can it be? There is nothing mentioned about what we do. He saves us based on His mercy, He poured out the Holy Spirit on us (we didn't ask for it), we are justified by His grace (nothing we do), and made heirs because of God's actions. Ephesians 2, 8,9, and 10 make it clear that it is ALL God. Even the verses about works that we do, were prepared in advance by God. So, continue in your religion of centering on yourself, because it is not what the Bible teaches at all. Give yourself credit for something the Bible never does. Reread Ephsians 2 again, how we are saved, and not because of ourselves, etc. I pray that God will open your eyes because the God of the Bible is more than clear over and over and over. If you truly think you follow the Bible, then you need to read it and see what it's really saying and not superimpose your beliefs on top of what God is saying.
kelly shane
Jim, I think the Scripture is as clear as can be. Secondly, it is not my job to convince you to accept and worship God. We are told to spread the Gospel news, which I did in all my replies. ONLY the Holy Spirit can change the heart. This is not a cop-out, it is a fact. I have done all that I can do, I am not God. God does the rest, if He so chooses. And not to sound mean, we are told to wipe the dust from our feet if people decide to not accept God and His Word. Matt 10:14 "Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet." You are the one with no Scripture to back you up, so I have to assume you are an unbeliever, and I'll pray for you.
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