The following text was taken from Tedd Tripp’s book Pastoreando o Cora’ao da Crianca, by Editora Fiel.
Vendors are tired of food in the restaurant. My father understood this, so he often brought vendors home for dinner.
- One of those nights.
- When the children hesitated to obey.
- Dad reminded us of our duty by asking us.
- What does Ephesians 6.
- 1 say?In our minds.
- We recite.
- “Children.
- Obey your parents in the Lord.
- For it is right.
- “and we continue our task.
The powerful effect this question had on us impressed our guest, he was sure that he had found a new method to make the children obey, and at the end of the visit, he could no longer contain his curiosity.
“By the way?” he asked finally, “what does Ephesians 6. 1 say?” You want to teach my kids?.
Like many parents, my father’s friend wanted an effective method of caring for his children and thought that perhaps the Ephesians Method 6. 1 would work with his children.
If we reject the methods that were briefly evaluated in the previous chapter, what should we do then?What light does the Word of God shed on our approach to fatherhood?The Word of God must inform not only our goals, but also our methods.
Methods and objectives should be complementary; you want your child to live for the glory of God; he wants his son to understand that life worth living is life under the lordship of Jesus Christ; your methods must show submission to this Lord. Designed only to produce successful and well-suited children do not work, because their goal is not simply success and a good fit.
A biblical approach to fatherhood involves two elements that must be weeded together: one is broad and complete communication and the other is the stick. In the book of Proverbs, we find these two methods side by side.
Don’t take the discipline off the kid, because if you hit him with the stick, he won’t die.
You’ll whip her with a stick and free her soul from hell. My son, if your heart is wise, mine will rejoice too; my heart will rejoice when your lips say clear things.
Do not let your heart be envious of sinners; rather, it is the fear of the Lord that they will endure every day.
For in fact there will be a bright future; your hope will not be thwarted.
Listen, my son, and be wise; Guide your righteous heart along the way. ?Proverbs 23: 13-19
Listen to your father, who begot you
and don’t despise your mother when she’s older. Proverbs 23. 22
“Give me, my son, your heart and your eyes delight in my ways. “
Proverbs 23. 26
These passages connect the root and abundant communication. Solomon marries extensive communication with the use of the cane; both are essential in biblical parenting. Together, they form a God-pleasing, spiritually satisfying, cohesive, and unified approach to the discipline, correction, and education of children. The use of the stick preserves, biblically ingrained, the authority of the parents. God gave authority to parents. calling them to act as his agents, in the education of his children; the emphasis on abundant communication trumps cold and tyrannical discipline; provides a context for honest communication, in which the child can be known and known. become sensitive, avoiding feelings of pain and disgust.
The stick and communication must always be intertwined in the royal herd of children, for study purposes we will separate them. First we’ll see the communication and then the stick.
Here’s a rundown of a recent conversation I had with a parent
? Tell me about your communication with your son, I asked.
? Oh! We communicated well, he replied last night he told me he wanted a bike and I told him to eat his beans.
The comment made me smile, but I thought about it and realized that it was probably an accurate description of the communication between most parents and their children. Mom and Dad tell their kids what to do. Children talk to their parents about their desires and dreams.
We tend to think that communication is the ability to express ourselves. Therefore, we conceptualize communication as ‘we talk to our children’. Instead, we should look for “Talking to Our Children. ” Communication is not a monologue; Communication is dialogue. It is not only the ability to speak, but also the ability to listen. Proverbs 18. 2 speaks in this regard with penetrating acumen: “The fool does not like to understand, but to externalize his interior”. Proverbs 18. 13 reminds us that “responding before listening is madness and shame. “
The most sublime art of communication is not to learn to express one’s own thoughts; is the art of learning to extract someone else’s thoughts. Your goal in communication should be to understand your child, not just make you understand. Many parents never learn these skills. They never find a way to help their children express their thoughts and feelings.
There’s a certain irony to all this. When children are young, we often fail to engage them in meaningful conversation. When they try to get us involved, we selflessly tell them to “hum. ” Finally, they learn the skills. They understand we’re not interested in what’s going on in them. Do you learn that? For us it is, for them, a “good listen”. When they become teenagers, the game spins. Parents want to engage in dialogue with their teens, but teenagers have long since left the dialogue.
Cristina is a good example. Her parents asked for advice and said she was introverted. They knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t talk to them, his mother was screaming a lot. Communication was limited to periods of volcanic activity. Occasionally, jumping into the lava, Cristina learned to hide. His father was a closed and distant person. He rarely got involved with anyone in a conversation. Cristina, at the age of fourteen, is restless and turbulent inside, but has never benefited from the sympathetic participation of her parents. Through biblical guidance, she learns to speak, and mom and dad learn to help her express herself and listen to what she has to say.
Pastoring children’s hearts is a job on how to speak to the hearts of our children. The things your child says and does come from the heart. Luke 6:45 says this in the following words: The mouth speaks of what is filled with the heart. Written for parents who have children of all ages, this informative book provides knowledge and procedures for uniting the child’s heart into lifestyles.
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