Articles

The Responsibilities of Children - Part 1

Eph. 6:1-3

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;

That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

Thus far we have seen two pictures in our study of family members. We have discovered that the wife is a picture of the Church, for as the Church is under the spiritual leadership of Christ, the wife is under the spiritual leadership of the husband. We have also studied the husband who is a picture of Christ; as Christ is the Head of the Church and gave Himself for her, the husband is the head of the wife and gives himself for her.

This brings us to our third picture. The child is a picture of the Christian. As the Christian lives an obedient life, so the child lives in strict obedience to his parents. May we reemphasize that Paul is still illustrating, “Be filled with the Spirit” and “Submit yourselves one to another.” May we not forget this! Every family member must be filled with the Spirit and must be submitted according to God’s prescribed order; otherwise a godly family will not exist.

We live in a day of unequalled rebelliousness, and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in young people. A report from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois, for example, tells us that a shocking percentage of young men in America of navy enlistment age must be rejected because of one or more disqualifications, such as: criminal record, personality or psychological disorder, health problem, or failure to measure up to basic recruit training. Many have problems because they do not even know simple things that should have been learned at home. Further, increasing numbers of young people are involved in drug and alcohol abuse, and most everyone has heard of deaths on college campuses due to binge drinking. Basic respect for authority is virtually non-existent, and morals and values have degraded so far that virginity is considered abnormal.

In view of the problems, various solutions have been offered. One is money; that is, we just throw more money at the problem in the form of public schools and social programs. But the problem grows worse. Teachers spend more time trying to restore discipline in the classroom than they do on teaching. Some teachers have been knifed and even shot for their trouble. In the process, in fact, the very things that would help solve the problems have been thrown out, such as: morals, values, parental authority, corporal punishment, the Bible, and patriotism. In their place are Relativism, sexual liberation, “alternate lifestyles,” homosexual “marriage,” abortion, and contraceptives.

Another answer that’s been offered is more literature, such as books, articles, and seminars on child training, even Christian ones. But most of those are based on the author’s opinions, methods, and experiences, and one book contradicts another. As a result of these so-called “answers,” children are more and more confused and corrupted. Even Christian young people are tainted by public education and are no better off than their unsaved classmates.

But there is an answer, if we will simply obey it. In just four verses, God’s word provides us with what the parent-child relationship is to be. It’s extremely significant to note that, like husbands and wives, Paul speaks to children directly in this letter. In other words, he doesn’t say, “Father, tell your children to obey.” No, he addresses the children directly. The obvious significance of this fact in the text, clearly demonstrates that the children were present in the congregation when the letter was read. May I interject, therefore, that this demonstrates that they were with their parents not in “Children’s Church” or a segregated Sunday School, common practices in our day that have no biblical precedent, authority, or justification whatsoever. While it’s not popular to criticize these “sacred cows,” such practices are based on human reason alone and are actually harmful to the family. They split up the family and cultivate a division between adults and young people. We’ll return to this thought later and prove it biblically and historically.

There is much we could deal with here, but some things can wait until we study parents and parenting in our next chapter. Let us examine, therefore, two major thoughts Paul presents, first the action and then the attitude that God demands from children.

Written by:  Sola Scriptura Ministries – Dr. J. D. Watson – PO Box 235 – Meeker, CO 81641 
(970) 878-3228

           This is the scariest election we as Christians have ever faced. From the looks of the polls, the Christians aren't voting Christian values. We all
need to be on our knees.. Do you believe we can take God at His word? Call upon His name, then stand back and watch His wonders to behold. His scripture
gives us, as Christians, ownership of this land and the ability to call upon God to heal it.

    I challenge you to do so. We have never been more desperate than now for God to heal our land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 :
     If my people, which are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from
heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

      During WWII, there was an advisor to Churchill who organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed hour for
one minute to collectively pray for the safety of England , its people and peace. This had an amazing effect as bombing stopped.

       There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America , The United States of America and our citizens need prayer more than ever!!

      If you would like to participate: each evening at 9:00 PM Eastern Time, 8:00 PM Central, 7:00 PM Mountain, 6:00 PM Pacific, stop whatever you are
doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States , our troops, our citizens, for peace in the world, for wisdom and courage for our
leaders, the up-coming election, and that the Bible will remain the basis for the laws governing our land and that Christianity will grow in the U.S.