What it Means to be a Father Part 4: Lesson Learned

By now, we've looked at how being a husband prepares you for being a father (Part 2), and how being a father requires another level of selflessness to adequately care for your baby (Part 3).  But it's not enough just to be a good husband, and to spend a lot of time with your baby, as great as those things are.  There is actually a directive placed upon fathers to teach their children.  Ephesians 6:4 states:

"Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."

This is specifically talking about moral, ethical, and spiritual training, and the responsibility is the father's.  Yet, what do we often see in society today?  Mothers are going to church and dropping their kids off at the youth group, and showing interest in their children's spiritual development. (God bless them for still going to church when the father is not interested)  Meanwhile, dad stays home and watches football.  Fathers are too often aloof and disconnected, leaving the responsibility of Biblical teaching to others.  Worse yet is when both parents merely expect the youth pastor to teach their children "morals and positive values" and don't make any effort at all to invest in their children's souls.

This parental responsibility to teach their own children wasn't a new concept that Paul came up with though.  In fact, he borrowed it from one of the most important passages of Scripture for ancient Jews, the Shema.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

I talked about this command, and the failure of Israel's fathers to follow it, in my Father's Day Challenge blog post last year...  If you didn't read it, I would encourage you to do so.  In it, I examined the nation of Israel at the beginning of the time of the Judges when in the course of just a single generation, the entire nation fell away from God.  And the heaviness of that failure falls squarely on the shoulders of the fathers of Israel.  This is not to be taken lightly.  This is not a responsibility that we fathers can just pawn off onto others.

By embracing our God-given responsibility, we will be honoring God.  Practically speaking, the lessons we teach our children will benefit them immeasurably.  If we as fathers take the time to be the primary faith trainers for our children, we will be making a huge investment in the next generation and avoid the failure of the Israelites in the time of the judges.  I know I don't want to repeat their mistakes, do you?


I know I had said this was the completion of my thoughts on fatherhood, but I couldn't help one last surprise coming up in Part 5...