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A parent is a person who is responsible for the care, upbringing, and well-being of a child. This responsibility can be biological, legal, or custodial. We cannot claim the title of parent merely for calling's sake—we must be present at all times, whether raising our biological children, adopted children, or those under our custody.
Some parents are firm, while others are indulgent. Some are attentive, while others are absent-minded. May we never be absent-minded when raising our children, regardless of what is happening around us.
As a Christian parent, raising your children to please God and thrive in life is a big responsibility. God has given us these children to raise for Him, and He requires that we do it in a godly way. It is not merely about them thriving in society; the utmost aim is for them to thrive in the Lord, to serve Him with all their hearts all the days of their lives.
What we impart in these children will take them a long way. Remember the children of Issachar—because they had a better parenting style, they lived with that training throughout their lives. May we never be less than faithful, and may we never be absent-minded in raising our children in the mighty name of Jesus. It is our responsibility to raise them in the way of the Lord.
While we want them to fulfill their career paths and do well in society, we must also remember that these children are a gift from the Lord unto us. Understanding various parenting styles is crucial. We must examine the degrees of responsiveness—the extent to which parents are warm and sensitive to their children—and demandingness, the extent of control parents place on their children.
We will examine two lesson outlines: first, permissive and uninvolved parenting; and second, authoritarian and authoritative parenting.
Permissive parents are high in responsiveness and love, but low in demandingness and discipline. They communicate openly and usually let their children decide for themselves rather than give clear direction.
Consider the example of Eli in 1 Samuel. Eli gave instruction to his children and told them what the Lord wanted of them. However, he communicated without further guidance, without further explanation, and without enforcement. Rules and expectations are either not set or rarely enforced.
Permissive parents give in to their children's demands to make them happy and avoid conflict, even at their own expense. They hardly rebuke or offer guidance. Look at Luke 15:12, where the younger son said to his father, "Father, give me the portion of goods that fall to me," and the father divided his living unto him. Whatever the children say goes.
In parts of the world where we live, if you allow children to go the way they are going without proper guidance and correction, we will ruin them. We will not raise them in a godly way. Before you know it, whatever they say is what happens—because that is exactly what children want. We must give them rules to avoid greater consequences that will follow.
The Bible says, "Spare not the rod and spoil the child." There is foolishness in the heart of a child, but without the rod—without discipline—you will not be able to correct this child or pattern their way. Praise the Lord.
The dangers of permissive parenting include the development of delinquent behaviors and inability to make right decisions. While this style has the potential to increase self-esteem and creativity in children, it can do so negatively. When you look at social media at the moment, you see many things happening. You ask yourself, "Do these children have parents? Why are they behaving like this?" Children who do whatever they want without proper guidance, without proper correction, without any rebuke, are fending for themselves. They go to work, make money, and think that is all there is. Without proper guidance, children grow up in a more negative way.
Neglectful or uninvolved parents are low in responsiveness, low in demandingness, and low in discipline. They usually let their children fend for themselves, perhaps because they are indifferent to their needs.
This often happens when parents cannot meet the demands of their children. Instead of living within their means, with high demands from the children, they can do nothing. Before you know it, they just let the children go and do whatever they want. At the end of the day, there are great consequences.
They offer zero guidance and correction. Consider 1 Kings 1:5–6: "Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, exalted himself, saying, 'I will be king.' And he prepared him chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him." You can see that the children just do things the way they want. They say things the way they want to say them because nobody is there to correct them.
Children from uninvolved parents find it difficult to form close relationships because of past personal experiences that have caused stress in their parental relationships. Many of us raise our children based on the experience we had as parents—the experience we had during our own childhood. When we grow up and become parents, that thing is still there. We pass it down to our children. It will never leave us. These children find it difficult to form close relationships. Anywhere they go, it cannot happen because they never had that childhood upbringing where people are valued. Even when they want to form any relationship, it is always a negative one—the ones that will ruin them and make them go astray. May God help us in Jesus' name.
Consider 1 Samuel 16:11–12: "And Samuel said unto Jesse, 'Are here all thy children?' And he said, 'There remaineth here the youngest, and behold he keepeth the sheep.' And Samuel said unto Jesse, 'Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither.' And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ready and withal of a beautiful countenance and goodly to look upon. And the Lord said, 'Arise, anoint him, for this is he.'" Sometimes you may be isolated. What your family sees you as is something—a role they have given you. And you live with that. You will not see yourself as important.
It is the same thing that happened to Gideon. When God said, "You are the mighty man of valor," he never saw himself like that. He felt that nothing would come out from his lineage or from his family because of how poor the family was. Then that child continues on, and before you know it, that child will have low self-esteem. That child will not associate with anybody in society because they feel that is how to live life. They worry about what people will say about them. This has a negative impact on that child's life and relationships, even when they become a parent.
Children from neglectful parents tend to be very self-dependent while also exhibiting traits of truancy, emotional withdrawal, difficulty in social interaction, and fear of becoming dependent on others. You can see such children even within your environment. They are fending for themselves. Imagine meeting a child who has worked and made money from day one. That child will never respect anybody because they never grew up in a respectful environment. They always see themselves as lacking parental love and a good parental upbringing. That child will transpire this to their own family when they grow up. Some children like that don't listen to anybody. They don't listen to advice. May God help us in Jesus' name.
Authoritarian parents are high in demandingness and discipline but low in responsiveness. They enforce strict rules with little consideration of their children's social and emotional needs. They want things a certain way, and it must be so.
What can we do to curb this? We need to understand our children. This is very important. We must give them the chance to express themselves. Because if we don't, it will land in consequences we never envisaged.
To be in full control, authoritarian parents often talk to their children without expecting feedback. They don't want you to say anything. "This is how it is. I want you to be a medical doctor, and so shall it be." They will not listen to what that child wants to do in life. At the very least, we need to give these children the benefit of the doubt. We need to listen to them.
This rigid parenting style uses harsh discipline, often justified as "tough love." The dangers of authoritarian parenting include low self-esteem, depression, aggression, and poor social skills in children. Although they may show signs of discipline and respect for authority, these children always feel very isolated. They will still respect people and respect authority, but what about them? How do they feel? A child should be able to feel loved, respected, and make sure the child associates well in society.
Authoritative parents are high in love and responsiveness and high in demanding and discipline. They set clear rules and expectations for their children while they practice flexibility and understanding. They communicate frequently. They listen to and take into consideration their children's thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
They allow natural consequences to occur, especially for wrongdoings, but use those opportunities to help their children reflect and learn. They guide them through open and honest discussion to teach values and reasoning. As Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
The results of authoritative parenting are remarkable. Children who have authoritative parents tend to be self-disciplined, socially competent, and able to think for themselves. Look at the case of Mordecai, Esther, Naomi, and Ruth. When they were young, they were raised in an authoritative parental style environment. When they grew up, they were able to assume great responsibility. They could think for themselves and do things on their own.
While they are not totally immune to pressure around them, their chance of displaying negative traits common in children trained by authoritarian, permissive, or uninvolved parents are usually very low.
Can we say that the authoritative parental style is the best? We will say that you must know who your children are. You must guide them to avoid greater consequences. You must be flexible in parenting. Being flexible and being an intentional parent is the key thing.
If you have inherited any trauma, do not pass it on to your children. Praise the Lord.
Understand that your parental style will greatly affect your children's lives. Whatever parenting style that we inherited, or what we are practicing now, will greatly affect our children.
Can we correct our behavior? Yes, we can. We can go and reflect on what we are doing at the moment. Is it the right thing? Are we doing the right thing? Praise the Lord.
Let us look at Psalm 127. It says, "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain thing to rise up early, to sit up late, for so he giveth his beloved sleep."
Verse 3 tells us: "Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord. And the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of one's youth."
If you look at that chapter, you will see that it is all guided towards parenting.
I want to give three instances of men who actually loved God sincerely and had a right standing with God, but they failed in parenting.
Eli was a man in whom no fault was found, but he missed it in parenting. Samuel grew under the tutelage of Eli. Samuel himself brought judgment upon Eli's house for poor parenting. Yet the Bible says Samuel's own children didn't walk in right standing with God either. And Job also struggled with parenting, doing sacrifices only to pacify the sins of his children.
I know the two styles that have been emphasized mostly in our questions are the authoritative and the authoritarian. But I want to say that even the permissive style—God uses it. However, the lesson I want us to learn is that whenever permissive parenting is used, you are bringing your children closer to destruction.
Consider Genesis 6:3, when God said, "My spirit will not strive with men." The next thing that followed was judgment. Eli practiced permissive parenting—judgment came upon his children. Job practiced permissive parenting—when killing came, it started with the children. So I pray God will help us not to apply the permissive method in the name of Jesus.
Regarding authoritarian and authoritative parenting: in order not to repeat what was taught, even though the authoritative style has advantages over the authoritarian, there are circumstances where you will still use the authoritarian approach. If your child is about to jump into fire, will you start to use an authoritative method and explain things? You will take swift action without their consent. So in as much as the authoritative has advantages over the authoritarian, there are circumstances you will still use the authoritarian. I pray God will help us in the name of Jesus.
Question: Was Eli a single father?
Except someone has a Bible scripture that can point to the name of the wife of Eli or Samuel, I will say that the Bible is silent about it. The Bible may mention a wife at the point of giving birth, but in the course of parenting, it is silent. Unless someone has a scripture that points to the mothers, the Bible is silent, so we can leave it there. We are not sure.
In the principle of hermeneutics—the interpretation of scripture—we must understand that the Bible is a complete book, and God has given us understanding through the Holy Spirit. Some things are simply silent in the scripture. If they are silent, we should not assume the opposite. For example, Jesus was born through Mary, and the Bible is clear that Mary never knew a man before she gave birth to Jesus Christ. Now for any other person in scripture who has children, if the Bible does not talk about their wife, that does not mean they don't have a wife. But what the Bible is very clear on is that we should use scripture to interpret scripture.
If we have people in scripture who have children and have wives, then if Eli and Samuel have children, they definitely have wives. But the Bible will be silent on them because in that story, probably there is nothing for us to learn from their women's involvement. We should also understand that the Old Testament and New Testament were different. In the Old Testament, they talked more about men generally. That is why even the genealogies in the Bible talk about men. But when Jesus Christ came, He came to break some principles. In the Old Testament they focused on men. For example, in ministering to the woman at the well, it was a culture-breaking moment entirely for that particular time.
So some things in scripture we must understand by using scripture to interpret scripture, so that we will not assume erroneous things from the Bible. Even in Job's case, until the time his wife said "Curse God and die," she was not mentioned. So we can use that to also say that the wives might have been there, but the Bible is silent about it.
Question: Should we be careful about who we submit to as a mentor?
Mentorship is very important. If somebody is mentoring you, it does not mean that you should dogmatically adopt their whole life into your life. You have to examine the lifestyle of the person in the light of scripture and trust God to help you.
When you see a deficiency in the life of your mentor, don't make jest of it. Don't talk badly about it. God has opened your eyes so that you can pray for the person. Don't say, "Because this person is failing in the area of parenting, I don't want to submit to this person." If God has called you to submit to that person, there is something important that God wants you to learn from them. While God is opening your eyes to see the deficiency, be praying for the person while you are learning what God wants you to learn.
When we were growing up as pastor's kids, a lot of people had expectations from pastor's children. They just expected you to be born again immediately because you were born to the family of ministers. The truth is, our parents allowed us to go through the process. They never assumed. They kept asking us, "Are you born again? Do you think you are born again?" As kids, we kept saying, "Yes, we are born again because we go to church every day. We sing in church and all that." But our parents took us through the process. They made us know that being a child of a pastor does not mean that you are born again. God does not have grandchildren. We are children of God. So you have to connect to God directly.
Some people as ministers do not allow that process. They just take their children through, and before you know it, they start going the other way. And people say, "Why is that baby behaving that way? That child is not born again." So what I'm trying to say is you should not follow people blindly and you should not judge people because their children are going the other way. Somebody can be a pastor and will still bless you, and they might still have challenges with their children. So don't say we should be mindful of the people we are submitting to. Some pastors are actually trying to make their kids see that this is the way of the Lord, but sometimes the devil strikes and things go the other way.
Elijah actually talked to his children. He actually said, "If a man offends a man, God can judge and have mercy on that person. But if you offend God, who will come to your rescue?" So he actually brought it up. However, he was permissive in that he didn't place sanctions on them.
Even the problem that Eli had was the same problem that Samuel had. It is important that we critically look at it. Eli, the Bible said, never said no to whatever his kids wanted. But Samuel's children went the other way as well. Both of them had similar problems.
Also consider this: Everything we need as Christian parents is found in authoritative parenting. Authoritative parenting has discipline, demanding love, responsiveness, and loving behavior. There is nothing else you need in parenting that you cannot find in this style. Permissive, uninvolved, and authoritarian parenting all have limitations. If there is a situation where you need to be proactive, to take action, to do many things, authoritative parenting has all those qualities. I know it is not easy, but that is why we need to trust God's grace to help us.
Note: Eli was not entirely failing at parenting. If you look at the definition of parenting, Samuel was also his son. And Samuel in his adult age said, "Let Israel come before the Lord. If any one person can fault me, let him come out." And there was none. So Samuel by that definition was also a result of Eli's parenting style. Eli didn't totally fail, but where he failed was that he didn't take drastic action toward what he saw about his sons. I pray God will help us in the name of Jesus.
