Parents are People

Abstract

There is a parental priority and it begins with us who are parents. Parents do not exist for their children; they exist to be people before God, first of all. The Christian family must begin and end and have its being in facing the fact of the oneness of God, the fact that God is at the heart of all things. Husbands and wives must take the time to relate to each other so that they can be persons before God. That is the important thing. Children follow models and not words. You cannot pass along something that you yourself do not practice. The problem with so many Christian homes is that the children have been taught and reared to perpetuate dependency so that it goes on even into late teens. There is no escape from this unless responsibility is placed upon them as quickly as they can bear it, and unless they are taught that responsibility is the ground of authority, and that without responsibility there can be no authority.