Episode 4.2 — The Discipline of Fatherhood

Welcome to The Student Podcast. This is where two guys get together and we discuss and learn how to be students of Jesus Christ. So good to have you today. One summer I was doing carpet cleaning in college. Some work. Yeah, I liked it. But I was just the assistant, you know, so I was the dummy just pulling around hoses and everything. Well, anyways, But then I wasn't the driver. I just literally sat in the passenger seat, and I kind of got tired of talking. It was a great evangelistic opportunity, but the conversations, the guy I worked with, Jay, he was pretty crass. And so it was kind of one of those, like, I just needed to check out sometimes. Like, OK, I can talk for a couple hours, because we drive all over Pittsburgh.
And so eventually I was like, you know what, I keep hearing all these books that these people keep talking about in classes, you know, the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings and, you know, Lewis's space trilogies, it's like all these books that I was like, I never read Christian, like good Christian fiction growing up.
And so that summer I just decided, I was like, okay, this is going to be my fiction summer. I'm not going to read I shouldn't say that, because I ended up reading some biographies, but I didn't read like academic works. I specifically wanted to read good Christian fiction books. And so I read through the Chronicles of Narnia, and I read through Lord of the Rings, and I read through the Space Trilogy. One of the best spent summers I've ever had, because I could just sit in the van and just, you know, Jay would be driving, listening to his very crass radio, and I'd just be reading through, yeah.
It ended up being really good, but that meant, um, I have a whole bunch of just, you know, good fiction books that I've really enjoyed that now Deborah's gotten into. Yeah. She seems like she's eaten it up. Yeah. Growing up, we, uh, every car ride, it was the Chronicles of Narnia. Oh, really? And particularly the horse and his boy. Oh, okay. I don't know if you like, I can quote that thing in my sleep, like where you have like the, uh, Harper audio, British accent, you know, it's just, The whole thing about it.
But one of the big faults for me marrying Natalie was I hadn't watched Lord of the Rings ever or read the book. You hadn't watched them? No. And Natalie's a big fan of it and her sister is. And her sister was the one who wanted us to be a couple. And she's like, you know, Simon's an okay guy, but we got to get him to watch Lord of the Rings. So this last year, Natalie got me to watch the extended version, all three of them. And – So you spent a whole day of your life watching?
We broke it up. Okay. And the suspense was a little rough between, but yeah, it was a good, it was a powerful movie. Yeah. Very, very moving, especially at the end. Yeah. You know, I haven't watched The Lord of the Rings for a long time. I saw each of them when they came out. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. I hear they're trying to remake them. I don't know if that's... Oh, really? I don't know how far that's going to fly with truest Lord of the Rings fans, but... Well, there's always a certain amount of creative license that...
Yeah. I haven't watched a single one of the Hobbit ones. I haven't either. I've read the book. Okay. From what I hear, the book's better, so I'm content with that. Okay. That's not uncommon for that to happen. Oh, now who's the purist? I don't know. I'm not a nerd. I'm not like really, really into that stuff. Hold on. Did you just say you're not a nerd? Almost, yeah. I caught myself saying, yeah, my wife might be on that spectrum. I'm very much a nerd. I resigned myself to that. Oh, I'm a nerd. Just not in that in that genre of things. I'm quite the nerd. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. It took me a while, actually, in college to get over that stigma. I just realized I like to read and that's okay. I like to study deeply things and that's good. I also like to work on cars.
You can, like, One of the things that I think our culture doesn't do well is realizing that there's not a set like, oh, if you're a nerd, you're only in the books and doing this. Or, oh, if you like chemistry, you can't also like mowing the lawn. You know, like, hold on here. You know, like why do we flatten personalities into these categories and types?
I love learning new things to do, even if it's not something I love doing. It's just, I mean, like you have, only so many years in this life, and going to college, you learn some stuff. And just doing the same thing your entire life seems really boring to me. I think at some point, you do have to specialize and do the main thing. Says the guy going to physician assistant school. You know, like, shoot, I would love to learn plumbing, electric, you know, like at some point, just like- Just buy a house. Yeah, I know, right?
But like, I feel like if you just do one thing your entire life and only that one thing, you're missing out on so much, like, teach yourself something else, you know? Just pick up something else. You might love it, you might hate it. Move on to something else. Yeah.
I remember I was listening to something a while ago and it was saying, you know, critiquing the whole phrase, you know, a, oh, what's the phrase? A jack of all trades, but master of none, you know? But I mean, that's pretty pejorative, but the reality is that, like, that's what, you know, what essentially a Renaissance man was supposed to be. Not saying that the Renaissance was the peak of, there's lots of critique of Renaissance philosophy and things like this, but anyways. But the reality of that, like, I remember I was talking to one of my history professors and I was telling him, well, I think I'm going to take a computer coding class this semester instead of this advanced history class.
And he was like, that's wonderful. And then another semester I was telling him, you know, well, I'm going to take applied chemistry and he was, instead of this class on the Civil War. And part of this was Olivia's doing, you know, she She knows that I read very slowly so I can get through a chemistry class faster than I can a history class. So yeah Love your wife, you know, she says please don't take that history class. Okay, so And but his whole thing to me it's like there's a reason you have electives. Mm-hmm. Great. Yeah, you like chemistry go do a chemistry class. Mm-hmm you're going to be better for it.
And that's one of the things I actually really appreciate about So much of academia is you only know one thing. It's the compartmentalization of specialties where there's not cross-disciplinary interaction. Tell me about it, working in a academic health care system in the major health care city in the state. It's very frustrating. Oh, you have that problem? Let me refer you to that guy. Oh, this is your problem. One more referral. Oh, sorry, we need someone else who's better at this.
And I mean, at some point, you know, specialization is good and helpful. But there's a certain extent in which it's helpful to have, not to be in silos, you know, to be able to talk to each other and cross discipline. that's why you and I get along so well. I love learning new things.
I mean, that's part of why I didn't have any foreign language experience going into college besides Latin, which is a dead language. And so I was like, well, I gotta be here for four years to get a degree, I might as well do something else. So picked up the Spanish and I've lost a ton of it now, but that was a super enriching thing. Just even learning about another culture and just how does another language, how do languages work in general?
Because you learn English as a kid and English is really a pretty poor language in the scheme of things. You get to learn and I love that. Yeah, I was doing, I just finished a Greek class I was doing, and I think next year I'll rejoin the cohort. I need to save up some money to be able to do that. I spent my book money already. But I've talked to you about it before.
It's living language, and so instead of doing Koine Greek as, Kini Greek as, a, only a red language actually talking in class with each other. It's just like modern Greek then? So, we use modern pronunciation, but it's, you're using the ancient grammar. So, modern grammar, modern Greek grammar has variations. So, they use much, like there's a dative case, just like in Latin, there's a dative case. In Koine Greek, so the Greek marketplace Greek of Jesus' time, versus modern Greek uses prepositions instead of...
Oh, I think you're telling me about that, yeah. Yeah, and so there's a lot of overlap, you know. but it really stretched me in a good way. And I was very thankful to do it. I think I'll probably wait a year, but there's a lot going on in life right now. So, it's kind of like, okay, but finances and where am I putting my attention? So, I'm still in the self-learning part, but just not in the cohort. So, I'm still speaking it to myself and going through the practices. It's kind of like doing Rosetta Stone, like that.
But yeah, learning a new language, where this was going. Did I tell you what happened? We were in this conversation, and this one girl, she's in the class, and she studied in Rome for like five years, so she's fluent in Italian. And so she would sit there, and she would be trying to figure out how to say something, in Greek and she would say something in Italian, you know, and it'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then same thing would happen with me, you know, I'd be trying to figure out how to say something in Greek and it would come out in Spanish and we were talking to our professor who's at Cambridge studying language and he was like, no, that's actually a really good thing because what's happening is you've already learned at least partially a second language and your brain is trying to roll through and make those connections.
So, that actually shows that you knew that other language. but now you're trying to add in a third language to find the vocabulary for it too, and it's going to be that much more exhausting. But it will actually, the bridges will happen more quickly because they'll overlap. Yeah. I think the main thing is like, just getting your mind to work in a different framework than English. Because like, when I found like, maximal fluency, it was when I actually was thinking in Spanish. And if that's your first time doing it, your brain's like, whoa. But I think having done that once already, it's a lot easier to jump into another framework from English. No, I was never fluent in Spanish by any means.
I did a couple of years. It was fun. But you get to practice it in California just because you're surrounded by this. But it was fun. The Greek classes was a blast. It was tough. necessary, maybe not, but it definitely, I mean, now when I read my Greek, I mean, we were doing John chapter 4 today at Bible study in the afternoon and I was able to just have my Greek open and I didn't have to read through in the English. And so, for me, it was like, okay, I've been working on this really hard for two years now and Getting to a, yeah, exactly. The fruitfulness was like, oh, I didn't even have to look at, because I used a reader's edition, but I didn't have to look at any of the notes for the reader edition. I was like, yeah, that is, it was like really cool, you know?
So it was my second time reading through the book of John in Greek once was myself, but just by myself when we were on vacation and now doing this Bible study, it's been really, really fun. Yeah. Well, hey, why don't we go ahead and pray? Sounds good. And we'll actually get talking about our topic. All right.
Lord, we thank you so much for what a beautiful world you've created, full of diversity and amazing things to learn. How amazing is it, Lord, that you would put us in such a place that the whole world would declare your glory. That the different cultures and languages and people groups Lord, all of them are a sign that you are a God of the nations. And Lord, we pray now that as we come to this chapter on the discipline of fatherhood, that we would not forget that you are a good father, a wonderful God who teaches us, who loves us, and has even given us your word in a language we can understand. Thank you, Lord. Please care for this conversation. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.
All right, so last time we started on the discipline of fatherhood and Part one. Yeah part one on on the don'ts. Yep. And so this this week we're gonna move to the to the do's All right Just for you I'll use the I New King James. Okay. We'll have to talk about that sometime. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Textual preservation is a big thing. I'm still working through exactly how to approach that, so. Okay. Yeah, we can talk about that sometime. Not related to fatherhood. Yeah. Well, let's talk about the dues of fatherhood. Yeah.
He says, the comprehensive do nots of fatherhood is followed by the explicit do's. And he's referring to Ephesians chapter 5 there. Instead, train them up in the instruction of the Lord, or bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord, which when fully understood requires three do's, tenderness, discipline, and instruction. What stood out to you about the tenderness part of the dues? Culturally, we have these stereotypes of men and women. know, women are emotional, women are swayed with their feelings much easier than men are. And men are supposed to be these rock hard, unswerving anchors in life, right?
And they have no emotions and they don't talk. We kind of have these caricatures culturally. But I think there is kind of a It is looked down on in some ways for a man to be genuinely emotional. But I love what he says here, like two or three paragraphs down. He says, we are to be tender. Men are never manlier than when they are tender with their children, whether holding a baby in their arms, loving their grade schooler, or hugging their teenagers or adult children.
Thankfully, I married a wife that appreciates that because I'm more of an emotional man than most I feel like. And I'm like, oh shoot, I'm crying again. She's like, no, I don't mind. You know, but I think there, I don't know. I think it's counter-cultural to hear that it's okay to be genuinely emotional as a man.
Yeah, well, I think that that's one of the things I'm thankful for with Arkane who's on this, you know, that culture wants to put us in some type of box, right? Where the scriptures give us this beautiful picture of our Father in Heaven and how He cares for us, and so He cares for us tenderly. You can't read Psalm 23 and not see the tenderness of God. You know, you can't read Romans chapter 8 with, you know, the Holy Spirit understanding us and interceding for us with words beyond groaning and not hear the empathy that the Lord has for us. But yet, the opposite extreme is true in the culture too, where it doesn t, it s like our culture is always at the ends of the pendulum swing. Either we have to be that macho man who s I don't know, watching WWE eating nachos and has no, you know, no care for his kids, you know. Or the other pendulum swing is, you know, so effeminate that, you know, there's no masculinity.
You're just a giant squishy teddy bear. You know, it's kind of like, well, hold on there. There's got to be a way in which Where's the narrow path? And I think that's the tricky thing that I'm wrestling my own heart with. And I think a lot of it is contextualization. There's times when I need to be firm. There's times when I need to be able to tell my sons, this isn't a time to cry. This is a time to work. It's going to be hard. We can get through this. And there's other times where I have to tell them, but it's okay to cry. Yeah.
I was thinking about the larger catechism with this. the requirements of superiors towards inferiors. So in the fifth commandment, the larger catechism, I love the larger catechism on the commandment. Some people find them very laborious. I find them very helpful.
But question 129 says, what is required of superiors towards their inferiors? It is required of superiors according to that power they receive from God and that relation wherein they stand to love pray for, and bless their inferiors." Like, that's basically the tenderness he's talking about, right? Love, pray for, and bless.
That's what we are to do for our children. To instruct, counsel, and admonish them, countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well, and discountenancing, reproving, and chastising such as do ill, protecting and providing for them all things necessary for soul and body, and by grave, wise, holy, and exemplary courage to procure glory to God, honor to themselves, and so to preserve the authority which God hath put upon them." And that's what I'm saying, you know, this is why I love the larger catechism here. It's both being able to do this and being able to do that.
Both being able to, countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well, and discontenancing, reproving, and chastising them who do evil, or such as do ill, you know, and so it's both of those. you might want to shut that door just because we might have some, yeah, in the country sometimes we have gnats that will come in as it gets darker at night, so.
Light magnet. Yeah. Well, you got something? Yeah, I was trying to bring some Bible into it. I was just trying to remember. I just finished Jeremiah and we talk about God as our Father and most people point to New Testament passages. They talk about the spirit gives us, puts that in our heart to cry, Abba, Father. You talk about the Lord's Prayer, which is our Father.
Natalie was asking me the other day, is that even like an Old Testament idea? And I was just reading through Jeremiah and Jeremiah is this judgment that's finally coming to a very, very rebellious nation in Israel. And well, this is Judah, I think. So, This is God talking. He says, Is Ephraim my dear son?
Is he a pleasant child? For though I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord. And there's other, previously he says, They shall come with weeping and with supplications I will lead them.
I will cause them to walk by the rivers of water in a straight way in which they shall not stumble for I am a father to Israel. And Ephraim is my firstborn. And just seeing the tenderness. I mean, you can hear the heart of God, so to speak, in these words of a tender father caring for a wayward child.
And caring enough, he says here, I'm going to chasten you, and I'm going to chastise you. Like we were talking last week, like he loves us enough to do that. A father who loves his son will chasten it, but there's just a yearning. My heart yearns for him, you know? And this isn't a lovable child. This isn't an easy to love child. This is the tenderness of Almighty God to us. It's almost a picture of the prodigal son in the Old Testament. Yeah.
It's the father who's waiting. I love that picture that Jesus paints in Luke with the prodigal son returning and it's the father who runs to the son and wraps his arm around him and kisses him on the neck. It's the father who's been waiting for the son and in that culture, absolutely radical that the father would run to the child. in a Near East culture that's, even today, in a Middle Eastern culture, no way. The father doesn't run to the kids. The kids run to the dad. The dad is supposed to be that picture of stoicness. But that's not how the Lord depicts himself in Jeremiah, and that's not how Jesus depicts the father in the book of Luke, you know?
And so, yeah, so this tenderness that we're supposed to have, you know, he says, these words, or the words bring them up means to feed or nourish in Ephesians 5.29, which is the same Greek words describing how a man feeds and cares for his own body. And so, he's saying Calvin translates bring them up as let them be kindly cherished. And I thought of that with Calvin's own life, you know, that he married and then any children he had died. You know, and so I think that his heart would have been especially, you know, tender towards you know, what Christ says.
Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson, you know, the deist of American deists, in his edition of the Bible, i.e. cutting out everything he doesn t like. Pete Subtraction of the Bible? Pete Yeah, yeah. Just cut stuff out, right? And a lot of it is supernatural stuff. he's kind of the first trying to get to the historical Jesus. Anyways, but one of the things that he doesn't do, there's one of the stories when Jesus heals a child. He can't cut that out. A lot of his biographers have kind of opined about this and speculated. It's very possible it's because one of his own children died very early in their lives and just kind of He could get rid of all sorts of other miracles in the Bible, but there was still this tenderness in his heart.
Not saying Jefferson is a person we should be looking to by any means, but just showing that that picture of God's tenderness is the picture that It's broadly applicable throughout the world that a father ought to love his children, to be tender towards them. This is a hard one though. I was just talking today about how difficult that is to keep these imbalances in practice. How do I discountenance reprove correct while still remaining tender? It's a discipline. Mm-hmm.
I can't I cannot respond to my children. However, I want to rate But when I discipline the children it must be I with both godly firmness, but also a heart of grace. Because if I'm not teaching them to do all which Jesus has commanded them, but instead it's nothing but coming down with an iron fist, then it's nothing, it's not, it's pure punitive and not redemptive. has really, I'm really, I'm in the throes of this, you know, like- Yeah, because there's two extremes, right? Like you can be all the way on the heavy-handed side and your child only knows you through fear. Yeah. And you can go all the way to the grace side, which isn't truly grace, but grace side and not reprove anything. And your child doesn't know that you actually care enough about them, right? To correct them.
And there's this middle ground that we see perfectly exemplified in the way our Heavenly Father treats us. And so I think there's this daily discipline of coming before God's Word. Okay, what did God do for me? How is God a Father? And I, you know, that's still hard to be like, okay, yeah, I know exactly what to do in the nitty gritty of everyday life in the home, you know, off of that. But I think we're so prone to forget and we're so prone to let our passions rule over us, whether that's apathy or whether that's harshness, that we must be coming daily to an anchor of God's word. Okay, what is the character of God in fatherhood towards his children and how can I, Exemplify that to my children today.
Yeah Yeah, I was talking to somebody a while back and they're talking about this Baptist Church that split over Interestingly enough the impassibility of God of all things And so in the West or in their church, you know, the London Baptist Confession of Faith Says that you know, God doesn't have passions, you know, so this point is that like if when we see the tenderness of God, in some sense these are anthropomorphic, you know, I see the book right there. I can't remember the author.
The Doctrine of God, he talks about our knowledge of God is all analogical. It's that we know God by ways in which he's revealed himself, but not as he purely or truly is. And so, it's kind of difficult to get our minds around, but it makes sense, right?
Calvin talks about this, that it's as if God leans down to us like a father would lean down to his children and speaks to them with a lisp so they would understand. And so, God is accommodating, uses a language of accommodation so we can understand him.
My whole point in going down that rabbit trail, though, is that I need God's impassibility. Because I need a God who is both true, righteous, holy, and love. all those things perfectly. Jared At the same time. Like the divine simplicity and passibility of God actually gives me a great deal of comfort because He is not like fleeting shadows.
He's not going to, you know, it's not a, I don't have a daisy God, you know, He loves me, He loves me not. He's going to chastise me and treat me like, you know, like the Greek gods would just go off a whim and treat their people or He's going to treat me like His most beloved, you know. No. He He foreknew, He predestined, He called, He justified, He glorified, like He has done these things for me.
And he doesn't change. And he's not going to wake up tomorrow as if God didn't wake up. He's not going to wake up tomorrow and feel a different way. Praise God for that. Yeah. It's just the beautiful thing. I hate the doctrine of open theists as if God learns and changes. Like, no. No, he is the same yesterday and today and forever.
So, he was a good, loving, heavenly father in Jeremiah, and he hasn't changed today. And so, the difficulty is now for my heart, which is so prone to change, which is so tossed all the time, because the reason why this all brought up in my mind was because of the word passions, you know? I am moved about by passions. And so, how do I, by God's Spirit and through his work of sanctification, end up actually being, you know, rooted and firmly fixed in Christ and so becoming more like Christ that I'm not being moved about by passions, not that Jesus didn't feel anything, he wept deeply at Lazarus' death. we come to Jesus and we know what He's going to be like because He's not flipping out all over the place.
He's not bipolar. God, that's the way the Lord is. And so, the difficulty for me now is how do I, this is where I'm really wrestling. It's both high theology and practical theology meeting each other. What does it look like for me in my life to show tenderness like the Father, the Heavenly Father shows tenderness? Well, it looks like grace and truth.
And you talk about passions and we are emotional beings, right? God did create us with emotion and with passion to some degree, but that's been tainted by the fall, right? And too often we are driven solely by passion. And it makes me think of where God talks about that is in the context of anger and drunkenness.
Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. Then he says, do not let the sun go down on your anger, right? In the same context. both are conditions where your passions have got the better of you and you are out of control. Jared Yeah, be angry and do not sin. Pete Right, right. And so, his admonition is be ruled by the Spirit, right? And that's where I think we get some anchoring for these emotions that have been tainted by the fall.
How do they start working? in a controlled way for the glory of God in a renewed, redeemed way. And that's what, for the Spirit, like how on earth, like, do I love? How do I be good? How do I have self-control when I'm suffering? It's, well. get off the throne of your life and be ruled by the Spirit. And that's like, again, this higher theology, like, okay, yeah, I can understand that. And then the practical theology, how do I bring those together and actually be ruled by the Spirit?
I pummel my body into submission. Right, yeah. people don't like this guy in the Reformed world, that's okay. They don't have to like him. But his book has been very helpful to me, Gary Chapman's book, Anger, Taming a Powerful Emotion. Over 250,000 copies sold. Some people like it. Yeah, I don't like everything he says in there. I have to qualify that just in case somebody is listening. Oh, 5-1 language guy, yeah.
Yeah, but he is, one of the things that he talks about, you know, especially with people who struggle with the sin of, you know, explosive anger is you cannot, you cannot, you must not go to your first reaction. You must control yourself. Whatever it is that you're about to do, the first thing that you're about to do, you need to stop yourself. and you need to ask yourself, is this actually glorifying to God? I'm putting this in my own language here, but that has been so helpful to me, and so helpful for me because sometimes Olivia will have to be like, uh, Brian, you know, like, you know, because she knows, like, my first reaction is, I'm trying to put to death this sinful anger, and so, okay, hold on.
And so she's able to tell if I get up real fast, she's like, whoa, you're not thinking about how you're about to talk to the kids. And so I'm thankful for Olivia to help me learn how to slow down and, okay, how am I going to react with tenderness towards the children? Because the reality is that, Olivia and I were talking about this, if we are not pouring ourselves out into the children with tenderness, with discipleship, with love.
The opposite effect of that is going to be that, what happens when our children have grandkids? If I wasn't tender with them, They're going to, and I don't want this to sound, I'm worried about how this is going to sound, but I'm just going to say, it's very possible that our children say, well I don't want them to go around Grandpa. He wasn't very tender with me and I don't want my kids, I don't want our kids to be subjected to that.
And so, it's just kind of like, there are ramifications down the line that are like, just been thinking a lot through things with this, especially with tenderness. You know, in my own life, this is one that I didn't have modeled. well for me. And so, you know, just it can be difficult.
I loved what he pointed out with the Coast Guard NCO. By the way, we call that guy a chief. Non-commissioned officers, like what army people and stuff. Yeah, it's true, but he's a chief petty officer. We would just call him chief. Anyways, so this chief in the Coast Guard, you know, 265 pound, he calls him David dear, Kent dear, just that tenderness towards his kid. You can be a man's man, and yet with your kids, be the most tender of fathers. I really loved that section.
What's the next do that he talks about? Yeah, so he calls us to cultivate discipline and I was slightly disappointed that this section was as short as it was. I just kind of in the margin wrote examples, question mark, or something, because the key line I underlined was, he says, discipline certainly includes corporal punishment as needed, but it encompasses everything necessary to help train up a child in the way he should go. And I'm like, and? There's understanding with that because you can't, like, I don't expect R. Kent Hughes and he can't detail, this is what you do in this situation, this is what you do in this situation, this is what this punishment should get, right? But as a prospective father who's looking for guidance, I can understand what his call is to discipline, but putting some nuts and bolts on it would be a little helpful for me.
But how did you Yeah, I'm looking on the shelf above your head for a book. Let me grab it real quick. Okay. Got the books flying off the shelves tonight. Well, I'll give you three. Oh dear. Withholding that correction. Okay. This book looks so familiar because the exact same design format was used on the book that God used in my conversion. Really? It was called The Cure for Backsliding by Joel B. Key. Okay, okay. And then the last one is by...
I've heard you talk about this guy. Yeah, George Scipione. He was the biblical counseling professor at RPTS. Three helpful books you can just catalog in your brain, and if you wanted to pick them up or if you wanted to borrow them sometime, you're more than welcome to. But withhold not correction, he kind of goes through some nitty gritties about this. There's probably better books. I'd invite anybody listening to this, if they think of other books on discipline, specifically with children, that I'm always open to more resources to try to think through these things. How do we discipline Because there are clear examples in scripture about not sparing the rod from the child.
It's just very true that children undisciplined are tyrants. We're all tyrants in our own heart because we all want to be God. God of our own life, God of our own destiny, God of our own likings. I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it and how I want to do it.
And so one of the big things with a child is hold on, get off your throne. No. But I mean that's again what the Proverbs are so helpful there. I feel like a lot of this is very much It's such a vast question that I would really have to think through.
I don't know if I have any resource off the top of my mind that would help with you know, in various different situations, because I think there's such a wisdom principle, you know, how do I discipline my son when I catch him, my three-year-old son, when he climbs up on the roof and he's naked? You know, like, how do I discipline him? You know, get down, don't ever do that again, you know. I don't know, maybe different people would discipline differently for that, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I don't know what my neighbors must think of us. Closest ones are half a mile away, so hopefully they didn't see it. I did appreciate, though, what he pointed out in the last part. I mean, it's only two paragraphs long, so I agree with you. I wish there was more.
But the tragedy is that so many men have left this to their children's mothers. Not only is this unfair to the mother, but it robs the children of the security and self-esteem which come from being disciplined by their father. men, do not leave the discipline of your sons and daughters, or do you leave the discipline of your sons and daughters to your wives? If so, that is a sad breach of domestic responsibility. You are not living under God's word. I have written my margin here.
It's not a mom's job. And I think a reason why a lot of dads end up doing that by default is no discipline seems pleasant at the time. But it's also not pleasant for the dad. The reality is that I think sometimes it's just easier being the fun dad. And our culture does this. This is one of the things that drives me nuts when I watch movies. The dad's always a dumb idiot. Or he's just there for a whole bunch of fun. But he's not actually there to train. He's not actually there disciplining.
I'm not saying, you know, we go back to leave it to beaver or, you know, father knows best, because that has its own form of idolatry baked into it. But the point being that, like, I think dads are so scared to discipline now. Like, looking at my boys especially, they desperately need me to, in a loving, tender way, yet firmly discipline them. No, you can't do this, son. And I think it's telling too. I was just listening the other day to a sermon by Paul Washer on fatherhood. Oh boy. Paul Washer. There's a man of conviction. Yeah.
And he was saying how this command, this whole verse at this chapter is based on father's not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Comes to fathers. Like this charge is not given to the mother. Now there's an implicitness there with that. And if we look at the rest of scripture in Proverbs 31, right? But this charge comes to fathers. And like you said, so often in Hollywood and the rest of society, It's the mom who does that, the dad who comes home for dinner and playtime, right?
And that, at the very least, it's a gross overlook. And at the worst, it's just outright rebellion against what God is calling us to do as fathers. Well, it's also something that's happened in the West since the Industrial Revolution. The reality is that when we were just talking to Jim at dinner tonight, you know, Agrarian society even when he was growing up, you know Grandpa was on the farm.
Mm-hmm. Dad was on the farm kids were on the farm and they worked with dad and grandpa, right? They got that discipline with dad and grandpa, you know We were so happy just to be sitting down hearing them talk because we were on break right, you know but I mean most fathers Leave the home. Mm-hmm.
And by the time they get back home, it's so exhausted that we have a culture That's so full of entertainment that all that, you know, okay now it's time to relax. Mm-hmm well if we've been gone for a huge part of a day, eight hours. That means dads who are working outside the home have to be doubly disciplined in and of themselves that when they come home, it's not time to punch out. That's when you clock in. And it's so hard to do that. Just between me and you and the guys listening, I have been there.
Wake up at 4, 15 in the morning, 4 o'clock in the morning, leave, get down to the seminary before traffic, start working in the books by 5 a.m., working either for the business or for studying, get through classes by 1 o'clock, be out the door so I can go get jobs done and work done, come home for dinner at 5, 6 o'clock at night. I mean, I'm already pushing 12 hours. And then there were meetings at night, typically. 7.30, 8.30 is when we typically had meetings with clients. And so there was work to be done even then. And so it was kind of like, but when I was home, I had to be home.
I failed so many times. I think every father needs to recognize that you're going to fail at this. But how do we come home? It's a whole mind shift. I gotta be present when I'm home. He gets into that in the next portion. But it is something post-industrial revolution. Dad's out of the home. If we're not careful, it's very easy that this that's written to dads means you have to be a present dad. You can't do this accidentally. It's got to be done intentionally. But that gets into his next section, the instruction part.
It raises him in the fear and instruction of the Lord. What example does he give there to start with? Yeah, well, he points out the negative example of Eli, which is high priest in the book of First Samuel. And he talks about how God punishes Eli's house and says for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them. And he points out how that word restrain is the same root word for instruction. Eli was failing to instruct, to confront his boys and to tell them about their sin and there were severe consequences.
God took this responsibility seriously. He kind of gives five different ways of instruction. What are those five that he gives there? Yeah, so we've got being involved in verbally instructing our children, regularly leading them in family devotions and prayer. monitoring and being responsible along with our wives for the input that enters their impressionable minds, taking responsibility to help assure that church is a meaningful experience, and then lastly, above all, making sure that the open book of our lives, our example, demonstrates the reality of our instruction, for in watching us they will learn the most."
And I starred that one because I thought that was really important. Yeah. Why do you think it's that important? Oh, it makes me think of that country song. I don't remember what it's called. Dad, I Want to Be Like You or something like that. Rodney Atkins, man. That's Daniel's song. I sing that one day and day and night before he goes to bed sometimes. I say, Dad, sing my song. I want to be like you, Dad. Ain't that cool? I'm your buckaroo. I want to be like you. Yeah, yeah, we like fixing things and holding mama's hands.
Yeah, we're just like ain't we dad? Yeah, I cry every time I hear that song man. Yeah that's But he starts that song, actually. He's in the truck with his kid, and they come to a light that went straight to red, and he slams on the brakes, and his kid's orange drink goes all over his lap, and he hears a four-letter word come out of his four-year-old's mouth, and he says, son, where'd you learn to talk like that?
I want to be just like you, Dad. You know, I remember I preached a sermon through Chronicles one time, and I was just kind of going through a series of different chapters at once and pointing out the reality of the impact that fathers have on their sons. And you see it with the kings, that there are miracles at times when a son whose heart is radically gripped by the Lord But so often, even a godly father will have some type of sin, and the child will latch onto it.
And in the next reign, that child's life is ruled by that sin. Or you can think of Abraham. Abraham with Sarah, they go down to Egypt. pawns off his wife as his sister because she's so hot, so he's worried that the Egyptians are going to kill him to take her, causes all sorts of problems. And then what does Isaac do? The exact same thing. This is the influence that we have.
The next line in that song by Rodney Atkins is, he goes to the barn and he gets down on his knees and he prays real hard. And then and later that night he goes to his kids room each and next to the Scooby-Doo nightlight Yeah, and his son gets down on his knees and prays real hard. He says son. Where'd you learn to pray like that? Yeah, I've been watching you daddy. Yeah And I think of some redemption to it. Yeah, exactly, you know and just thinking like There's a legacy. I'm leaving behind for these kids But the key ingredient all of that Is I actually have to spend valuable time?
Mm-hmm That's really tough. That's something I'm seriously trying to learn. I was just reading through an article of 33 different ways to say no. I'm a guy who I like to make people happy. And so it's a problem I got in my own life. And so learning how to tell people, no, I'm sorry. I've got too much work to do. I think there's other people who would do better at this. you know, no. There's all sorts of different ways.
I was really encouraged by this article. Like, I didn't even know I could say no so nicely, you know? So, I saved the article and I'm going to use them because they had all sorts of templates for how do you say no to this and how do you say no to that? And I was like, no, I could tweak that. I could tweak that and I could use that.
But just realizing that, like, man, I was looking the other day, I was sitting right here and Olivia was sitting there and Nathan was in the kitchen And he walked in this is so dumb. We're gonna like oh, I can't believe this dawned on me this way, but he opens up the cabinet And he's just getting food out for himself.
Yeah And it's just dawned on me like the kids 10 Hmm. He's old enough to know I'm hungry. I want a snack. I don't need to ask mom and dad I know where the snacks are. Mm-hmm That's something that not a little boy does. That's a mature thing that I know what I'm allowed to do without asking permission to do it. It was a time in the day, it was between meals, he knew what he could do, and I was just like, it's almost done. I'm over halfway done with him. I have got to invest in that kid.
It's like the Lord's been just hammering this home for me. He brings up at the end of that chapter the doctor who is so busy and the little kid pulling on his dad. Dad gives him some candy and pulls on his dad. What does his dad give him next? A pencil or something. And he says, can't you see I'm busy? Haven't I given you a candy and pencil? What do you want? Daddy, I want to be with you. Just think of Daniel, you know, who at dinnertime just wants to sit on my lap. Like during family worship, he just wants to sit with me. Time's going away, man. And just realizing, like, my business mentor would always tell me this, like, your most valuable commodities is time and money. And money is a lot less valuable. So be careful with your time.
And I just think of like James Diamond who is this amazing father, deacon at the church in East Vail and seeing him pour lavish amounts of time into his son Ben and their daughters Taylor and Gracie. And the love that his children have for him and their mother does this also. But just like his dad is like, he just pours time into the kids. Like the house is managed. Well, I mean it's not it's not pouring time into the children in a way where it's like spoiling them Mm-hmm, but he's being very intentional.
Mm-hmm. Like all right, son. This is how you're gonna become a man. Mm-hmm All right, Ben. This is how this is gonna work. All right, Benny. I'm sure James isn't a perfect Father, I'm sure he's not a perfect. You know, I know that because he's he's not different But I just think like Even in my own life, that means there's gotta be sacrifices. This is becoming a monologue. Sorry.
But that means even the extent of my ministry might suffer. There's going to be times where I have to say, I'd like to go do that street evangelism, or I'd like to go participate in that community event. I'd like to go write that article. I'd like to go preach for that church. I'd like to do X, Y, Z. But my kids need me.
I was honestly thinking today as we were out there doing lawn work, which thank you so much for helping. Yeah, of course. I was just thinking how thankful I am for men like Jim and John, who have run this race ahead of me, and John who always, every single Sunday morning before church he prays, God our pastor has many irons in the fire, please help him to know how not to neglect his family. Every week he prays for me and reminds me of that and I I'm so thankful for Hearing their you know that these men who would take Sabbath off. Mm-hmm. I Mean for farmers as a big deal. Yeah and Being present with their kids. Yeah, I just think I'm like I gotta I This is something I've been actively thinking about, learning how to say no. I mean, that's what he says, right?
The dues of fatherhood cannot be lived out by proxy. You need to participate in putting the little ones to bed and praying for and with them. You need to be at their play, speeches, recitals, and sporting events. You need to schedule regular time alone with each of your children. You need to take the lead. in planning terrific family vacations and celebrating and cementing family solidarity.
All of that takes time. I've got to invest that time. Just think about, again, all this ties back to who our Heavenly Father is. He entered into time. I think Christ spent three years pouring his life into the disciples. Even though I'm sure Jesus was annoyed with all that and died, you know.
Yeah, no, I was, that same sermon by Paul Washer the other day, he talked about winning your child's heart. And I thought he was talking about winning it for Christ, but he said, no, just win your child's heart. He said, you must win your child's heart.
They need to know that you love them, that you care for them. Otherwise, why do they listen to you? Why do they care? And he says, who has your child's heart? He's like, whoever spends the most time with them. He said, why do you think your teenagers want to dress the way they do and talk the way they do and do the things they want to do? It's because the people they're spending the most time with do those things. How do you expect to win your child's heart? To know, to earn their love, to earn their trust when you see them one hour a week, two hours a week, five minutes at night, right?
You can't win your child's heart. And his call was be in the home. And he talked about how this industrial age society, post-industrial age society that we live in is just geared towards, no, dad comes home at night. Good night, eat dinner, turn on the TV, whatever, just check out. And he's like, you're not going to win your child's heart. How do you expect them to listen to you? How do you expect them to take your correction in love? How do you expect them to listen to the gospel that you're supposed to be preaching to them day in and day out, right?
That doesn't come out of outer space. That comes out of this foundation of time. Like we've been talking about here, investment. There's buy-in by you and that the child can see, Daddy loves me. How do I know that? Well, he did that for me. He did that for me. He spent that time with me. We did that together. Or does he know that, oh, daddy came home, kissed me goodnight, and that's all I know.
And I was just like, wow. Before we even go on to the question of winning your heart's child for Christ, you've got to win their heart just to begin with. And I was kind of like, wow. Who does have my child's heart? How do I? Because you don't want your child's friends, especially if they're not good friends, to have their heart. You don't want the world to get a hold of their heart, because it is growling at the door for it. Anyway, that was just a... No, that's beautiful, man.
I told you, oh boy, Paul Washer here has some conviction, you know. But I mean, thinking about you, you know, and futurehood of fatherhood, you know, like, it's so easy, you know. Lord willing, the Lord will give you guys a child. And, you know, when that time comes, you know, what's it going to look like when you have a job and you're brand new into practice?
You know, there's a book I was reading like 14 years ago or something like that. He was saying he always advises people to do exactly what you're doing not to do. He tells them don't get married right before grad school. because you need to spend ample time, and the Lord gives you a child, you must be present for that child in their early life. Now, thankfully, you know, your program is a shorter program, so it's not like you're going for an MD and then specializing in neurosurgery or something like that where you have a residency for seven years. Pete Good luck with that. Jared Well, no, seriously. Pete Yeah. Jared I mean, this is what happened to me.
We had our kids when I was still an undergrad. I graduated from seminary when Nathan was seven. I mean, dude, for almost half of Nathan's childhood, he'll have known me as a student. And so, you know, working 80 hours a week, you know. And so, now I feel like I'm playing catch up.
You know, like, how do I? I was telling Olivia, you know, I have to undo Habits that were helpful to get me through school, but now that we're here. How do I unlearn those habits? That made me successful getting through school and in our business and now turn that investment Towards the children and so I mean in your life, you know when you become a father and you're working.
I mean, the rubber's going to hit the road. Yeah. Even when we were doing marriage counseling. Gary and Cynthia are like, you know, the first year of marriage is harder. Your first year of marriage is going to be really hard. And, you know, the Lord's been very gracious, exceedingly gracious in that, you know, they're There is that, you know, we've not been two ships passing in the night. The Lord's given time management and just the balance of the program to where we can cut out time, you know.
That's awesome. But you have to fight for it because there's always more work to be done. There's always more studying you could do. There's always a higher grade you could achieve. There's always more to know. And that doesn't end when you graduate. Yeah. How easy is it to get into the doctor's office, right? Like you could work 80, 90, 100 hours a week if you wanted to. And your bank account might like it. But where is the eternal weight here? Where is the eternal perspective? Is it really going to profit you? He talks about, on my page 54, I don't know what that is in the new version. I'm way ahead of you.
73. Yeah. The realization that we have only a brief time to raise our children should give us a huge motivation to make the most of it and should make scriptural advice about fathering pulse with importance for us. I mean, this is what I'm saying, man, is I don't have much time left. I don't.
And if I act like, well, I still got eight more years in Nathan's life, I will squander them. Just like somebody who gets a million bucks and thinks that they could spend on whatever they want instead of what what's actually going to pay dividends, right? Like no God God has given me a rich blessing Am I going to steward that time that he's given me with my son and Lord forbid? I'd get an accident while I'm driving up to Iowa City and I die.
Mm-hmm. I might not have Yeah More years with him tomorrow is not guaranteed. It's not guaranteed for him either. No Yeah, no, and so He talks about saying No to things in the next paragraph excessive busyness must not be by choice as it so often is Guilty as charged We must beware of packing our schedules by saying yes to things which mean no to our own families. Hmm That's a whoo, buddy I feel free to ask me week by week, Brian what have you said no to? Like I'm dead serious as a brother, feel free to ask me, did you over commit this week? Well, he has a whole series of questions on reflection.
I'm not going to read them, I'll just read my cliff notes version. Have I been critical or edifying? Have I been a legalist or a guardian? Have I been impatient and irritable or have I been patient and self-controlled? Have I been consistent with the children? Do I keep my promises? Am I showing favoritism? Am I tender with them or rough? Do I share in the discipline? And do I give them time? He points out Luke chapter 1 verse 17 as a promise in the New Covenant. Do you see that? Yeah, that was intriguing to me.
John the Baptist's mission was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. I don't know enough in the context of that. I don't quite understand what that phrase means. I understand how he takes it here, but I guess I thought it meant like father would become like a child to learn about the kingdom of God as Christ is coming to preach it. But here he talks about how father's, I don't know, I guess John the Baptist's mission was to turn the heart of the father to the child and making the fathers love their children more. That's more of just a, I don't know, Yeah, that's the application he's pulling from him and bringing that verse to light. Yeah, the very last paragraph there is the charge that he gives at the end. Do you want to read that?
Yeah, he says men Submit to Christ and allow him to turn your hearts to your children Ask the Holy Spirit for the power to practice the discipline of fatherhood and then good old our Kent Hughes style he says sweat for your children's souls and I underline that because it takes work and It's not something that happens overnight.
You're just walking do by accident like we've been talking about. Yeah, it takes intentionality and I love the balance there though, right? Ask the Holy Spirit for the power to practice the discipline of fatherhood. And then we actually got to do something, right? Sweat for your children's soul. Live out that repentance. Live out that obedience. We can be so scared, especially as Calvinists, of obligation.
But no, we get to walk in the fruits of righteousness. The fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. I can exercise all of that. Yes, not perfectly. But if I am abiding in Christ, if his spirit is in me, and if I am in him, then I can. I'm not a slave to sin. Yes, I'm going to struggle with sin, but I'm not a slave. Praise God. And I'm united to Christ, and if I'm united to Christ, those old shackles of sin and the patterns that I was shown, this has been, reading through Romans has been so great for me. Romans 6. Yeah, you know, but even Romans 8, right? Even when I do fail, you know, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me? Things be to God because of Jesus Christ, right? And I'm united to Him, and so if Jesus is in me, the pattern can be broken.
You know, it's not a works-based righteousness, it's a Spirit-infused sanctification. I'm never going to be a perfect father. But man, I pray for people in our church, I pray for you when the Lord gives you all a breathing child, you know, when the Lord pours out His Spirit in the church that men will be fathers, you know, that will get away from this pendulum swings that happen and will be tender with our children and discipline them in the fear of the Lord and love them with tenderness and spend lavish amounts of time, without spoiling them, but seriously raising them up as disciples, teaching them to obey all which Jesus has commanded them. You know, like, these are the little disciples that God has put in my house. You and I could meet like this for discipleship, but I have way more time to disciple them.
I better not squander that time. That's a blessing from God. Psalm 127. Am I crafting them as arrows to shoot into the world? And are they going to shoot straight? or at the last Judgment Day, when I give an account for how I took care of my own children's souls, am I going to say, yeah, I was negligent? I really just wanted to watch TV. I didn't want to spend time with them. It was too hard. I was tired. Hey man, can I ask you to pray for us tonight? I would love to. are God and our Father.
How can we even call you that, Lord? We who are rebels of your grace, Lord, covenant breakers, unlovely, and sinners, enemies of God, and yet, Lord, you have changed our hearts by your resurrection power, Lord, and rebirthed us, Lord, to newness of life that we can now have your spirit in our hearts to cry, Abba, Father, our Father, Lord, what a privilege that we get to experience the tender, firm, gracious, truthful love of a Heavenly Father who loves His children, Lord and there is no shadow of turning with you lord.
You don't change day to day. You don't fly off a handle Lord you give as a good father generously without reproach And lord, we just worship you for this amazing love and we bask in it lord and give you the praise for it Yes, and yet lord. We acknowledge to you how? quickly our hearts can see that and experience that and turn right around and act like we haven't. Lord, we confess to you our own impatience and our own lack of tenderness and how we mar the image of God. Lord, to those around us, to our wives, Lord, you haven't given me children yet, Lord, but we do. And Lord, we just praise you that though we are unfaithful, God remains faithful.
And we ask, Lord, that you would not be finished with us, Lord, that You would bring to completion the work You have begun, that You would sanctify us, that You would bring us every day to gaze into the mirror of Your Word, into that perfect law of liberty, and to see what Your Word requires of us as fathers, that we would see the heart of our Heavenly Father.
And Lord, that you would, through spirit-infused grace, Lord, sanctify us more and more through your word. Your word is truth, Lord. Thank you for this time to share with Brian, to get into your word, to hear from Archon Hughes, and thank you for him writing this book to instruct men to be men of God. Lord, we pray that you would raise up a generation of men who are passionate about being godly men, about being biblical men, fathers and husbands. Lord, that you would do this all for your glory. Lord, we give you the praise and ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Thanks so much, Ben. Yeah, thank you. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Student Podcast. Feel free to go over to the website, sharonharpc.org backslash student and find more information and other shows. Also, don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We appreciate it. Have a great day.