The position of parents cannot be lightly held. The truth has surrounded it with special duties.
The parents’ first duty is to provide and properly care for the bodily needs of their offspring. It is hardly necessary to dwell on this aspect of the question, inasmuch as many influences quite extraneous to the truth tend to keep it to the front. The laws of the country, public opinion and current literature, all combine to remind parents of their duty in regard to the sustenance and attention to the physical well-being of their children.
But with the moral training of the children the case is different. Upon this the parents’ information is almost exclusively restricted to what their own intelligence and industry enable them to extract from the Word. This situation is not free from danger. Forgetfulness, the pressure of daily cares, or a desire for quietness and ease may prevent the putting forth of the necessary energy; and the scriptural bearings of the matter may largely or altogether escape the parents.
God has clearly expressed His will in connection with the rearing of children. It is that they may be brought up to know and to love Him. Concerning Abraham, God said, “I have known him to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord” (Gen. 18: 19 R.V.). God addressed Himself similarly to Israel, “He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children that they might set their hope in God.” It was evidently the apprehension and carrying into effect of God’s will in this matter that enabled Joshua to boldly stand up before the congregation of Israel and say: “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”
God also kept His requirement concerning the righteous training of children to the front in apostolic times by insisting that those who held responsible positions in the ecclesias should have faithful children, or, according to the revised version, “children that believe.”
In the Mosaic Law, the features to be observed in the training of children are particularized, in substance thus: Diligently teach your children My word; freely talk to them of My statutes; let Me and My words form the subject of conversation at all times, at home and abroad, the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. Let your children witness your attendance upon My observances. Encourage them to question the meaning of what they see, and be ready with the correct answer (Ex. 10: 2; 12: 26.27; 13: 14; Deut. 4: 9, 10; 6: 7; 32:46).
In fewer words, the same thought is expressed in the apostolic writings: “Bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Nurture conveys the idea of careful, tender instruction, or education. Therefore, to bring a child up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is to carefully and continually nourish the mind with the things of God.
Some brethren act, and some even contend, as though children should be brought up without any reference to the truth; that they should be allowed to go in the way of the world, to sip at its pleasures, to attend its “religious” services, and left to freely choose whether they will serve God or not. Such conduct or such a contention could only be urged by those who ignore the claims of the Creator upon His creature. It is a mistake to suppose that man, whether he be old or young, may assume an attitude of independence towards God in Whose hand are his life and breath. It is also a mistake to suppose that the young are without obligation to God. To them it has been written: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” Parents should keep this obligation before their children, and help them to surrender to it When God’s commandments reach the understanding, there is no free choice in the matter of obeying them. It is a question then of either obedience, or sin against the light.
Some argue that if children are brought up in a state of separateness from the world, a reaction will set in when they grow older which will cause them to plunge headlong into ways of worldliness. If that idea be sound, then a child who is to be brought up honestly and virtuously, to avoid a similar reaction, should from time to time be placed in the company of the dishonest and licentious. Such a notion is opposed to experience. It is inconsistent alike with common-sense and the examples and precepts of Scripture. A child could have no more exclusive bringing up than young Samuel, who was placed under the charge of a faithful high priest in the Temple of God. Yet there was no reaction in his case. Joseph, too, must have been brought up to value the world and its doings at their true worth. Removed at the age of seventeen from his father’s house into a strange land, he displayed, in word and deed, a righteousness which many of his elders might strive to emulate. Whether in Potiphar’s house, in prison, or before Pharaoh, his utterances and actions are characterized by an open recognition of God. His integrity allurement could not seduce, adversity could not blight, and prosperity could not benumb. His faith was not the outcome of a sojourn amongst a wicked, idolatrous people. Neither was it the evolution of his own natural mind. Faith has but one source—the Word of God. Joseph’s history speaks volumes for the character of the impressions which had been conveyed to his mind in his early youth.
If parents would have their children Joseph-like to resist the evil that is in the world through lust, let them not hesitate to make their children Joseph-like in knowledge by a practical importation of the principles of righteousness.
The case of Timothy points in a similar direction. Paul testified of him that he had known the Scriptures from a child. Here, again, instruction in righteousness produced no reaction, but rather served to develop a young man godly almost beyond his years — an example alike to old and young. Surely Timothy’s guardians must have recognized that friendship with the world is enmity to God, and have kept their young charge from companions and influences that would have given him a dis-relish for the Word, and have made him a less apt and perhaps unwilling pupil.
A parent’s attitude should not be: “I hope my children will give up all these worldly ways and obey the truth some day.” Rather should it be: “I will guard my children from worldly ways so long as I control them, that their obedience to the truth may not be impeded.” The position of the world is a position of no surrender towards God. Its spirit is a spirit of rebellion. What is at the root of it? Lust–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. The world will invite the children to give lust the rein. And how such an invitation appeals to human nature! On this same principle, an indiscriminate visiting of schoolfellows should not be sanctioned. The parents should do their utmost to prevent their children from imbibing the spirit that is in the world, even if it involves the sacrifice of otherwise advantageous companionships. The sons and daughters of the land may prove dangerous companions, as Jacob and Dinah found to their grief. The world has not advanced in righteousness since Jacob lived. Its doings may be different in kind, but they are not so in character. It is harder for the parents to deny their children than it is to deny themselves. But they will have to learn both to say “NO” to their children, and to teach them, as they grow older, to say “No” for themselves. To allow the children to have free intercourse with the world is to tacitly teach them that the world is harmless and desirable. This is altogether too timorous a mode of inculcating godliness, and one from which no very great results can be expected. “Train up a child in the way he should go” is the counsel of the Scriptures. Which is the way to be–in the world and of the world, or, “in the world but not of the world ?” It is for the parents to answer. The children of this world set an example of wisdom in the counsel which they give their young in the race for glory—albeit an earthly glory. “Aim high ‘, they say, “hitch your wagon to a star” Sound advice, which points out in expressive language the necessity of adopting the right means for the attainment of an object Surely, if brethren and sisters were wise, they would both direct their children’s eyes to the Kingdom, and set their young feet in the path that leads to it.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One