Foundations for the Household

I have just begun listening to this series of talks (6 in total) called 'Foundations for Fathers'. I will try and outline the main points - though I expect I will probably end up focusing on the things that grab my attention!

Foundations for Fathers
1. Scripture is sufficient to equip and train you, your wife and your children
2. Godly discipline is not an adequate substitute for regeneration
3. Godly childrearing is covenantal in nature
4. Everything that goes on in your home is your responsibility
5. Invest time & energy in the early stages of your children's lives

1. Scripture is sufficient to equip and train you and your children
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17 )

2. Godly discipline is not an adequate substitute for regeneration
Don't confuse well behaved children with regenerate children.
Don't confuse cuteness with goodness, purity or innocence. Baby tigers are cute - but they grow up to be man eaters. How cute were Idi Amin, Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot?
Children are sinners - fallen in Adam. They don't learn sin from your or the kids down the street (only) but from him. They are 'little bundles of sin'

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned-- ..... For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:12 ,19)

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. (Ephesians 2:1-3)The contrast is not between innocent childhood and evil adulthood, but between immature evil and mature evil.
The GOAL in childrearing is regeneration & salvation not good manners alone. Instilling standards and good manners is a vital step towards that goal (the law is a prelude to the gospel teaching us our sin and need of Christ) but not the goal itself.
Therefore as a Dad you need to be cautious, watchful and prayerful.

3. Godly child rearing is covenantal in nature
1 Corinthians 7:13-15
Titus 1:6
As you train up your child using the means God gives (love, prayer, his wrod, example, spanking etc.) then be confident and expect God to be at work bringing your child to faith. Don't squander the advantages that you have.

4. Everything that goes on in your home is your responsibility

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no-one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-- for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. However eacho of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honour your father and mother" --which is the first commandment with a promise-- "that it may go well with you and that you may
enjoy long life on the earth." Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 5:22-6:4)

This is not the same as saying it is all your fault - just the buck stops with you. This is an authority relationship. As you take responsibilty for things that are not your fault you are a picture of Christ and beginning to be a leader.
This will help you avoid having an adversarial relationship with your wife.

5. Invest time & energy in the early stages of your children's lives
God has programmed your children to want to leave you:

"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." (Ephesians 5:31)

If they don't you have done something wrong.
So, if they are going to leave at say 18, it makes sense to get them ready for that before then.

The way to do that is to be strict early on (especially ages 0-5) and then give liberty. Run a totalitarian state early on and pray/work/aim towards there needing to be no rules by the age of 16/17. This is very energy consuming and it is easy to let it all go (just looking after them takes it out of you, let alone loving discipline too). But this reaps dividends. And the alternative is energy consuming too and grevious as well- just at a later stage!

Because many parents give liberty early on (with lots of excuses not to discipline: 'isn't he cute', followed by 'it's a stage - the terrible twos/threes etc.', 'boys will be boys') until the undisciplined child who until now hasn't been able to do much harm starts doing damage, to themselves and to others. Then the discipline comes down hard (in teenage years?), the groundings (where are they in the Bible?), the restrictions, the punishments. But the trouble is that the teenager is heading for independence. So to discipline the undisciplined child/adult now is to provoke rebellion. This is really hard work! And a grief to mother and father.