The Butt Side of Parenting
Christians are entrusted by God with an amazing task: not only to care for our children but to teach them to walk in accordance with God’s ways. Christian parenting is not about behavior modification but about gospel-transformation. It’s introducing our children to Jesus that they may taste of God’s grace and be radically changed from the inside out. Christian parenting is shepherding. It’s leading and guiding our children to be love-filled, faith-filled, hope-filled followers of Jesus. Toward that end Christian parents are to employ two key strategies: 1) corrective discipline and 2) formative instruction. Both are needed. Formative instruction is teaching so that it forms a specific kind of life. It’s speaking God’s Word into the hearts of our children that their hearts may be transformed. Jesus said in John 17:17 that we are sanctified by God’s truth and that God’s word is truth. The way we become mature love-filled, faith-filled, and hope-filled followers of Jesus is through God...