Feb. 19, 2022

170: Bible Questions: What does the Bible have to say about parenting?

170: Bible Questions: What does the Bible have to say about parenting?

Growing your kids is a lot like growing plants. Here are a few quick tips
1. There are infinite varieties -- no cookie-cutter principles. Study your child.
2. They mature (bear fruit) at different times. Be patient
3. The best way to "water" is to let them soak up character in a home full of grace and truth
4. They grow best together. Crowd them with people.
5. Provide structure (support) that is not rigid, but primarily with good core values
6. Prune activities so they can grow in the areas that matter most
7,. Avoid seeing them as your trophies. That leads to all kinds of problems. Let them develop as God's trophies in an atmosphere of unconditional love.
8. Enjoy the journey. Parenting is TOUGH and AMAZING.
9. God doesnt give us kids so we will raise them, so much as so God can finish raising US.

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170: Bible Questions: What does the Bible have to say about parenting?

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Show Notes
Transcript

It's a LOT like great gardening, actually!

(See summary)

Transcript

Episode 170: Bible Questions: What does the Bible say about parenting?

What does the Bible have to say about raising kids? If there's a most frequently asked question I personally have had, that's it, my wife and I have raised four kids over the last 28 years. I know I'm partial, but they've really turned out pretty great. And obviously it's not because we did such a great job all the time, but throughout our child raising years, my Brian and I have dragged the magnet across the scripture, trying to pick up the principles we needed to give our kids the best shot possible of turning out well, well in God's eyes and hopefully the world's as well, early on, we ran across this verse from Psalm 1 28.

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00:00:44

Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house and your children like olive plants around your table. That grabbed me because one of my other loves is gardening, vegetable gardening, and especially growing tomatoes, Minnesota. Isn't so great at growing olives. The closest thing would be tomatoes. Throughout the years, I become a passionate student of growing tomatoes just a week ago. Someone called me to pick my brain at how to grow great tomatoes this summer. So in answering the Bible question, what does the Bible have to say about raising our kids? I'm going to do something a little weird here for the first five minutes or so.

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I'm going to dump on you, my trove of knowledge, about how you can grow the best tomatoes in your neighborhood and for the rest of the podcast, I'm going to apply those same tomato growing principles to raising our kids according to scripture, or to put it another way to teach you first, how to grow better boys and early girls. And to teach you after that, what scripture says about growing girls and boys better. Here we go. Starting with seeds and seedlings. First, do a little research or ask around. There are so many varieties, better boys than early. Girls are two of my favorite, but there are only two of hundreds of varieties of tomatoes that come in every size imaginable from the size of blackberries to the size of grapefruits.

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And they come in every shade of red, pink, vivid, yellow, and every color in between. There's even one that looks like chocolate. The other thing to figure out is when do I want to eat these things? We're talking maturity dates here. Tomatoes come in three varieties, early season, mid season and late season. Some early season tomatoes are ready to go in under 60 days. Some take over a hundred, but they're worth the wait. Also find out do they bear their fruit all at once or do they continue to bear fruit? Tell the frost kills them. That'll help you choose which seed or seedlings. Then there's a matter of the soil.

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If you're just starting out, gardening tomatoes, take a simple pH that measures the soils, sweetness or sourness. You want the fancy word, alkalinity or acidity growing good tomatoes requires a neutral pH unless you're buying packaged garden soil. It's really smart to take a pH test kits are a couple of bucks at your big box store. Once you're in the garden, work the soil deep. And then are you listening? Stay off the seed bed. Tomatoes need deep, loose, well cultivated soil for their roots to grab, hold and go deeper. If you can help it never step on the soil near your tomato plant.

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I grow my tomatoes in raised beds. And then this leave little stones in your soil. Don't curse those little dudes. You come across. These are mineral gyms, and they're usually a sign of a fertile garden. If they're smaller than a golf ball, let them lay next. Your plant care. You're likely to pick up seedlings at a local nursery or big box. When you get these home, do not just put them in the garden. They need to be introduced slowly to an outdoor environment that will reduce the shock and increase the harvest. They can't just move from the protected nursery to direct sunlight, wind, and the elements they call it hardening off progressively over a few days or a week.

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Get them used to the outdoor environment. Now about water. Try not to dump water over them. When their seedlings put them in a pan of water and pour water in the pan and let the roots soak the moisture up slowly. Once they're in the garden, don't just hose them off. It's way better to use a drip hose along the ground to slowly let the water seep into the roots. I drill small holes in a five gallon bucket and then pour water into that and let it slowly seep in while I use compost, you may need to use a little fertilizer. You'll see three numbers on that fertilizer. You buy. I'm not going to get technical here, but one of those elements produce growth and green.

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The second element produces root development and the last one increases their vigor and immunity to disease. So either start composting or get some of that stuff handy, maybe soluble miracle grow. Now it's time to plant common wisdom is plant them in long rows with lots of space. Don't do that with tomatoes. Crowding plants produces a better yield. If you crowd your tomatoes a little in a wide row, the foliage of the plant shades, the ground quickly, it reduces evaporation and the sprouting of weeds crowding your tomato plants also allows them to lean on each other for support and protection.

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And you might even think of growing other plants among your tomato plants. I like to grow vine crops like cucumbers. Once your tomatoes start getting larger, you've got a decision to make. You can let them sprawl on the ground and they will actually letting them sprawl produces more fruit. However, after you throw out the bad ones from PEs and rot, your harvest is going to be smaller. Plus it's a mess. Other gardeners will tie their plants to a well driven steak. Steak tomatoes look really good and they're kept off the ground and away from pests, but the ties can strangle those vines or a strong wind can actually share the plants off.

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I believe your best method is to use a cage of wood or reinforced wire. This provides enough support to keep them off the ground, and yet gives them room for the plant to grow and adjust without breaking off those cages are also only a few bucks at a big box store. Tomato plants can put on a tremendous amount of foliage in a hurry. Most of this green comes from small sucker branches that shoot off the main stem. These little sucker branches will each grow to be their own vine, put on more foliage and blossoms, and finally set fruit. If you don't trim these little suckers, you'll end up with a tomato Bush with bazillions of small green tomatoes, but very few large mature ones it's painful, but trim away almost all these suckers.

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Maybe just down to two main stems. These two main stems will produce a pile of delicious from ripe fruit before frost then comes the harvest. You'll be very tempted to pick a few of these almost ripe tomatoes and put them in the house on your window sale, you know, show them off, but don't do it. You'll never see in a grocery store window, ripen tomatoes. I promise vine-ripened tomatoes, ripen from the inside, out on a window sill, they sunburn and turn red from the outside in before they become sweet and mature. Okay, you can put one in the window to show off, but the ones you want to eat, leave them on the vine until you want to slice them.

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And my last tip is this enjoy gardening being part of growing a tomato or a flower or any living thing is an awesome thing. From a seed, the size of a pencil tip to an eight foot sprawling plant leaning heavily in a cage, as it tries to hold up a heavy harvest. That's quite a journey for those who care. The world record is a better boy plant that produced 342 pounds of tomatoes. That's a lot of sauce. Okay? That took more than five minutes. I'm sorry. I told you I love growing tomatoes, but the principle for growing God's kids in scripture are very similar.

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Let's talk about your little seedlings principle. One appreciate the variety is the child God has given you or will give you is a most unique creation. Exactly the way God intended as parents scripture teaches us to be committed, to maximize the fruitfulness of our little tender shoots. According to the way God created them, we should expect from them the results for which they were designed by our guide principle, to understand maturity dates. God sees the harvest at planting time for our little shoots. It seems unfair. He didn't give us parents the same insight. Instead. He commands parents to cultivate the lives of our kids and patiently wait for him to provide the fruit.

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Some kids set fruit early, some in mid season of life. Some may not set fruit until their death bed. And maybe even then only fruit. God can see Proverbs 22 6 gives us this kid cultivating tip, train up a child according to his way. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. We are to train up according to his way, not our way, but the child's unique way. And to do that, we need to become students of our children inside and out. Their growth patterns support needs the purpose for which he or she is intended. Principle three, take a pH test of your home.

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Are we preparing and maintaining a home for our young plants that balances truth and grace discipline and love principle four work for deep soil and don't pack down the seed bed. That is cultivate a deep fertile environment in our homes and be vigilant to watch for things like improper expectations, the withholding of praise or encouragement or harshness that might pack down the soil around our children's hearts. Principle five, leave the little stones. When I was a young parent, there was a term helicopter parents. Those who hovered over their kids to make life easier.

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Now I understand the term is lawnmower parents, parents who go before their children to mow everything down. So it's easy for them to move forward. Scripture teaches us that the stones that our children hit are actually helpful in their development. Romans five says it this way. Tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character. That's true for our kids. Parents goals, according to scripture are not to keep our children happy. Our goal is by God's grace and power to guide them to become holy. That is set apart to guide principle six is similar.

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Harden them off from the day of birth. We are to begin a process of weaning our children off dependents to us and onto interdependence. Notice. I didn't say independence. Scripture is clear. We need other people I'll be coming back to that. Scripture teaches parents. We are to strategically and progressively expose our kids to this fallen world in order to prepare them to stand alone or as Daniel one eight spoke of the teenager, Daniel to purpose in their hearts, not to defile themselves. Principle seven, crowd them in wide rows. Kids grow better together together.

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They have support and protection. I was challenged as a parent from scripture to buck our culture. Does every child really need his own room, his own hobbies, his own life. I grew up rooming with two brothers while I chafed. Then at the experience I wouldn't trade it for anything. Crowding and wide rows also urges us to work against the spirit of the age and try desperately to streamline our lives so we can have mealtimes playtimes and vacations together. As families principle, eight bottom water or drip irrigate them. Our little sermonettes. His parents are like top watering.

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What our tender young shoots need is a consistent home atmosphere where they can slowly absorb the character of Jesus. We saved those timely sermonettes for appropriate teachable moments. When you get a moment read Deuteronomy six, six through nine, that is a bottom watering, drip irrigating, scriptural nugget for parents. The next principle be wise fertilize. As a dad, I was challenged from scripture. Am I pouring on a regular supply of encouragement? Call it people nitrogen. Are we helping them with spiritual and life formation? Call it people phosphorous.

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And are we praying for our children to be vibrant in this disease? The world call it people potassium. And I'm going to end with three biggies. First support them wisely. It's easy for parents to tie our tender young plants to a rigid steak, you know, rigid boundaries or to do the opposite. Let them sprawl with no boundaries at all. Scripture leaves no room for parents to allow kids to sprawl. We've already learned are to train up a child scripture also warns us against tying them to a rigid steak. That's the whole message of the letter of Galatians, Ephesians six, four ads do not exasperate your child scripture models for us, allowing them freedom within specified boundaries.

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And that's what parents should do. Identify those core values like truth honor, compassion, sacrifice for others and use these as the cages in which our kids grow and flourish. Second prune those little suckers. I believe most of us parents were our kids and ourselves out trying to get through each child or parents' bucket list of activities, biblically it's parent's responsibility to assist a child to make wise choices. What activities are children involved in, which are sucking the energy from other activities that produce worthwhile character and skills Psalm 1 27, 4 compares children to arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior.

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That being true shouldn't parents consider at least aiming them a little toward a particular target. And finally, vine ripen. Our children belong to God and our God's trophy is not ours. I need to watch vicariously living through them or expecting them to mature too fast or to Excel too much. A more effective approach would be to love them unconditionally and allow God to mature them in his way and his time enjoy the journey. Raising a child is supposed to be an awesome agonizing journey. And it is imagine from an ova, the size of the dot on a page.

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Parents have the awesome privilege of growing up a child who will by God's grace, be more like Jesus. And the side benefit is that when God gives a parent a child to raise God finishes raising that parent, the apostle John gives the grand prize of fruitful parenting. He writes, I have no greater joy than to see my children walking in the truth. I hope in this podcast, you've learned how to grow great tomatoes. And you've learned some of the scriptural principles for growing great kids. But I want to leave this thought with you. These same principles, God uses to grow us as his kids.

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Maybe play back this podcast this time asking the question. What does the Bible say about how God bests raises his kids, you and me.

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