Can You Fool Your Children?

What is this page about?

Here are two scenes. This page made them up.

Nothing in the second scene is a great wrong. That is why it matters. The church saw the first scene. The son saw both, and he has seen them hundreds of times. He is learning what his father is like. He is also learning what his father’s religion is, and what kind of God it is about.

There are two views about this.

Both views agree that prayer and church matter and that parents should teach the faith. The difference is this: what is the real sign of faith? And what should a parent do when he gets it wrong?

The short answer

1. Children see almost everything that the church sees, and much more. They are in church too. Then they are in the car, at the table and in the kitchen. The church sees a small part of the picture. The children see all of it.

2. Fruit is harder to pretend than words. Jesus said: “By their fruits you will know them.” (Matthew 7:16) Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). These are all ways to treat people. And they are tested most at home. About the year 110, a church leader named Ignatius wrote:

It is better for a man to be silent and be a Christian, than to talk and not to be one.

Ignatius of Antioch, about the year 110

In simple words: It is better to say nothing and be a Christian than to talk much and not be one.

3. Children learn about God when they see for whom their parents stop. In the story of the Good Samaritan, two men walk past a badly hurt man. They are a priest and a temple worker, the most religious people in the story. Jesus also said that earthly fathers give good gifts to their children, and God gives much more (Matthew 7:11). So parents are a picture of God for their children. Children notice.

4. The Bible joins prayer to the way you treat your husband or wife. Husbands must honour their wives, “that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). That means: so that nothing stops your prayers. In the book of Malachi, men cry at God’s altar, and God will not accept their gifts. The reason is how they have treated their wives (Malachi 2:13-14). About the year 390, a famous preacher said that a house is a little church.

5. When a person says one thing and does another, it teaches something. Paul warned religious people who do not do what they teach: “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). In simple words: because of you, other people speak badly about God. They think less of God, not only of you.

6. Saying sorry is not a failure of a Christian parent. It is one of the most important parts. The Christian faith does not ask parents to look perfect: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8). A parent says, “I was wrong. Will you forgive me?” In that moment a child sees sin, turning back, forgiveness and peace, all together. A hypocrite is not a person who sins. A hypocrite is a person who pretends that he does not.

7. Help for people who cannot pay you back makes your teaching believable. Jesus said: “ask the poor, the maimed, the lame, or the blind; and you will be blessed, because they don’t have the resources to repay you” (Luke 14:13–14). People can explain kindness that is paid back without God. Kindness that cannot be paid back is hard to explain in any other way.

8. Religious activity can quietly take the place of character. See Part 4.

9. Children often remember things that parents never counted. Parents remember the family prayers that they led. Children remember if home was safe, if promises were kept, and what happened when a stranger came to the door. In Matthew 25, Jesus praises some people, and they are surprised. They had not been counting their good acts.

10. Studies point the same way, with limits. Studies have looked at how faith passes from parents to children. It is more likely in a warm home, and a warm father matters much. It is more likely when parents are loving and also clear about what they expect, when the marriage is good, and when the parents’ actions agree with their words. Going to church as a family matters too. But no study says that children must turn out one way or the other.

11. The aim is not to make your children believe that you are spiritual. Paul said: “Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1) A parent is a sign that points the way. He is not the end of the road.

Who sees it?

Think about one week in the life of a Christian parent. Who sees each thing?

• He prays aloud in church. The church sees it. The children next to him see it too.
• His voice at seven o’clock on a school morning. Only the family hears it.
• What he says about the sermon at Sunday lunch. Only the family hears it. The church heard only “Thank you” at the door.
• How he speaks to his wife when she has made everyone wait. Only the family.
• A promise that he made quickly to a seven-year-old. Only the seven-year-old is counting, and very carefully.
• If he says sorry after he was angry. Only the family.

Two services, and the children are at both

Think of a family that has evening prayers. Then the husband and wife go to bed in cold silence. That night they held two “services”, and the children were at both. This page does not say that the first one was worth nothing. It says that the children will ask which one was true.

So the Bible keeps joining worship and home.

If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

1 John 4:20 · World English Bible

In simple words: A person may say, “I love God,” and hate his brother. That person is a liar. He can see his brother, and he does not love him. So how can he love God, whom he cannot see?

The people in your house are the people you see most.

This can sound like a heavier load: “Children see everything, so try harder.” But the Bible’s answer is not a better show. It is honesty. Every parent fails in front of his children, every day. What matters is the next step. Does the parent pretend that nothing happened? Does he blame someone else? Or does he say, “I was wrong”?

Jesus even put making peace before worship: “First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:24) “Be reconciled” means: make peace.

Some people worry that a parent loses authority when he says sorry to his children. The Bible gives parents real authority. And in the very next sentences it says: “You fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath” (Ephesians 6:4). That means: do not make your children angry. To have authority does not mean to be always right. Children already know that you are not. They trust a parent who tells the truth about himself much more.

In 1938 a German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, described a kind of church where nobody is allowed to be a sinner. A home can be like that too. Children in such a home learn one of two things. Either “Christians do not sin”, and they can see that this is false. Or “Christians sin and hide it”.

A real sorry, or only the sound of sorry?

Here are things a parent may say after doing wrong. This page made them up.

In each one, the parent names the wrong and says that it was his.

The first says sorry for the child’s feelings, not for what the parent did. The second moves the blame to the child. The third is true of every Christian. But here it uses religious words to avoid saying, “I was wrong.”

What does the Bible measure?

Church, Bible study, ministry, long prayers and a daily quiet time are all good. But a person can use them to show that he is spiritual, to others and to himself. Then they can quietly take the place of the thing they should help to grow.

Jesus said about the religious leaders of his time: “they do all their works to be seen by men” (Matthew 23:5). His advice about prayer was the opposite: “enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matthew 6:6).

Jesus also spoke against people who gave money to God so that they did not have to help their own parents (Mark 7:11-13).

So what does the Bible see as the sign of a grown-up Christian? The clearest list is Paul’s list for choosing a church leader (1 Timothy 3). It names about sixteen things.

without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching; not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well

1 Timothy 3:2–4 · World English Bible

In simple words: Nobody can accuse him of wrong. He is faithful to his wife. He controls himself, he is wise, and he is modest. He welcomes guests. He can teach. He does not drink too much, he is not violent, and he does not love money. He is gentle and does not fight. He leads his own family well.

Sort the list. One thing is a skill: he can teach. All the others are about character and home life. Not one is a religious activity. Paul gives the reason: if a man does not know how to lead his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?

Not to make them admire you

Paul wrote to his young helper Timothy about the “sincere faith” (2 Timothy 1:5) that lived first in Timothy’s grandmother Lois and in his mother Eunice. “Sincere” means real, with no pretending. The faith that came down to Timothy was not a show.

But the aim is not that children admire their parents. In Deuteronomy 6, a child asks what God’s commands mean. The parent must answer: “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. Yahweh brought us out of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 6:21). The answer is about what God did. The parent’s part is this: he was rescued, he says so, and he lives like a rescued person.

One more thing takes away a heavy load. A child’s faith is not a mark for the parents. In the Bible, the good king Hezekiah had a son who was one of the worst kings. The bad king Amon had a son, Josiah, who was one of the best. The Bible says: “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.” (Ezekiel 18:20) In simple words: a son is not guilty for his father’s sin, and a father is not guilty for his son’s sin.

A parent must answer for his own faithfulness. What his children do with it belongs to them and to God.

And if your own childhood home was hard, the Bible has a word for you: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then Yahweh will take me up.” (Psalm 27:10) In simple words: if my father and mother leave me, the Lord will take care of me.

Check it yourself

1. Do this one. Read 1 Timothy 3:1-7. Count the things about skill, the things about character and home, and the things about religious activity.
2. Read 1 Peter 3:7 and Malachi 2:13-16. What does each say about prayer and marriage?
3. Read Luke 10:25-37 and Luke 14:12-14. Who walked past? Who stopped? Whom does Jesus tell us to invite?
4. Read Mark 7:9-13 and Matthew 25:31-46.
5. Do you have grown children, or brothers and sisters? Ask one of them gently: “What do you remember about how our faith was lived at home, not how it was taught?” Then listen.