Kootenai Church Sunday School

In Lesson 42 of Christian Ethics and the Old Testament, Dave Rich turns from the duties children owe their parents to the duties parents owe their children. He lays out five dimensions of parental duty: love, provision, instruction, modeling, and discipline.

Rich shows that Scripture assumes parents will love their children as a gracious gift from God, and he traces how that love shows up in providing for a child's intellectual, physical, spiritual, and social growth, not just their material needs. He works through the biblical case for instructing children in the Lord and walks through the arguments for public school, Christian school, and homeschooling, weighing each against the parent's God given responsibility for a child's education.

The lesson also covers modeling godliness for children who will imitate their parents whether they intend it or not, and it closes with a careful look at discipline. Rich explains what the rod refers to in Proverbs, why discipline must be free from anger, and how correcting a child's behavior becomes an opportunity to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Parents raising children in a Christian home will find a clear, biblical framework for thinking through everyday decisions about love, provision, teaching, and correction.