- Chapter 12: Marriage Is Meant for Making Children . . . Disciples of Jesus: How Absolute Is the Duty to Procreate?
- Scripture – Ephesians 6:1-4
- Questions
- How absolute is the duty to procreate?
- Notes & Quotes
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which he wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time.” (quoted on p. 136)
- Review: “the main meaning of marriage is to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. In other words, marriage was designed by God, most deeply and most importantly, to be a parable or a drama of the way Christ loves his church and the way he calls the church to love him. This is the most important thing for all husbands and wives to know about the meaning of their marriage.” (p. 137)
- “Marriage is a magnificent thing because it is modeled on something magnificent and points to something magnificent.” (p. 138)
- Having babies is an important, biblical meaning & purpose of marriage, but it is not the primary/ultimate meaning or purpose of marriage.
- This purpose, of having babies, is not merely to add to the number of people on the earth, but to add to the number of disciples of Jesus Christ.
- You don't have to have biological children in order to make children disciples of Christ.
- “God’s purpose in making marriage the place to have children was never merely to fill the earth with people, but to fill the earth with worshippers of the true God.” (p. 139)
- Piper's goals for this chapter:
- 1) “to see that God’s original plan in creation was for men and women to marry and have children.” (p. 139)
- “the meaning of marriage normally includes, by God’s design, giving birth to children and raising them in Christ.” (p. 139)
- “Marriage is the place for making children and filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord the way the waters cover the sea (cf. Hab. 2:14).” (p. 140)
- “from beginning to end, the Bible puts a huge value on having and raising and blessing children.” (p. 140)
- 2) “to see that in the fallen world we live in, not only is marrying not an absolute calling on all people (as we have seen), but neither is producing children in marriage an absolute calling on all couples.” (p. 139)
- “while the meaning of marriage normally includes giving birth to children, this is not absolute.” (p. 140)
- The decision to have children is analogous to that of getting married
- God's people have different gifts and different callings; marriage is not absolute.
- Having kids is normal and good, but not absolute.
- “Marriage is not absolutely for making children. But it is absolutely for making children followers of Jesus.” (p. 141)
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- Spiritual influence on children may be through adoption, foster care, backyard Bible clubs, hospitality to neighborhood kids, nursery, Sunday school, in addition to biological children
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- Seek to bring “children of God” into being
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- “among Christians, mothering and fathering by procreation is natural and good and even glorious when Christ is in it. But it is not absolute. Aiming to bring spiritual children into being is absolute. Marriage is for making children. Yes. But not absolutely. Absolutely marriage is for making children followers of Jesus.” (p. 142)
- 3) To see “what Ephesians 6:1–4 says about how marriage becomes the means for making children disciples of Jesus.” (p. 139)
- Five observations on Ephesians 6:1-4
- 1) The father has the leading (not sole) responsibility in bringing up children. (verse 4)
- 2) The mother & father are called to this together (verse 1)
- 3) Unity of father & mother is important – having the same goal - “the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (verse 4)
- Work out how this unity will play out in your house
- 4) “The most fundamental task of a mother and father is to show God to the children.” (p. 143)
- “Children know their parents before they know God. This is a huge responsibility and should cause every parent to be desperate for God-like transformation.” (p. 143)
- “The chief task of parenting is to know God for who he is in his many attributes—especially as he has revealed himself in the person of Jesus and his cross—and then to live in such a way with our children that we help them see and know this multi-faceted God. And, of course, that will involve directing them always to the infallible portrait of God in the Bible.” (p. 144)
- 5) “God has ordained that both mother and father be involved in raising the children because they are husband and wife before they are mother and father.” (p. 144)
- God's “design is that children grow up watching Christ love the church and watching the church delight in following Christ. His design is that the beauty and strength and wisdom of this covenant relationship be absorbed by the children from the time they are born.” (p. 144)
- “the deepest meaning of marriage—displaying the covenant love between Christ and the church—is underneath this other meaning of marriage—making children disciples of Jesus. It is all woven together. Good marriages make good places for children to grow up and see the glory of Christ’s covenant-keeping love.” (p. 144)
- Chapter 13: Marriage Is Meant for Making Children . . . Disciples of Jesus: The Conquest of Anger in Father and Child
- Scripture – Ephesians 6:1-4
- Notes & Quotes
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “It is from God that parents receive their children, and it is to God that they should lead them.” (quoted on p. 146)
- Review: “What we saw in the previous chapter was that this flesh-and-blood drama of the love between Christ and the church is the God-designed setting for making children—and for making them disciples of Jesus.” (p. 147)
- What is the essence of the Christian “nest” of child-raising?
- “if we are Christians, we say that the very essence of that nest is the flesh-and-blood drama created by a husband and a wife living and showing and teaching the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. That activity is the essence of the nest.” (p. 148)
- What is supposed to happen in this drama of Christ & the church for the sake of the children within it?
- Fathers have the leading (not sole) responsibility in raising children
- This is a natural extension of his leading responsibility in the marriage
- “That is what it means to be a married man: sacrificial, loving headship in relationship to our wives, and firm, tender leadership in relationship to the united task of raising our children in the Lord.” (p. 149)
- “What does Ephesians 6:4 call a father to do?” (p. 149)
- Why does Paul focus on anger in the relationship between fathers and children?
- “Why this one? Why not, don’t discourage them? Or pamper them? Or tempt them to covet or lie or steal? Why not, don’t abuse them? Or neglect them? Or set a bad example for them? Or manipulate them?” (p. 150)
- Piper's guess, based on what he knows from Scripture & life:
- 1) “because anger is the most common emotion of the sinful heart when it confronts authority.” (p. 150)
- “I think Paul is saying that there is going to be plenty of anger with the best of parenting, so make every effort, without compromising your authority or truth or holiness, to avoid provoking anger.” (p. 150)
- 2) because anger “devours almost all other good emotions.” (p. 150)
- “It deadens the soul. It numbs the heart to joy and gratitude and hope and tenderness and compassion and kindness. So Paul knows that if a dad can help a child not be overcome by anger, he may unlock his heart to a dozen other precious emotions that make worship possible and make relationships sweet.” (p. 150)
- Have you ever been angry on the way to church? Or at church? Do you feel like worshiping or singing when you're angry?
- A child's anger is not necessarily the result of the father's provoking
- “The point [of verse 4] is to warn fathers that there is a huge temptation to say things and do things and neglect things that will cause legitimately avoidable anger in our children.” (p. 151)
- How can we (especially fathers) diminish or remove anger in ourselves and our children before it happens?
- “God has never done anything that should legitimately cause anger in any of his children.” (p. 151)
- Yet we get angry with Him at times
- Yet further still, He has taken the initiative to overcome our anger & repair the relationship we have broken
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- “Our Father is not just telling us not to be angry; rather, at great cost to himself, he is overcoming his anger and our anger in the death of Jesus.” (p. 152)
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- “So, fathers, imitate your heavenly Father. Take initiatives, no matter how painful to you or how out of character they may feel, to prevent or diminish the anger of your children.” (p. 152)
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- “don’t just stop doing things that provoke anger; start doing things that prevent and overcome anger. Start doing things that awaken in the heart of a child other wonderful emotions so that they are not devoured by anger—the great emotion eater.”
- “The main task in all this is that you overcome your own anger and replace it with tenderhearted joy. Joy that spills over onto your children.” (p. 152)
- “being the kind of father God calls us to be means being the kind of Christian and the kind of husband God calls us to be.” (p. 152)
- What is the key to overcoming anger and replacing it with joy?
- “Being a Christian means receiving forgiveness freely from God for all our failures and all our anger. It means letting the smile of God in Christ melt the decades of hard, numbing, emotionless, low-grade anger. And then we let that healing flow to others. “Let all . . . anger . . . be put away from you. . . . Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31–32). God for- gave you. God has been kind to you. God is tenderhearted to you. It is all because of Christ. Therefore, in Christ, by the Spirit, fathers, we can do this. We can put away anger, and we can forgive, and we can experience and awaken in our children tenderheartedness with a whole array of precious emotions that may have been eaten up by anger. Those emotions can live again. In you. And in your children.” (p. 153)
- “God does not call us to do this before he does it for us. That’s the gospel. Before he commands us to love the way he does (5:1), he forgives all our failures to love. Get this, fathers! I am not calling you to love your children like this so that you will have a Father in heaven who is for you. It’s the other way around. I am telling you that God, by the sacrifice and obedience of his Son, Jesus, through faith alone, has already become totally for you.” (p. 153)
- “It is a beautiful unity: first, marriage as the display of covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church, and second, marriage as the place where children taste and see and flourish in that very Christ-sustained, covenant-keeping love. The two are one.” (p. 154)
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