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Christian Family Principles
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1981
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

Provoking Parents - Part One

Chapter Six

INTRODUCTION: Text * Colossians 3:21

II Timothy 2:15 tells us to "rightly divide the word of truth." In order to do that with God’s family instructions in Colossians 3, verses 20 and 21 must be coupled together. The first of these verses is God’s counsel to children about how to treat their parents; but God’s family counsel doesn’t end with exhortations to children. It continues in the next verse with exhortations to parents, particularly fathers, about how to treat their children. Some parents seize upon these portions of God’s Word that teach how children are to honor, obey and submit to the authority of their parents, but they conveniently skip right over those passages that tell parents how to treat their children and those that lay on the grave responsibilities of parenthood. Having previously examined in depth God’s counsel to children, I shall here focus your attention on God’s counsel to parents, using Colossians 3:21 as a classic passage on the issue. I would like for you to see what it means to provoke and discourage your children, and why God says don’t do it.

You will note that this counsel is directly addressed to "fathers." The father is the God-ordained head of the family unit, and its government is especially committed to him. He is over the wife, and she is to function in subjection to, and in accordance with, his leadership. So, the father is the key to right leadership in the family. And, if he governs the wife properly, then both parents will be treating the children correctly.

I. GOD COMMANDS PARENTS TO NOT PROVOKE THEIR CHILDREN TO ANGER.

A. A.T. Robertson, in his Word Pictures in the New Testament says "provoke" means "to excite" in a bad sense. It is one thing "to provoke unto love and to good works," as Hebrews 10:24 mentions. It is quite another thing to provoke unto "anger." The chief responsibility of parents is to train up their children to know and love God, to be strong in the faith and to overcome the flesh, the world and the devil. If a parent employs right methods in child rearing, he can expect to instill these traits in his children, but if he provokes to anger, the very opposite of these good achievements in his children are very likely to occur. There can arise bitterness, resentment, rebellion and a rejection of Godliness in favor of an affection for the flesh, the world and the devil.

B. Parents, the very fact that God is commanding you about how to treat your children means you are not at liberty to treat them any way you please.

1. As I mentioned in the introduction, many parents have the mistaken concept that they can treat their children any old way they please, and they don’t have to answer to anybody for how they do it. They insist the children have to answer to them, but they in turn answer to no one.

2. Few things are farther from the truth. Romans 14:12 says, "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." Jesus said, "I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement," in Matthew 12:36. Parents, you are going to give account unto God for what you say to your children and for how you treat them. Your children have to account to you, but you have a much more powerful and just authority to whom you must account.

3. No sir! You are not free to do with your children as you please. Just as you have rules and requirements for your children, God has rules and requirements for you about how to handle them. In the first place, they really don’t even belong to you. They belong to God, for Psalm 127:3 says, "Children are an heritage of the Lord." They are not your private property to do with as you see fit. No. They are God’s property, and He has merely placed them in your custody for a little while, giving you the responsibility or charge of raising them up according to the principles He set forth in the Bible. He didn’t give you, as a parent, the liberty to do with the children in your custody as you please; instead He said in Ephesians 6:4 for you to "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

4. As a parent, you need to get the false idea out of your head that your children are yours and that you can do with them as you please. That is not true. You are only at liberty to treat the children God has given you in accordance with the teachings and principles of God’s Word.

C. The relationship between parent and child is not all one way.

1. Many parents seem to think it is. They think they can do anything they please with their children, but that the children can do only what the parent wants. They see it as all child’s responsibility to parent, and no parental responsibility to child.

2. It is true that God made children directly responsible to parents, but He turned right around and told those parents directly how to treat those children. Children are under parents, and parents are under God. The truth is that parents are just as dependent as children.

3. Children do have a responsibility to parents, but parents have just as great, if not greater, responsibility to children. Children have little means of appeal. This is increasingly true the younger they are. If they are being mistreated and abused, what can they do about it? No one is going to listen to their complaints. If they are being taught false things, or if they are being neglected, they lack the maturity to recognize it, or the power to do anything about it. That means that children, especially younger ones, must follow (sometimes blindly) the leadership and teachings of the parents. Parents, their future, and their very life, is literally in your hands. You have amazing power to mold them, make them and shape their entire lives.

Parent, think what a tremendous responsibility to your child this places upon you. You think they should be responsible to you. Think how responsible under God you are to them. You are responsible to be their eyes, their provider, their protector, to shape their lives, to mold their future and to point them in the right direction in life. Much of this is already done before the child is old enough to reason, judge and think maturely for himself. Now, parent, if the child could share in these decisions and shapings, then he’d have to share in the blame for failure, but since so much of this is your doing, and yours alone, as a parent, then you and you alone must share the blame. You talk about respon- sibility, parent, you’ve got it. When God gave you a child, He laid responsibility all over you. In view of where the weight of responsibility really lies, I think you parents need to quit thinking so much about the responsibility of your children to you, and start thinking a lot more about your responsibility to them. You owe them a lot more than they owe you. God said, "The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children," in II Corinthians 12:14.

D. Your very failure to recognize some of the facts I’ve been pointing out already can have the long range effect of provoking your child to anger. When he gets old enough to recognize how you short-changed him in life and have expected him to shoulder his responsibility to you, when you didn’t shoulder yours to him, I guarantee you it will have an angering effect on him toward you and life in general.

E. I’d now like to call your attention to four specific parental actions that will immediately provoke or excite your child to anger.

1. Right at the top of this list I want to mention being unfair or unjust in your dealings with him.

a. Children are people, too. Sometimes we seem to forget that. They have just as much right as anybody else to honesty, respect, fairness, compassion, understanding and truth. There’s no justification for suppressing, deceiving, cheating, prejudging and convicting our children without evidence. It’s no more right to treat them rudely, ignore them, be cruel and selfish with them, than it is to be that way with anyone else. It is strange how we seem to have one set of standards for everyone else and a separate one for our kids. We seem to think God’s commands about justice, truth, respect and such things don’t count when it comes to dealing with our children.

b. Folks, I can’t see where the principles of right are any less binding on you in dealing with your children than with anyone else. I Thessalonians 5:15 says, "See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men." Surely the "all men" would include your own children, too.

c. For example, I know a small girl who would frequently brag to other children in a group, especially older ones, that she was going to kick, hit or in some way molest them. She would also point out that if they retaliated, she planned to run crying to tell her mother, and their’s, that they had jumped on her and hurt her. Then she’d gleefully point out to those kids that they’d get into trouble over it. This little girl pulled that trick off time and again, and it almost always worked just like she predicted. I happened to personally observe one night when a mother came down very hard upon her child, who had really been only protecting herself. Without even finding out the circum- stances, that mother just "lit into" her daughter. I also personally observed for days to follow the boiling anger and resentment this injustice caused in that child.

d. There is a menagerie of ways to be unfair to your children. Parents, familiarize yourself with what they are, and don’t be guilty of them.

2. Another way to provoke your child to anger is to harass him or her with erratic, flighty, unpredictable commands and restrictions.

a. Too many parents have no standard or uniform set of policies. They make sudden judgments and take sudden actions, based on whim or impulse. There’s little, if any, sense of reason or uniformity to their commands and restrictions, yet they lay them down with austerity and severity. The child doesn’t know what the point of it is; he is forced to simply follow the whim of his parent.

b. God is not pleased with that capricious type behavior by parents. He is not the "author of confusion" according to I Corinthians 14:33, but of system and order. Parents, there ought to be some sense and order to your commands and restrictions, and the children ought to be taught what that sense and order is. If you fail in this, your child will lose respect for you and be provoked to anger.

3. A third way to provoke your children to anger is by showing favoritism.

a. This is a problem that is particularly applicable to families where there are two or more children.

b. Though all children in a family may not be, and should not be, treated the same, there should never be any doubt in either child’s mind that you, as a parent, love each of them the same.

c. There is individuality in children, and their needs will vary. You may give one medical care, clothing and rewards of all sorts that you do not give the others. In fact, you should teach your children that you don’t have to do something for all just because you did it for one. If you don’t teach this, you will make them jealous, covetous and resentful. Let there be sense and reason in your selective dealings with your children, however.

d. Let it not indeed be that you put a greater love and affection on one than on anther. Love your children for who they are, not for the looks, talent, ability or personality they possess.

e. Under divine inspiration, Peter said, "of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons," in Acts 10:34. Since we’re to follow God’s example, as in I Peter 2:21, neither should we parents be, either, especially with our children. You should love all your children with a pure, undefiled love.

f. Once you begin to elevate one in your affections over another, you will not only develop pride and arrogance in the one you elevate, but you will provoke anger in the one you low-rate. Favoritism is an ugly thing, and it is particularly common where stepchildren are involved in the same household with natural children.

4. The fourth way to provoke immediate anger in your child is to pick and taunt him when you know he is already angry or hurt.

a. Many parents think this is fun, and some say they do it to get them back in a good mood, but it almost never seems to work.

b. When is a child is taunted with sharp or joking remarks, or is nagged with embarrassing things, you can often see him get madder and madder. Sometimes parents will even punch, tickle or hold a child down when he is like this.

F. Parents, God knew what He was talking about when He said, "Provoke not your children to anger."

1. Most often the consequences are far longer lasting than you might expect. Patterns established in youth often linger for life.

2. If it is the duty of a child to obey the parent, then it is the duty of the parent to exhibit such a character and to maintain such a government that is proper for the child to obey, to command nothing that is unreasonable or improper, but to train up that child in the ways of virtue and pure religion.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"