Developing Humanity: The Work of Parenting

REFLECTION QUOTES

“The future of our country, our future happiness and that of our children, depends decisively on whether we as individuals and as a people practice obedience to the unenforceable.”

~John R. Silber (1926-2012) longtime president of Boston University

“In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation… even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.”

~The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

“The problem does not seem to be that churches are teaching young people badly, but that we are doing an exceedingly good job of teaching youth what we really believe; namely, that Christianity is not a big deal, that God requires little, and the church is a helpful social institution filled with nice people focused primarily on ‘folks like us’…”

~Kenda Creasy Dean of Princeton in her book Almost Christian:
What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

“The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.”

~Brennan Manning (1934-2013), American author

“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up by itself.”

~American comedian Tom Wilson

“Whatever else it embraces, true Christian experience must always include a genuine encounter with God. Without this, religion is but a shadow, a reflection of reality, a cheap copy of the original once enjoyed by someone else of whom we have heard. It cannot but be a major tragedy in the life of any man to live in a church from childhood to old age and know nothing more real than some synthetic god compounded of theology and logic, but having no eyes to see, no ears to hear and no heart to love.”

~A.W. Tozer, The Eternal Continuum

SERMON PASSAGE

Genesis 1:27-28

27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Proverbs 15:32

32 He who neglects discipline despises himself, But he who listens to reproof acquires understanding.

Proverbs 19:18

18 Discipline your son while there is hope, And do not desire his death.

Ephesians 6:4

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Colossians 3:20-21

20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.