This month is Aussie Father's Day (we already had ours in this part of the world in June).
Last week at the Men's Bible Study that my husband leads, they just happened to be doing a study on Fatherhood.
At the end of it he asked for feedback on what the guys learnt.
The common response was that they learnt that if they are going to be godly fathers, they need to actually teach their kids.
They commented that culturally fathers (parents) don't teach, kids are just supposed to know how to behave.
They said how culturally a father is just the harsh authoratarian and disciplinarian. They learnt that they can be much more than that, and God wants them to be more than just the one who hands out discipline.
We were once again reminded of the dynamics of honor-shame-orality cultures. Not only is information for life not to be found in written sources, but often the only 'oral' interaction from parents is an order like 'go and tell your mother I want her to come here', or a reprimand 'don't do that you are shaming us'.
Even more so, Africa isn't just 'oral' but 'visual'. Kids are meant to 'watch' what happens in life around them without asking questions, and copy what they see in the hope they will get it 'right' in all the things expected of them. When they don't do their copying 'right' then the reprimand/shaming occurs to let them know that what they did was not acceptable to the one giving the reprimand.
So it was exciting to hear these young men say how they had learnt that being a godly dad was different from being a cultural dad. They didn't have to be aloof and harsh, but they could lovingly teach their kids, so that their kids don't have to go through the uncertainty and confusion and guesswork of just being supposed to 'know' what to do, and not do, in life.
It's always a joy to see lives grow in confidence and peace and knowledge as the truth sets them free to be who God made them to be, not just individually, but relationally in their families too.
Tedd Tripp wrote two books on Parenting - the first called 'Shepherding a Child's Heart' which dealt a great deal with not just giving a child a list of rules to follow but guiding their heart to know how to honour God. The second book 'Instructing a Child's Heart' dealt more with the intentional process of teaching a child and instructing them in the way they need to go. (Deut 6:1-9)
Both are needed - kids need to know the principle of honouring their parents and honouring God, but they also need to benefit from the fact that God has given a whole book of instruction about what pleases Him and what doesn't. We don't have to just guess and hope we get it right and wait for a reprimand as the guide to whether what we did was acceptable to God or not.
I recommend the above books, but if you don't have time to read two books just now, here is a link to a short blogpost article giving 7 points to help parents be godly 'instructors' of our children.
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