Stop the Erosion

A recent blog entry sent me to the Pulpit Magazine article from which this snippet comes:

"Passivity toward known error is not an option for the Christian. Staunch intolerance of error is built into the very fabric of Scripture. And tolerance of known error is anything but a virtue." -- John MacArthur

I often feel that many men in the church today are wandering through life, nearly oblivious to the offices of biblical manhood (prophet, priest, king). It's really hard to watch -- men, by and large, voluntarily giving over 95% of their influence in their children's lives. The duties of biblical manhood require men to be intimately connected to their children. Malachi says it well...

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." -- Malachi 4:5-6 (ESV)

Hearts turned towards each other -- a very good picture! I see too many men who think the discipleship of their children is better done by someone else because they believe they aren't really qualified (or that the "someone else" is more qualified) to do the job. After all, why should a man NOT send his children to someone more expert than himself?

Malachi has the answer. Placing a child in a situation where Dad is not leading the discipleship results in a child whose heart is, at the very best, tempted to move away from Dad. What normally happens when a child is given over to the "experts" is the slow erosion of the parents' influence in the life of the child. Slowly, mom and dad become irrelevant. How can a dad counsel a child when the child thinks Dad's ideas are irrelevant and out of step with what the "experts" are saying (or even worse, what the circle of peers is saying)?

A Dad will lose his child's heart if he sends him off to someone else for discipleship.

Now comes the connection to the John MacArthur quote… If I know that I can't really expect to keep my child's heart by sending him to someone else for discipleship, what must I do? Can I do nothing? NO! I must take action and seek out my child's heart by stepping up to the plate and preforming the biblical duties of manhood.