We Shelter, Yet We Teach

Last night I was reading Thoughts for Young Men by J.C. Ryle to my son, who is 6. He's too young to grasp all of the nuances of the warnings that Mr. Ryle gives, but he understands enough for it to reinforce what we've been teaching him already about issues such as pride. I have to admit that I was wondering if he was enjoying Mr. Ryle's emphatic warnings about the natural tendencies of young men, but when I finished a section on the dangers of pride, he very enthusiastically asked me to read more. So I obliged and we went to the next section on the dangers of youthful passions.

Everything was fine, until we got to a section where Mr. Ryle transitioned to the discussion that a certain kind of passion was especially dangerous to young men, that being sexual immorality and lust. Now, I know that he was talking about the types of passions that lead young (and old) men into the throes of sexual sin, but my son had no clue of the depths and ugliness that sexual immorality brings. When we finished, I felt that my son needed a little explanation, since the words "sexual immorality" had occurred so frequently in the reading. I told my son that, for him, sexual immorality means not protecting a girl.

This may seem like a strange way to describe it, but it fits. We have been teaching him for some time that boys are to protect girls, and one sinful aspect of sexual immorality lies in the offending man's taking advantage of the women with whom he is transgressing (whether it be a mental or physical act of sexual immorality). The offending man has moved away from the righteous principle of protecting women and children and landed fully on selfishness and rebellion. That principle is quite understandable to my young son, and he really doesn't need to know (nor does he really care right now) about the gory details.

So, by defining sexual immorality principally to my son, he is able to process the words that he finds in books like Thoughts for Young Men as well as the Bible in a manner that is consistent with the details that he does know. We as parents are training him on the realities of the world, but we are doing so in a manner that works in cooperation with the moral framework that has been built up to this point in his upbringing. We are indeed sheltering him from the full force of the sin in question, but we are not sheltering him from it altogether. As he grows in moral maturity, so also will the force with which he is trained.

So, yes, we shelter. Yet we teach also. And in all things, we choose not to defile.