Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Unity in Diversity, Part 30 of 33

IDEA: The principles that we find in Romans 14 can also apply to bringing up children in a Christian family.

PURPOSE: The application of Scripture to the church may provide helpful direction in bringing up our children for Christ.

Did it ever occur to you that some Christian parents are “weaker” brothers and sisters in their role as parents? They want to bring up their children to be “good Christians” and they sometimes hold their convictions about “gray areas” over their children like a club.

It is easy to lose sight of what are essential Christian values and what are “gray areas,” the peripheral areas of our faith.

We have a way of confusing matters of taste with matters of biblical absolutes. Clothes, hair style, music, or political beliefs become too important.

As children grow older, we want them to cultivate their own relationship with Christ:

We need to take care that we do not cause them to stumble.

We need to grant them more and more freedom and the right to disagree with us in these “gray areas” of their lives.

Children resemble kites on a string. When do we let out more string? When do we tug the kite back against a falling wind?

Either too much string too soon or too little string as the kite catches the wind will cause the kite to fall.