Parent Workshop: How to Parent Your Children With the Gospel

What is the Goal of Parenting?

To Glorify God (1 Cor. 10:31)

1 Corinthians 10:31 CSB

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

This is done by faithfully obeying His Word regarding parenting (Deut. 6, Eph. 6:4, Col. 3, Proverbs)

a. This is a great reminder that the goal of parenting is not to save our children. Only God can save our children. This is a great reminder for me as well as I can easily fall into this trap of thinking I can somehow make students grow in their relationship with God. We can only be faithful in how we teach, disciple, and continue to point them to Jesus.

1 Corinthians 3:5–9 CSB

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

There is one main “organ” that the Bible commands parents to address in their children: The “Heart” (66 times in Proverbs)

The outside of a person reveals the inside

God is most interested in the heart

1 Samuel 16:7 CSB

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.”

Outside change without inside transformation is condemned by Jesus.

Matthew 23:25 CSB

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.