deceiving. Perhaps you have seen your upbringing in these
illustrations. You may be one of those who says, “I didn’t turn out so
bad.” Perhaps you never openly rebelled against your folks. Maybe
you are like a friend of mine. She went to college. She got her degree.
She was married and has children. From a distance she doesn’t seem
that messed up, but she knows the internal struggles with self-doubt.
She knows what it is to live with the fear of man. She craves approval.
She was never taught to understand her behavior in terms of attitudes
of heart. She has trouble getting from the problems in her life to
Christ. The Christian life doesn’t make sense to her. While she has
never seen a counselor or appeared to others as being a basket case,
she has been devastated by unbiblical parenting and the idolatrous
interaction of her heart with those unbiblical approaches.
(^) Remember, God is not only concerned with the “what” of
parenting, he is concerned with the “how.” The Bible speaks to the
issues of methodology. What direction does the Bible give us for
dealing with these issues? The next chapter addresses these questions.
Application Questions for Chapter 7
(^) 1. Have you thoroughly thought through what you are doing as
a parent? Have you subjected the things you say and do in your
interaction with your child to biblical critique?
(^) 2. Which of the unbiblical methods above have you seen
yourself use? Can you think of any other common unbiblical
approaches to discipline and correction?
(^) 3. State in your own words wWhat is wrong with these
unbiblical approaches? State it in your own termswords what is wrong
with these unbiblical approaches.
(^) 4. How would you defend this statement: The behavior of our
children is not the problem—the root issue is their hearts.
(^) 5. Could you label this figure and relate it to the central idea of
this chapter?