WARNING: Long post today! (I’m fired up!)
They are counting on you!
I think God was leading me to today’s post, Genesis 23-24 in a number of ways. The day before yesterday I was having my hair cut and my “stylist” and I were talking about our toxic culture and how parents in our culture don’t seem to protect their children as well as people in some other cultures. My “stylist” is of Cuban ancestry and her family are devout Catholics. She said neither she nor her sister ever went on a date with out a chaperon. When she got out on her own she was shocked to see how girls seemed to quickly jump in the sack with a boy they had just met a few minutes earlier in a bar.
You know, even to this day a number of cultures follow a practice of “arranged marriage” as they did in Abraham’s day and discussed in today’s reading. As I read it, I was reminded of a debate I had with some brothers and sisters in Christ about the wisdom of placing our children in private Christian schools. Many felt that we Christians needed to keep our children in public school so there would continue to be a Christian witness in public schools. Taking the light into the public school darkness if you will.
I found that to be a very noble sentiment, but I must admit I did, and continue to, disagree with it and here’s why. I’m a father of a wonderful little girl. My job as father is to raise that little girl to know the Lord. Yes there is a lot more I am to do in order to raise her as a well adjusted and functional human being but nothing is more important than showing her Christ.
Unfortunately, I have a lot of negative influences fighting against me, the preeminent being our toxic culture. Women are play things in this culture. Our music, movies, TV, games, advertising and magazines blare out a non-stop message of dehumanizing sex and violence. Marriage, parenting, authority, and God are all under attack. God is ordered out of the public square, and the adults, to whom I am to relinquish my daughter every day in public school, are bared from even mentioning the name of God let alone protecting them from these pernicious assaults by our culture.
I’m afraid the reality is that the toxic culture I allow my daughter to be immersed in every day has a significant advantage over me. I just don’t have equal time and opportunity to counter the negative influence our culture is having on her. I need all the help I can get and that is why I choose to send my daughter to a private Christian school.
How can she share Christ when I’m not even sure she has accepted Him herself? Even if she has she is but a babe in our Christian family. How can I send her onto the dark and filthy field of spiritual battle without the proper armor and training? How can I send her out to evangelize in a pagan school when I, a mature Christian, struggle to share Christ in my own work place? Are we asking our children to something we aren’t even doing?
Please don’t get me wrong. I am deeply concerned about the spiritual condition of the lost children in our public schools and I realize that few of us can afford to send our children to public school. My first priority in this, however, is to be a good steward of the precious child God placed in my care. Not all of us may be able to place our children in private schools but if so that means our job is that much tougher and we better have a plan in place to counter-act that corrosive influence.
Okay, let me take a breath.
Whew, I was getting worked up! What does this have to do with today’s reading you might ask. Look at what Abraham is arranging in Genesis chapter 24. He is coming to the end of his days and he wants his son to have a proper wife. Remember, a wife is one who becomes “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”. Abraham is making the individual who will be entrusted with finding Isaac a wife swear that he will not take a wife from among the Canaanites. Why? Back in Genesis 15 God tells Abraham that his descendants will be sojourners in a land not their own for 400 hundred years, at the end of which He will bring them back to the land of Canaan. Now God explains the reason for the 400 year hiatus from Canaan with this statement in Genesis 15:16 “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Did you get that? The Canaanites are wicked but their time of judgment has not yet come. Abraham doesn’t want a wife for his son from these people because they live in a toxic, corrupt culture that does not know God. Is that starting to ring a bell? Abraham further says to find a wife from among his people. Do you see here a father that wants to ensure that his son does not take to himself a corrupt and corroding influence? He wants to give his son the best possible chance to stay true to the one true God. Notice that when Abraham’s servant describes the process that brings him to request Rebekah as Isaac’s bride that the family says, “the Lord has spoken”. They get it. Would the Canaanites? Not on your life buddy!
This is eternal, kingdom stuff here. We have a job as God’s stewards to protect our children. We are to “train up a child in in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it”, proverbs 22:6. The rant above is not really a rant against the public schools but us as fathers. We can not expect pagans to act as anything but pagans. We can and should expect Christian men to live up to their responsibilities as fathers.
Here is the final “touch” God placed on me yesterday that drove me to today’s post.
Yesterday, I received an e-mail from the Tennessee Baptist Convention about Christian Coaching. I went to their site, clicked around a bit and eventually was directed to “Equipping U Anytime”, a blog by Mark Miller, Ministry Strategist for the Executive Board Ministries of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. In his blog he provided a quote and said the following:
“Already Gone! At the annual meeting of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, one of the messengers shared, he had been reading a book by Ken Ham, entitled Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it. I look forward to reading the book but reviewed some reviews and excerpts on the Amazon website.
“We’ve always been trying to prepare our kids for college… but it turns out that only 11 percent of those who have left the Church did so during the college years. Almost 90 percent of them were lost in middle school and high school. By the time they got to college they were already gone! About 40 percent are leaving the Church during elementary and middle school years! Most people assumed that elementary and middle school is a fairly neutral environment where children toe the line and follow in the footsteps of their parents’ spirituality. Not so. I believe that over half of these kids were lost before we got them into high school! Whatever diseases are fueling the epidemic of losing our young people, they are infecting our students much, much earlier than most assumed.”
Posted by Mark Miller at http://www.equippinguanytime.blogspot.com/
Guys, we can not leave the spiritual development of our children to the public schools or even our Sunday schools. The job is ours to do and we can not abdicate nor be delinquent in our charge. Let us be faithful like Abraham and see to the spiritual welfare of our families!
It is my hope to add a “Resources” page to this blog where we can share any number of resources that can help us in our endeavor to be the husbands and fathers God intends us to be. Please let me know if you have any ideas for this page now or in the future.
Thanks brothers! I look forward to your comments!
Your brother and servant in Christ,
Bill
Dying to self, living to serve!
Stephen said: “The school debate is a huge one. I offer one resource that I have not read but only breazed through at the library. The name of the book is “Perspectives on your Child’s Education.” The book seeks to give four different answers to the question of “Where should I send my child to school?” I know two of the authors and have heard some of their arguments for their particular stance. It is a short book and I believe may offer some great insight.”
