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Editors’ note: 

The finished study is titled The Gospel-Centered Parent. It’s just been published and is now available for small groups, but it’s already helped one proud parent.

I don’t like Bible studies about how to be a good parent. I’m not a fan of Christian parenting books, seminars, or Sunday school classes either. I do my best to avoid all of these.

I will admit up front that the main reason I dislike parenting resources is a bad reason. Sure, often the books and such are no good, merely burdening parents with rules and unrealistic results that make them feel scummy. But even when the books are good, I don’t like to be seen reading them. I don’t want anyone else telling me how to raise my kids. And I especially don’t like the suggestion that I might need help. I’m too proud.

I’m repenting of this, but I still need to repent much more fully. I remain a proud parent—in a bad way.

So last year when a publisher asked if I would help write a small group Bible study for parents, I hesitated. First I said I was the wrong guy for that particular project. But then I learned that Serge co-founder and missionary Rose Marie Miller would be the study’s lead writer. Rose Marie is 90-some years old and still the definition of a growing believer. She’s more a long-time, faith-practicing learner than an expert, which gives her a scrappy wisdom that beats the polished methodology I expect from parenting resources. For the chance to work with Rose Marie, I said yes.

The core insights Rose Marie brought to the study taught me much. Although they were truths I largely knew intellectually, they weren’t things I was living daily—or even thinking about. Here’s some of what I learned:

  • It’s not first of all my job to protect and build up my family; it’s God’s work.
  • As the head of my family, I am to be its lead repenter.
  • One reason disciplining my children is hard is that my own sin muddles the process.
  • My heavenly Father has wayward children, whom he still loves, too.
  • A true kingdom adventure is far more satisfying than the sort offered at Disney World.
  • I can’t keep my children from suffering, but I can show them how God walks with us through suffering.
  • Nothing more sweetly restores hope than the reminder that, despite my failures, God still loves me and is on my side.

Each of those thoughts is worth mulling over at length. My happy task (and challenge!) was to dive into the scriptural teaching behind them and think about the struggles parents face, helping to write a study even as I learned the lessons for myself. I found that, in a sense, I’ve been right to resist books about better parenting. I don’t need so much to become a better parent; I need to become a parent who’s a better believer. And I don’t need a list of ways to change my kids; I need for the gospel to change me.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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