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Family Shepherds (By the author of Family Driven Faith) E-Book

Voddie Baucham Jr.

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Herausgeber: Crossway
Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
Sprache: Englisch

Beschreibung

God has mandated the transfer of his truth from one generation to the next. Because this transfer takes place primarily in the home, Voddie Baucham Jr. seeks to guide men in faithfully shepherding their families. Derived from Baucham's monthly meetings with men in his church, Family Shepherds calls men to accountability for their God-given responsibilities as husbands and fathers. This book will inspire them to live better, love better, and lead better so that their families will thrive in every way. Baucham's clear style and practical approach will help men protect their marriage, raise kingdom-minded children, value the synergy between church and home, and navigate difficult family dynamics. It will inspire them to carefully evaluate and live out their role in all areas of life. Family Shepherds is a book that every father needs and that every church will want as a resource for training the men in their congregations.

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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

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Leseprobe

“Voddie Baucham has captured the keys to equipping men to be a leader in their homes. This book provides a practical, biblical view to reform a man’s life to reach new heights in leading his home with the future of the kingdom in mind. I highly recommend this book to any man daring enough to step up, press in, and become the shepherd and leader of his home and to help end ‘spiritual fatherlessness’ in this passivity-saturated nation.”

Joe White, Founder, Kanakuk Kamps; author, FaithTraining

“Scripture gives us a clear directive to ‘look well to the ways of our household.’ Unfortunately, for far too many Christian households, that mandate and responsibility gets relegated to anyone or anything but the precious institution known as the family itself. In this powerfully important and timely book, Dr. Baucham challenges the church to reinstate the biblical concept of father-headship of households and to establish and implement the principles of family discipleship. As a wife and mother, I celebrate the clarion call this book offers to those who want to see real revival in the nation by understanding it begins at home.”

Janet Parshall, Host and Executive Producer, In the Market with Janet Parshall

“In seeking to develop gospel-driven family ministry, there’s an unavoidable question that too few resources have clearly answered: How do we develop a church culture that equips and mobilizes men? In Family Shepherds, Voddie Baucham goes beyond surface-level solutions that identify biblical masculinity with everything from watching mixed-martial arts to participating in emotionally-charged stadium events. What Voddie provides instead is a simple and straightforward biblical vision for equipping men to embrace their God-ordained roles as servant-leaders. This vision flows from Voddie’s commitment to articulate biblically what it means for men to shepherd their families well.”

Timothy Paul Jones, Associate Professor of Leadership and Family Ministry Director of the Doctor of Education Program, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Rarely does a church see the husband and father as the key to shepherding his own family. Instead we have developed ministry expertise in the local church that seemingly no longer needs a man to step up and serve as the spiritual leader of his home. There are few mistakes more tragic than this one, and generations have suffered and will suffer if we do not call men to step up and serve as the spiritual leader. Family Shepherds is the primary tool that pastors and church leaders need to bridge that gap and to execute the building of the local church as God intended and has communicated in his Word.”

Brian Doyle, Founder and President, Iron Sharpens Iron

FAMILY SHEPHERDS

Family Shepherds: Calling and Equipping Men to Lead Their Homes

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, www.yates2.com

Cover design: Danny Jones

First printing 2011

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® . Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica. Use of either trademark requires the permission of Biblica.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added.

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-2369-4

PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-2370-0

Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-2371-7

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2372-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Family shepherds : calling and equipping men to lead their homes / Voddie Baucham, Jr.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4335-2369-4 (tp)

1. Christian men—Family relationships. 2. Christian men—Religious life.3. Families—Religious life. I. Title.

BV4528.2.B38 2011

248.8'42—dc23 2011038004

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

LB 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Introduction: Reformation before Revival

PART ONE

THE NEED TO EQUIP FAMILY SHEPHERDS

GAINING A MORE BIBLICAL VIEW OF THE FAMILY

1 The Bible and the Family’s Role in Discipleship

2 A Three-Pronged Approach to Biblical Discipleship

3 One Shepherd’s Journey

PART TWO

FAMILY DISCIPLESHIP AND EVANGELISM

EQUIPPING MEN TO BE PRIESTS AND PROPHETS IN THEIR HOMES

4 Heralding the Gospel at Home

5 Catechism and Christian Education

6 Family Worship

PART THREE

MARRIAGE ENRICHMENT

EQUIPPING MEN TO LOVE THEIR WIVES AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH

7 The Purpose of Marriage

8 The Primacy of Marriage

9 Male Headship in the Home

PART FOUR

THE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE OF CHILDREN

EQUIPPING MEN TO RAISE KINGDOM-MINDED WARRIORS

10 Remembering the Fall

11 Formative Discipline

12 Corrective Discipline

PART FIVE

LIFESTYLE EVALUATION

EQUIPPING MEN TO COUNT THE COST OF FAMILY DISCIPLESHIP

13 Church Membership

14 Our Use of Time

15 Dual Citizenship

A Special Concern: What about Fatherless Families?

Appendix One: Tools, Follow-Up, and Accountability

Appendix Two: Sample Prayer Gram

Notes

INTRODUCTION

REFORMATION BEFORE REVIVAL

Since writing Family Driven Faith several years ago, I’ve had literally hundreds of conversations either in person, on the phone, or via e-mail with pastors, denominational leaders, and fathers of every stripe who echo the same sentiment: we need a revival of family religion!

To which I respond, “Amen”—but also, “Not so fast.”

Before we can have a revival, we need a reformation. Just like Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and others looked at Roman Catholicism and held it up to the light of Scripture in the sixteenth century, we need men today who’ll do the same with our current ideas of manhood and the family.

There’s a generation of men who sense God’s Spirit calling them to something more—but without reformation, they have no idea what that “more” looks like. My goal in this book is to offer what I hope to be helpful, biblical, gospel-centered truths that will prepare us to that end. May God use this to spur on the needed reformation. We must forsake our extrabiblical (and sometimes outright unbiblical) paradigms in favor of biblical ones.

This book is ultimately about the future. The future of your family and mine depends in large part on what we believe and how we behave in light of the truths contained herein. And I assure you, I mean that literally. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of the family in general, and fathers in particular. The family is the cornerstone of society. It has been said that as goes the family, so goes the world. It can also be said that as goes the father, so goes the family.

The role of men in their families is so important that God honored it by conferring upon us his own title, Father. We’re the governors and guides of our families, and the way we lead has far-reaching implications.

Over the past several years, I’ve thought, written, taught, and labored long and hard over the issue of male leadership in the home. I’ve watched families crumble under the weight of paternal neglect. I’ve seen young men wander aimlessly, looking for answers their fathers should have given them in both word and deed. And I’ve grieved with Christian women who’ve grown weary of begging God to make their husbands the spiritual leaders of their homes.

I’ve also seen men wake up to the responsibility and privilege of being their family’s shepherd. I’ve watched households transform quickly as fathers take the helm and begin to lead and disciple their wives and children. I’ve seen marriages healed as husbands begin to take seriously their duty to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Eph. 5:25) and to raise their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).

This is the kind of transformation to which I desire to contribute. I want to help men overcome a legacy of passivity, incompetence, and indifference. I want to help shape the thinking of a generation of fathers who embrace their role with a certain amount of fear and trembling while carrying out their tasks with faith and confidence.

In short, I want to answer the question I’ve received from hundreds, if not thousands, of men: How do I lead my family?

This is merely one beggar’s effort to tell other beggars where he found bread.

THE IMPACT OF PARADIGM

The church I have the privilege of serving—Grace Family Baptist Church in the area just north of Houston—is not a perfect church by any stretch of the imagination. However, it’s a church where men’s lives and families have been transformed in recent years. More importantly, it’s a church where faithfulness to the Word of God has borne much fruit. This fruit has taken the form of conversions in the lives of those who knew they were lost and of some who were church leaders and thought they were saved. The fruit has been borne as well in marriages healed (often without a single counseling session); in families healed; in families embracing the gift of children after having decided to close the womb; and in a host of other God-sized providences.

Let me say more about our church’s paradigm and the ways in which we’ve worked to bring men along in what is to many a radical approach to family and ministry. In our church, the truths contained in this book are lived out in a very unusual way. We don’t have specialized ministries designed to aim targeted discipleship at every age and/or constituency. We don’t have youth ministers, children’s ministers, singles’ ministers, etc. Our focus is on equipping family shepherds and holding them accountable for the work to which God has called them. As a result, we are forced to pay a lot more attention to how we view family discipleship.

Our paradigm will seem foreign to many who read this book. However, I don’t want you to get caught up in the paradigm. This book is not about a paradigm; it’s about the transcendent truths that govern Christian fatherhood. So as I talk about our church, try to remember that regardless of your setting, you can—and must—pursue a gospel-centered, biblically informed approach to your family. Not being in a church like ours is no excuse. Nor is being in a church like ours a guarantee that these things will happen. We must pursue family shepherding, whatever our church environment.

WHAT DRIVES US

Our goal is the gospel. The approach to family shepherding in this book, and the things we do in our church, are not predicated on statistics about church dropouts (though that is important). Nor is it our belief that all the church’s problems stem from a low view of the family (though that issue is significant). What we do, and what I’m writing about here, starts with a belief that the gospel is our only hope. The family is not the gospel; nor is the family as important as the gospel. The family is a delivery mechanism for the gospel.

In Ephesians 5 and 6 the role of fathers loving their wives and discipling their children, the responsibility of wives to submit to their husbands, and the duties of parents to their children are all couched in terms that are unmistakable in their gospel-centeredness. This is all about “Christ and the church” (5:32), as Paul declares. It’s about the gospel. It’s about God’s redemptive work that began in the garden with the marriage of the first Adam to his bride, and will end at the wedding of the last Adam, Jesus Christ, to his bride at the consummation of history. Every family between the first one and the last serves to remind us of the impact of the fall and our need for redemption.

In the meantime, God has called fathers to walk patiently, purposefully, and prayerfully as we lead our families toward all that is ours in Christ. It’s my hope that this book will serve as a tool to help you do just that. In the end, I want you to see Jesus. I want you to see him in a way that drives you to pursue him personally and to keep him before your wife and children in a way that causes them to seek him as well. In short, I want you to shepherd your family in the direction of the Good Shepherd.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BIBLE AND THE FAMILY’S ROLE IN DISCIPLESHIP

Ask any Christian, “Who is responsible for discipling children?” and you’re likely to get the right answer: “Their parents.” However, probe further and you’ll find confusion, conflation, equivocation, and perhaps downright indignation toward any approach to discipleship that’s actually predicated on this unquestioned premise. While we all agree on the clear biblical mandate for parents to disciple their children, we’re unclear as to what that entails. We’re even less clear on the role the church is to play in offering instruction and support in this endeavor.

Part of the problem lies in that we usually begin from the wrong starting point. Virtually all the debate over the discipleship of young people begins with the assumption that church structures and programs such as the nursery, children’s church, Sunday school, and youth group are foundational discipleship tools, and whatever happens must take place within that framework. But what if those things didn’t exist? What if there were no nurseries, or youth groups, or Sunday schools? How, then, would we propose a plan for one generation to “tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done” (Ps. 78:4)?

Fortunately, we don’t have to invent such a scenario from scratch. All we have to do is open the pages of the Bible and begin reading. There we find a world where the aforementioned programs and ministries did not exist; there we find a disciple-making model that looks almost nothing like the institutional structures with which we’ve become so familiar. And there we find family shepherds.

Charles Hodge was president of Princeton Theological Seminary during its heyday in the mid-nineteenth century. Back then, “Princeton Theology” was the gold standard in Reformed circles. Hodge, and consequently Princeton, was on the cutting edge in the battle against both liberalism and mysticism. This theological giant, like many in his day, also had much to say about the family in general and family religion in particular. “The head of the family,” Hodge stated, “should be able to read the Scriptures as well as to lead in the prayer. . . . All persons subject to the watch or care of the Church should be required to maintain in their households this stated worship of God. . . . A man’s responsibility to his children, as well as to God, binds him to make his house a Bethel; if not a Bethel, it will be a dwelling place of evil spirits.” Hodge also recognized the singular importance of the family in the broader scope of God’s redemptive work: “The character of the Church and of the state depends on the character of the family. If religion dies out in the family, it cannot elsewhere be maintained.”1

Unfortunately, such sentiment has been largely lost. Today it’s rare to find such clear, pointed words directed at heads of household concerning their responsibility to shepherd their families. Or, if we do hear them, they’re coming from the realm of psychological self-help rather than emanating from the pens of pastors and theologians.

However, things they are a changin’. Little by little, we’re beginning to hear the clarion call from voices like R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (the largest seminary in the world) and Wayne Grudem, perhaps the best known theologian of our day, as well as John Piper, the pastor’s pastor of the twenty-first century. No longer do we see this issue as one relegated to the limited genre of “family literature”; we’re beginning to see this not only as an item of concern, but as one of the most important theological issues of our day.

SACRED COWS VS. SACRIFICIAL LAMBS

The result of the kind of introspection I’m suggesting will be either (1) the destruction of some sacred cows, or (2) the continued slaughter of sacrificial lambs. The sacred cows are numerous (and I intend to identify them both directly and indirectly in the ensuing chapters). Meanwhile the sacrificial lambs represent the myriad families strewn across the battlefields of their broken homes, having been ravaged by passivity, ignorance, cowardice, and usurpation. They’re homes with fathers who have no earthly idea how to lead them, let alone the slightest inclination to shoulder the responsibility. What’s worse, many of these casualties of war are wearing medals and have trophies on their mantle that read, “For Merely Showing Up”!

The tragedy, of course, is that these same men, had they lived two hundred years ago, would have been reprimanded instead of being rewarded. For example, take the words of the great nineteenth-century English pastor C. H. Spurgeon:

To neglect the instruction of our offspring is worse than brutish. Family religion is necessary for the nation, for the family itself, and for the church of God. . . . Would that parents would awaken to a sense of the importance of this matter. It is a pleasant duty to talk of Jesus to our sons and daughters, and the more so because it has often proved to be an accepted work, for God has saved the children through the parents’ prayers and admonitions. May every house into which this volume shall come honor the Lord and receive his smile.2

Far from calling for more, newer, and better youth ministries, Spurgeon, like his contemporaries and his predecessors, understood the crucial and irreplaceable role of the home—and particularly the role of the father as family shepherd—in the day-to-day work of resisting doctrinal error and advancing the gospel.

And before you question whether such an emphasis on fathers and their ministry at home would devalue the work of the pulpit, let me remind you Spurgeon was known as “the Prince of Preachers.” No one prior to the modern era, wherein family religion is all but lost, would have offered such an objection. This is not a zero-sum game. We do not rely either on the pulpit or on the home. Both institutions are charged to play their role in this matter, and neither is called to do so without the other.

But don’t take Spurgeon’s word for it. Just examine the Scriptures, and you’ll find that in both the Old Testament and the New, there is ample evidence to show that he’s absolutely right.

THE FAMILY’S ROLE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

The Old Testament is replete with clear-cut examples of the role of the family in discipling children. However, this is sometimes a hindrance for those who fail either approach the Scriptures from a more “dispensational” hermeneutic or simply overemphasize the discontinuity between the Old and New Covenants. The result can be a failure to grasp the importance of family discipleship. Nevertheless, an understanding of the Old Testament emphasis on family discipleship is crucial to any real understanding of the concept in the Bible as a whole.

THE DOMINION MANDATE

For God’s Old Testament people, “private prayer, morning and evening, hallowed daily life, and family religion pervaded the home.”3 A number of clear passages in the Old Testament point to a father’s responsibility to disciple his children (e.g., Deut. 6:6–7; Psalm 78; Proverbs 4), and in other places the implications are so strong as to be unavoidable.

For example, consider God’s “dominion mandate” for mankind in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Jim Hamilton’s insights are helpful here: “Adam’s job was to rule and subdue the earth. This seems to mean that his task was to expand the borders of Eden until the whole earth was like Eden, a place where God was present, known, served, worshiped, and uniquely present.”4How can we understand such a mandate apart from a clear call to multigenerational family discipleship?

Of course, Adam failed, and this was followed by God’s covenant promise to raise up a “seed” from the woman that would redeem man and defeat Satan (Gen. 3:15). Redemptive history then traces through Israel’s history—the patriarchs, Egyptian bondage, deliverance, the Promised Land, exile, and restoration to the land—until at last Israel’s national story and her dominion mandate are transformed in the New Testament:

Eventually God sent Jesus, who recapitulated Israel, withstood temptation, conquered the land, overcame death by dying and rising, and has commissioned his followers to make disciples of all nations. When the full number of the Gentiles has been gathered, Israel will be saved (Romans 11:25–27), and Jesus will cover the dry lands with the glory of Yahweh.5

The idea that God’s image and glory would be spread abroad throughout the world manifestly implies that one generation will teach the next. So we see in the dominion mandate the absolute necessity of the practice of family discipleship.

PRESERVING THE LAW AND THE COVENANT

Inherent in the dominion mandate is the teaching of the law of God and the perpetuation of the covenant people.

The clearest expression of God’s design for teaching his law multigenerationally is seen in the book of Deuteronomy. Here Moses, as he stands on the periphery of the Promised Land, delivers a series of sermons wherein he gives the law again. Moses clearly viewed the multigenerational transmittal of biblical truth as a responsibility shared by the home (Deut. 6:1–15). Clearly the Old Testament offers a mandate to teach God’s Law in the context of the home, though it in no way excludes the ministry of God’s priests and prophets.

This teaching was designed to do more than just preserve God’s people in the Promised Land. God’s design was for his people to flourish and grow (Gen. 12:2; 17:4–6; 18:18; 46:3; Deut. 26:5; 32:45–47). We see this not only in the Old Testament portions that set forth the law, but also in the “Writings” or “Wisdom” books as well as the Prophets. The prophet Malachi, for example, declares this about husbands and wives: “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth” (Mal. 2:15).

Perhaps the most passionate and poetic plea for the perpetuation of God’s people is found in these lines from Psalm 78:

I will utter . . . things that we have heard and known,

that our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children,

but tell to the coming generation

the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,

and the wonders that he has done.

He established a testimony in Jacob

and appointed a law in Israel,

which he commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

that the next generation might know them,

the children yet unborn,

and arise and tell them to their children,

so that they should set their hope in God

and not forget the works of God,

but keep his commandments;

and that they should not be like their fathers,

a stubborn and rebellious generation,

a generation whose heart was not steadfast,

whose spirit was not faithful to God. (78:1–8)

Clearly the psalmist understood the importance not only of Israel as a nation, but also individual families within Israel, when it came to maintaining and perpetuating the covenant people.

THE FAMILY’S ROLE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

One of the recent arguments against churches like ours is that our emphasis lies too much in the Old Testament.6 In truth, a closer look reveals that (1) there’s a vibrant family discipleship ministry in the New Testament, (2) the New Testament acknowledges and affirms the same Old Testament passages which we refer to, and (3) there’s nothing in the New Testament to support any approach that would undermine, redefine, or abandon the family discipleship model in the Old Testament

Paul acknowledges Timothy’s home discipleship pedigree (2 Tim. 1:4–5; 3:15), insists that a track record of effective discipleship in the home is an important qualification for ministry in the church (1 Tim. 3:4–5), and calls fathers specifically to raise their children in the faith (Eph. 6:4; see also Col. 3:20–21). Alfred Edersheim recognizes this clear pattern among God’s people in the New Testament era:

Although they were undoubtedly . . . without many of the opportunities which we enjoy, there was one sweet practice of family religion, going beyond the prescribed prayers, which enabled them to teach their children from tenderest years to intertwine the Word of God with their daily devotion and daily life.7

Admittedly, there aren’t many passages in the New Testament devoted to family discipleship. However, one reason for this is that the New Testament writers already assumed the Old Testament in this regard.

The clearest link in the New Testament to the family discipleship pattern of the Old Testament is Ephesians 6:1–4:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Here Paul quotes the fifth commandment (Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5:16), then echoes the teaching of Genesis 18:19; Deuteronomy 6:7; 11:19; Psalm 78:4; and Proverbs 22:6 in establishing a pattern of discipleship in the Christian home. Clearly, Paul did not view the Old Testament teaching on family discipleship to be obsolete.

NO NEW PATTERN

While acknowledging these Old Testament precepts, the New Testament makes no effort to introduce a new pattern. As Robert Plummer notes, the New Testament writers “viewed passages in the Old Testament about the importance of parents passing on spiritual truth to their children as authoritative divine instruction. The ‘newness’ of the new covenant was found in the Messiah’s consummated work of salvation and in the regenerative work in the Spirit—not in any radical alterations in parent-child relationships.”8

While the New Testament does acknowledge the church as a spiritual as opposed to a national people, there’s no indication that this distinction overturns the clear pattern of family relationships, responsibility, and discipleship.

As evidence that such a family emphasis is out of place in the new covenant, some have pointed to these words of our Lord: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). However, this statement must be taken in light of the rest of the New Testament.

For example, Paul teaches that families have obligations to one another that must be met (such as taking care of widowed parents, 1 Tim. 5:1–8). It would be disastrous to force a reading of Luke 14:26 that ignores this 1 Timothy passage and others that emphasize that God is indeed “the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:14–15). In The Journal of Family Ministry, Andrew Stirrup comments on this Ephesians 3 passage, showing that abdication of the family’s central role in the everyday lives of believers is an untenable position:

We must take note of the way that the ESV has corrected a misreading of the text. If God is the father of “the whole family” (as the NIV renders this text), the text might indicate that inclusion in the church means that individual family boundaries are lost in the collective, which is the church. It could be taken to imply that our roles and responsibilities within our own families of origin have been abrogated. It might suggest that not only is there no distinction between Jew and Greek, but also between Stewart and Petrovic, Garcia and Wu, Nguyen and Stephanopoulos. It would imply that the church is our sole family, the context where fatherly, filial, and fraternal responsibilities should be discharged.9

So there must be balance. Our allegiance is indeed to Christ and his bride, the church. However, our obligations as husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters are a crucial part of that allegiance. The church/family dynamic is not an either/or scenario. This is a case where we must do both/and.

From Genesis to Revelation, we see a clear picture of the role of the family in redemptive history, and the role of the father in the family. This is no small matter. The Bible leaves no room for fatherhood that doesn’t take seriously the responsibility of raising children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Whether it’s found in the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, or the Epistles, our calling is clear. We must shepherd our families.

CHAPTER TWO

A THREE-PRONGED APPROACH TO BIBLICAL DISCIPLESHIP

How do you make a Christian disciple? Ask most Christians that question and you’ll probably get responses like, “Take them through a class,” or “Assign them a mentor.” However, few would point to Scripture. Even fewer would point to the New Testament book of Titus. But that’s precisely where we find one of the rarest and purest treasures the Bible has to offer in regard to the process of making disciples.

Before we focus on this process, we must understand the purpose behind it. Discipling our children is not about teaching them to behave in a way that won’t embarrass us. We’re working toward something much more important than that. We’re actually raising our children with a view toward leading them to trust and to follow Christ. Moreover, as members of a local body, we’re striving to do this work in conjunction with other families who are doing the same. The result is a synergistic thrust designed to propel our children (collectively) into the next generation of kingdom service—and all this is done in utter dependence upon God’s grace to do the work. So we must consider the picture Paul paints in Titus from a much broader perspective than that of our own family in isolation; we must view ourselves as part of something vastly greater.

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