Developing Biblical Behavior - AFBF/Dadcast

Aiming for Biblical Families (AFBF). This is week 5's teaching of an 8-week series taught by my dad. We will only release 7 of the 8 episodes. 

Show notes below. The show Questions are below that.

 

Developing Biblical Behavior

Proverbs 4:23 says "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."
Every Christian must guard their heart from deception and rebellion. But
recently my wife pointed out an important concept. As a parent, it is your job to guard the heart of your children until they learn how to guard it for themselves. For children, actions precede belief. For adults, belief informs their actions. When children are young you need to help them to do right actions, which will inform their worldview. As they get older, they need to understand why those actions are good. A child who obeys Mom is seen as refreshing. A grown man who only does what he is told and doesn’t know why or even care to know why, is a slave. Here are a few concepts (some biblical, some merely
practical) that you can work on with your children.

 

The interrupt rule.

This is a useful tool for children. It helps the child to wait for the adult
conversation to pause so that they can ask a question or bring up a point of interest in the conversation. If your child needs your attention they can come up to you, put their hand on your hand and wait for you to respond. This is helpful because the child knows that they will have your attention as soon as you can give it to them.

Yes Mom, yes Dad.

When you call a child have them answer with “Yes Mom?” not “what?” This
answer builds respect for your leadership as a parent. It centers your family on parental authority, not child centered authority. You will have to work at helping your children get into the habit of responding this way. You can even do this when you don't have any particular instructions. For example, sometimes I would call one of the children, like Hadassah. I would call and she would come running and respond, “Yes Daddy.” And I would just say, “Love you.” There was no instruction, but I would always get, “Love you to Daddy.” There's nothing better.

Respecting elders.

This concept should be trained because it helps the child to focus on others
rather than self. It alerts kids to the value of those who have had more life experience than they have. They will also be more able to receive wisdom from God, their ultimate elder (Lev.19:32).

 

Respecting siblings.

Respecting siblings develops family unity and lifelong friendships. It helps train
selfishness out of each child, and brings peace to the home (Pr.12:10). We trained our children that each sibling would be a life-long friend. And that they should defend and cherish that bond.

Respecting property.

Vandalism is a sign of cultural decay. Destroying your own property is stupid.
Destroying another person's property is criminal. We are to respect and honor other people and their property (Ex.20:15).

Respect for nature (God’s property).

Littering, destroying nature, killing animals for fun are all a perversion of the
original call that was placed upon us in the garden of Eden (Gen.1:28). We are to take God's character and principles into the world and subdue it for Him. If you disrespect nature, you are disrespecting God's property.

Mr. and Mrs.

Like the concept of respecting elders, this delineates who is a grown-up and who is not. Grown-ups are not your children's peers, they have experienced many more years life. A grown-up pays bills, runs a household, goes to work and deals with problems there, deals with problems at home. So they are not on the same level as a child. They are not a peer and they should be treated with respect (Lev.19:32).

Overcoming shyness.

Personalities differ from one another. Some children are more bold, more
outgoing. Those children who are more shy will struggle to speak with adults, or look at them when an adult is talking to them. It's okay to be in the process of working to overcome shyness; however, shyness cannot be used as an excuse for rebellion. Some children refuse to answer an adult or look at them when being spoken to because it is gives them a sense of power. Don't rationalize away shyness, you may actually be masking sin. Eye contact and the handshake.

In our culture eye contact is not disrespectful. It shows that the child is engaged
and listening to your instructions. When you meet a grown-up, the child should not be afraid to look at them while they talk and respond back. As children get older, and someone shakes their hand, they need to look at them, and give them a firm (not limp) handshake.

Life isn’t fair.

Life has setbacks. You have to learn how to grow through difficult times. Help
your children through tough times by training them that life is not fair. Those who demand that life should always be fair will be disappointed all the time. They should become overcomers, not victims.

10 minute warning.

Don’t exasperate your children. This is a useful tool for parents to give children
time to get ready to comply with their instructions. Dinner time can be an example. Tell your children, “Dinner is in 10 minutes.” Then come back in five minuets and say, “Dinner is in five minutes.” This gives them time to finish what they were doing and get ready to comply with your instruction.

The value of labor.

While running a household some chores are to be done for free because it's for
the welfare of the whole family. But other chores can be financially rewarded. You will have to decide which labor should be rewarded with money or an allowance. Being paid for labor will train children to value money. If they are habitually given money for free, without laboring for it, they will expect everyone to give to them freely when they don’t deserve it. This is especially harmful as they reach adulthood. No one respects a leech.

The ultimate goal for all of these behaviors is for the child to eventually have
self-initiative, without having to be prompted by the parent. This will take several years. But when you see self-initiative give them verbal accolades!

 

Questions

For children, actions __________ belief.

For adults, belief ___________ action.

Are any of these concepts new to you?

Which ones do you think will be hard to implement?