It\u2019s the meme-worthy hallmark of fatherhood: lawn care. Don the cargo shorts and New Balance sneakers and strive for the manicured stripes of Augusta. All is well until you peek across your neighbor\u2019s cedar fence. \u201cHis lawn is so much greener!\u201d Perhaps, but the water bill is higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Far too often baptist fathers (and mothers) are looking over the fence at the fruitfulness in the families of our paedobaptist brothers and conclude we need to go all-in on their program. It can seem that Presbyterians have a corner on the parenting market, as though you cannot be a baptist and<\/em> raise your children \u201cin the discipline and instruction of the Lord\u201d (Eph. 6:4). However, a robust, aspirational vision for fathering flows naturally from a reformed baptist theology without the higher water bill of covenantal confusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paedo- and credo-baptist fathers alike can agree on the clear directive in Ephesians 6:4. Paul doesn\u2019t address the question of baptism in the passage. One\u2019s convictions on baptism doesn\u2019t change the charge: all<\/em> fathers ought to bring up their children \u201cin the discipline and instruction of the Lord.\u201d Paul clearly has Christians in view, but Christianity is not merely the religion or faith tradition we have chosen to believe. The revelation of the Triune God in Holy Scripture is true. It is baked into the fibers of all creation. Christ is actually over all. Therefore, it is required of all fathers to instruct their children with what accords to reality. Just as it would be wrong for a father to teach his children that two plus two equals five, so also it is wrong for him to teach and commend any other worldview besides the instruction of the Lord. He is abdicating his God-given role and responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fatherly task of Ephesians 6:4 is two-fold: discipline and instruction. Both operate in the sphere of and in relation to the Lord. My fatherly mandate is not to do as I<\/em> please with my children. It is not ultimately my<\/em> discipline and instruction. As a father, I am not ultimate. I, too, am under authority. We can breeze over Paul\u2019s exhortation to not provoke our children to anger when our focus is first on their discipline and instruction. If we are to provide the discipline and instruction of the Lord, we first need to know our own place. Fathers are first and foremost to operate under and in reference to lordship of Christ. Understanding our authority under Christ\u2019s authority provides the right footing then to bring up our children. My objective\u2014every dad\u2019s objective\u2014is to lead my children, following and imitating me, to relate rightly to the Lord and all of his instruction. That is, I have this wonderful, empowered, authorized commission to teach my children to observe all that Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:18\u201320).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal of every Christian parent is not just to teach your kids Christian things. It is not enough that your kids know the commands of Christ. And this is what Paul is referencing when he says the \u201cdiscipline \u2026 of the Lord.\u201d The word he employs is paideia<\/em>. The foremost scholarly resource on the meaning of Greek words describes this term as \u201cthe act of providing guidance for responsible living.\u201d[1]<\/a> Paideia<\/em> is not merely corrective consequences like corporal punishment; it encapsulates a whole-life vision for what a child ought to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We gain insight into Paul\u2019s meaning by considering the use of the word elsewhere. Paul writes of the all-encompassing profitability of inspired Scripture \u201cfor training (paideia<\/em>) in righteousness\u201d (2 Tim. 3:16). The author of Hebrews briefly exposits Proverbs 3:11-12 to highlight the all-of-life sanctifying work of God that comes about through \u201cthe discipline (paideia<\/em>) of the Lord\u201d (Heb. 12:1\u201317). The Lord ordains various forms of hardship and suffering in our lives, like a good father, to yield righteousness. That penultimate father of Proverbs understood this holistic task, modeled not just in the correction of Proverbs 3 but all facets of life that he trains his son in throughout Proverbs 25\u201329. And the banner flying over the comprehensive vision of wise, faithful living? The paideia <\/em>of Solomon (Prov. 25:1). The Greek translators understood such proverbs to be advancing this every-square-inch lordship of God in the life of a child.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, a n<\/a>umber of authors observe h<\/a>ow t<\/a>his \u201cpaideia<\/em> of the Lord\u201d is drawing on the use of the term in Greek culture.[3]<\/a> Plato defined it as \u201cthe art of living as well as possible.\u201d The Greeks understood paideia <\/em>to be the all-encompassing vision to raise virtuous citizens. Paul employs a word loaded with scriptural weight and Greek culture, background, and philosophy to exhort fathers to bring a true vision of the good life in the shaping and development of their children. We are to bring up our children where they understand the world correctly, know who they are in it, and move forward by faith to conduct themselves accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does that mean you make a practice of family worship (Deut. 6:4\u20139)? Yes. Does that mean you bring painful consequences into your child\u2019s life that he might be trained by them (Heb. 12:5\u201311)? Yes. Does that mean you set the standard in your home that your child is to honor and obey you (Eph.6:1\u20133)? Yes. Does that mean you prioritize the weekly gathering of the local church to join in worship together as a family (Heb. 10:24\u201325)? Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it means much more than that. It means you are laboring to train your child to see and interact with all things under the lordship of Christ. It means you equip them to praise that which is praiseworthy, to esteem what is good, to value what is true, and to delight in what is beautiful. It means you shape them to love virtue and hate vice. It means you say the same thing 10,000 times so your children know in their bones that this is our Father\u2019s world and that all art, music, math, creatures, sex, poetry, cells, sport, science, drink, law, vistas, weather, emotion, food, work, suffering, money, aspirations\u2014that we engage with all of it in relation to the Lord Jesus who is preeminent over all (Col. 1:15\u201318).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Too often, however, reformed baptist couples have a baby and start spinning about what they are supposed to do with this child. They grapple with all the great things the Bible says about children and feel as though they have to abandon their reformed baptist convictions and go sprinkle water on their babies in order to live out this aspirational vision for Christian parenting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But such a reaction is not necessary. There is no incongruity between being reformed baptist and a faithful Christian father. In fact, I think such convictions advance our faithfulness. There was a decisive focus on children in the Old Covenant because of the promise of being a populous nation from whom the Son of the Woman would come (Gen. 3:15, 12:1\u20133). Now that the Son has come, covenant members are not born into the covenant community, they are reborn<\/em> into it (John 1:12\u201313; 3:1\u20138).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Shared Charge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Paideia<\/em> of the Lord<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. See \u201c\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1,\u201d in Walter Bauer et al., eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature<\/em>, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 748.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
2. Cf. Abraham Kuyper, \u201cThere is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human life over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!\u201d in his 1880 speech, \u201cSphere Sovereignty,\u201d at the Free University.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
3. See David Hicks, Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education <\/em>(New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), 107; Kenneth Ortiz, \u201cWhat is Paideia<\/em>? Why Should Christian Care?<\/a>,\u201d Theology for the Rest of Us (January 1, 2023); Jonathon Woodyard, \u201cPaideia<\/em> and Counter-Paideia<\/em><\/a>,\u201d (Bethlehem College and Seminary: November 2, 2022), timestamp 4:34; \u201cWhat is Paideia<\/em>?<\/a>,\u201d (Association of Classical Christian Schools); Joe Rigney, \u201cChristian Parents, Know What You Are Up Against<\/a>,\u201d (World: June 6, 2024); Doug Wilson, The Paideia of God<\/em> (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1999), 11.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
The Focus of Baptistic Fatherhood<\/h2>\n\n\n\n