David Mathis is govt editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church . He’s a husband, father of 4, and creator of Staff for Your Pleasure: The Name of Christ on Christian Leaders (2022).
David Mathis is govt editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church . He’s a husband, father of 4, and creator of Staff for Your Pleasure: The Name of Christ on Christian Leaders (2022).
Sluggish to chide, and swift to bless.
With such a memorable tribute to our heavenly Father, pastor and poet Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) ends the second stanza of his hymn “Reward, My Soul, the King of Heaven.” Lyte was born to a derelict father, who despatched him off to boarding faculty, almost deserted him, and signed rare letters “Uncle” as a substitute of “Father.” In time, younger Henry was taken in at holidays by the college’s headmaster as a type of adopted son.
So Lyte knew personally the pains of a negligent father. But he got here to seek out therapeutic in a heavenly Father. “I’ve known as Thee Abba Father,” he writes within the climactic verse of “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken.” After which once more in “Reward, My Soul,”
Fatherlike he tends and spares us;
effectively our feeble body he is aware of.
In his hand he gently bears us,
rescues us from all our foes.
The functionally orphaned poet got here to know deeply the fatherhood of God for having had such an terrible earthly one — and in seeing what he noticed, he teaches us a significant side of all wholesome fatherhood.
One Thousand Versus 4
“Sluggish to chide, and swift to bless” is a becoming tribute to our heavenly Father who revealed himself to Moses, and throughout time, culminating in Christ, as “a God merciful and gracious, sluggish to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, retaining steadfast love for 1000’s, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin . . .” (Exodus 34:6–7). In displaying us his glory, he leads with grace and mercy.
“In displaying us his glory, our heavenly Father leads with grace and mercy.”
Discover, in his swiftness to bless his folks, our heavenly Father isn’t absent of chiding, however sluggish to it: “. . . who will certainly not clear the responsible, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the kids and the kids’s kids, to the third and the fourth technology” (Exodus 34:7). Our God is merciful and gracious, and no pushover. He does certainly chide. When he does, nevertheless, observe the ratio together with his blessing: he chides “to the third and the fourth technology” however blesses with “steadfast love for 1000’s.” And even then, as a result of we’re sinners, his chiding isn’t at odds together with his blessing, however a significant side of it.
Psalm 103 echoes the nice revelation to Moses and provides a connection to fatherhood:
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
sluggish to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He is not going to all the time chide,
nor will he preserve his anger without end. . . .
As a father exhibits compassion to his kids,
so the Lord exhibits compassion to those that worry him. (Psalm 103:8–10, 13)
Although he’ll chide, and although we really feel the sting, his last phrase to his kids is all the time blessing and favor and pleasure:
His anger is however for a second,
and his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping might tarry for the evening,
however pleasure comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:5)
Our Father and We Fathers
What would possibly this exceptional peek into the center of our heavenly Father — sluggish to chide, swift to bless — imply for a way we elevate, self-discipline, and enjoyment of our personal kids?
Such a imaginative and prescient of our Father’s glory not solely runs throughout Scripture from starting to finish but in addition informs human fatherhood. As earthly fathers, we take our cues from the heavenly Father (Ephesians 3:14). In Christ, we too, although usually fashioned and conditioned in reverse methods, need to grow to be more and more “sluggish to chide, and swift to bless.” This sort of posture suits with, and is stuffed out, by Paul’s exceptional one-verse imaginative and prescient of parenting, and fatherhood specifically, in Ephesians 6:4:
Fathers, don’t provoke your kids to anger, however convey them up within the self-discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Clearly what the apostle says right here is related for moms too, and but he addresses fathers particularly — not merely as head of the family, but in addition because the one with the actual accountability for educating the kids in preparation for sending them out into the world.
Given Authority to Bless
Probably the most disciplinarian dads amongst us will do effectively to look at that Paul doesn’t summarize the duty as, “Be certain that to determine and train authority over your kids.” Moderately, he assumes fatherly authority. Given the authority (and energy) that we have already got, as dads, by ordinance of God, he cautions us to train it with care, being conscious to not hurt our kids with our better skills, however as a substitute to assist them.
“Don’t provoke your kids to anger.” For our half, we’re not to provide our kids any simply cause to be offended or discouraged. We must always not sin in opposition to them, however deal with them with full Christian advantage — with as a lot kindness and respect as we deal with fellow adults in our lives, whether or not at work, or at church, or within the neighborhood. That God has given kids to us, and instructed them to obey us, is patently no excuse for sinning in opposition to them. Moderately, it’s all the extra cause to make each effort, with God’s assist, to deal with our kids with the utmost Christian kindness, and respect, and love.
“Our kids must be those we deal with better of all folks, not worst.”
Given their vulnerability as kids, and our calling as their dad and mom, they need to be those we deal with better of all folks, not worst. Our grownup sins have far better repercussions than the missteps of our kids.
Mild, Affected person Lecturers
So, Paul assumes fatherly authority, after which exhorts us to wield it for the profit, not detriment, of our kids. The query isn’t whether or not fathers will provoke or drive their kids; we’ll. With our presence or absence, with our holiness or sin, we inevitably will flip and form our kids in some route. The query is whether or not we’ll drive them to anger or provoke them to like and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24).
What, then, would possibly we keep away from and pray in opposition to in ourselves? Commentator Andrew Lincoln writes that the unfavorable cost in Ephesians 6:4 entails “avoiding attitudes, phrases, and actions which might drive a baby to offended exasperation or resentment and thus guidelines out excessively extreme self-discipline, unreasonably harsh calls for, abuse of authority, arbitrariness, unfairness, fixed nagging and condemnation, subjecting a baby to humiliation, and all types of gross insensitivity to a baby’s wants and sensibilities” (Ephesians, 406). With just a few moments pondering, all of us would possibly make related lists. And, remembering Lyte, we would additionally rule out neglect, which is a superb temptation in occasions of multiplied distractions and screens.
In different phrases, fathers are to have their kids in submission with all dignity, as Paul requires of elders in 1 Timothy 3:4. Everyone knows there are dishonorable, undignified methods to have kids in submission, in addition to honorable ones. “In distinction to the norms of the day,” writes P.T. O’Brien,
Paul needs Christian fathers to be light, affected person educators of their kids, whose chief ‘weapon’ is Christian instruction targeted on loyalty to Christ as Lord. Christian fathers had been to be totally different from these of their surrounding society. (447)
Countercultural parenting within the first century might have meant, particularly, swiftness to bless. Right now it may additionally require the countercultural intentionality and deliberateness that could be a readiness to genuinely chide, whilst we’re sluggish to it, and by no means lower than loving in it.
Velocity Limits of Fatherhood
In cultivating such holy slowness to chide, we dad and mom, and fathers particularly, keep in mind not solely that we’re larger than our children bodily, but in addition that we must be larger folks than our kids — that’s, within the interior man. As adults, and fathers, we’re known as to be the mature ones, the magnanimous ones, the affected person ones. Our bodily measurement and power distinguish us from our kids. So ought to our emotional maturity.
This would possibly lead us to remember, for instance, that voice quantity isn’t a transparent differentiator between adults and youngsters. Elevating our voice is not any particular parental capacity. Nevertheless, endurance must be. And knowledge. Working towards Christian endurance as a father or mother doesn’t imply failing to self-discipline our kids, nevertheless it does assist us to be slower to chide than we could be naturally, and to train knowledge, in partnership with our spouse, in making use of the rod.
As fathers who take our cues from the heavenly Father, we’re inspired, within the phrases of Henry Francis Lyte, to be swift to bless: fast to commend our kids once they obey cheerfully, fast to provide them our consideration, fast to specific reward and love and delight, fast to show them forward of time, realizing that the lion’s share of fatherly self-discipline is pro-active instruction and anticipating their wants and weaknesses. After which we should appropriate and reprove. Certainly we’ll chide. And our kids will likely be all the higher for it once we, like our heavenly Father, have been swift to bless.