What does the Bible say about overbearing or controlling parents?

Following the divine instructions for husband and wife, and the precious revelation of the truth of the relation of the church to Christ, comes the exhortations to children and fathers. Children are to obey their parents in the Lord because it is the right thing to do; parental authority having been ordained of God from the beginning and commanded in the law. Obedience in the Lord supposes that no command from the parents is contrary to the Lord's will, but is rather the expression of His will for the child. We live in a day when honour to parents is not the rule in the world, and such a state emphasises the privilege belonging to the children of Christian households of adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour in showing the honour becoming to parents. Under the law, a promise of well-being and long life accompanied this commandment; how much greater then will be the divine blessing, under grace, for those who obey. Fathers are to be watchful lest they provoke their children to anger. Much harm has been done to children by overbearing fathers enforcing their own wills and not the Lord's, and by rash and harsh judgments. Children require careful and prayerful handling, which casts the parents upon the Lord, that His discipline and admonition, with its wisdom, grace, and kindness might be ministered to them.

(1.) It is somewhat remarkable that the first exhortation is, "But, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." So also in Colossians: "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger." (Col. 3:21.) It is not exactly the same word, though the meaning is not very different. This will be at once understood when it is perceived that this exhortation follows upon the call to children to obey their parents. Fathers are placed in almost absolute authority; and hence the first thing the Spirit of God does in turning to parents is to admonish them as to the manner in which they should exercise their authority. Knowing what the flesh is, even in a Christian, and how apt we are to be tyrannical and despotic in the place in which God has set us, He, in tender consideration for those who are put in the subject position, says, "Provoke not your children to wrath." Parents have almost unlimited control (limited only by the words added to the injunction, "in the Lord") over their children, but they are hereby warned that they must be careful before God as to the method of their government. They must consider the feelings of their children, and while they must never abate one jot or tittle of what is due to the Lord, they must remember their weakness; not lay upon them more than they can bear lest they might be discouraged. A more striking illustration of God's tenderness for children could scarcely be conceived-a tenderness which was exemplified again and again by our blessed Lord while down here upon the earth-than is expressed in this special injunction to parents. And we all know, how apt we are to be capricious or harsh in our rule; and hence our need of this reminder. let every parent therefore remember, that if, on the one hand, God has given him the rule over his family, on the other He has carefully defined the character of its exercise; and that he is as responsible for the latter as for the former.

"Lest they should be discouraged." How easy to discourage children, and especially from the right ways of the Lord. With keen and tender susceptibilities, of quick observation and rapid detection of inconsistencies, harsh government might very soon undo years of patient teaching, and speedily mar the most industrious efforts to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Parents therefore cannot be too careful on this point; and it will aid them to be so if they remember that they derive their own position from divine appointment, and that their children are to be governed and trained for God.

Children are called to yield implicit obedience to their parents. This is their divine role. Parents are to beware of provoking their children to wrath by arbitrary conduct, by exhibiting partiality towards one more than another, and by needless crossing of the will of the child merely to make a display of parental authority. The child should ever see that the parent has his real interest at heart and that true love is the motive spring of every act. But we must insist on the obedience of children, even in this age of independence — an age specially marked by disobedience to parents and by gross disrespect.

This is absolutely essential, and must be firmly insisted upon, from the very outset. The child must be taught to obey, from his earliest moments. He must be trained to submit himself to divinely appointed authority, and that, as the apostle puts it, "in all things." If this be not attended to from the very first, it will be found almost impossible to attend to it afterwards. If the will be allowed to act, it grows, with terrible rapidity, and each day's growth increases the difficulty of bringing it under control. Hence, the parent should begin at once, to establish his authority, on a basis of moral strength and firmness; and, when this is done, he may be as gentle and tender as the most loving heart could desire. We do not believe in sternness, harshness or severity. They are, by no means, necessary, and are generally the accompaniments of bad training and the proofs of bad temper. God has put into the parent's hand the reins of government, and the rod of authority; but it is not needful — if we may so express it — to be continually chucking the reins and brandishing the rod, which are the sure proofs of moral weakness. Whenever you hear a man continually talking about his authority, you may be sure his authority is not properly established. There is a quiet dignity about true moral power which is perfectly unmistakable.

Furthermore, we judge it to be a mistake for a parent to be perpetually crossing a child's will, in matters of no moment. Such a line of action tends to break the child's spirit, whereas the object of all sound training is to break the will. The child should ever be impressed with the idea that the parent seeks only his real good; and that if he has to refuse or prohibit anything, it is not for the purpose of curtailing the child's enjoyment, but simply for the promotion of his true interests.

One grand object of domestic government is to protect each member of the household in the enjoyment of his privileges, and in the proper discharge of his relative duties. Now, inasmuch as it is the divinely appointed duty of a child to obey, the parent is responsible to see this duty discharged, for if it be neglected, some other members of the domestic circle must suffer.

If it be written, and it is written, "Children, obey your parents in all things"; it is also, in beautiful adjusting power, written, "Fathers, provoke not your children, lest they be discouraged." Again, if it be said, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right"; it is also said, "Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." In short, the child must be taught to obey; but the obedient child must be allowed to breathe an atmosphere of tenderness, and to walk up and down in the sunshine of parental affection. This is the spirit of Christian education.

‘And ye fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord’ (Eph. 6:4). God our Father is our perfect example: ‘And if ye invoke as Father him who, without regard of persons, judges according to the work of each, pass your time of sojourn in fear’ (1 Pet. 1:17). Fathers should be characterised by two things. Firstly, they should obtain rather than demand the respect of their families. If we tell our children how they should behave but fail to do this ourselves, we will lose their respect. They will say, ‘You do not practise what you preach.’ But this verse also speaks of invoking or calling on the name of the Father, which is to do with the second aspect of the relationship fathers should have with their children. We should maintain an atmosphere of trust and confidence so that they know they can come to us if they have a problem and talk about it. There are fathers who are very rigid so that their children are almost afraid of them — if they make a mistake they know that they are going to be in big trouble. If this is the atmosphere we maintain, they will never come to us because they will be afraid of our reaction. So, on the one hand there should be respect but on the other there should be trust and confidence.

Ephesians 6:4 also says that we should ‘not provoke’ our children ‘to anger’. There are three things that can contribute to this. Firstly, a selfish attitude. If we constantly demand things from our children by saying, ‘Do this quickly’ or ‘Bring me that now’, we virtually treat them as slaves. Such selfish behaviour can provoke and discourage them, as well as lead them to give up trying to please us. Secondly, an uncontrolled temper. If, after a hard day at work when everything seems to have gone wrong, our little boy does something silly at home and we explode, he does not know what has hit him. Why? Because he senses when he should be punished but in this case he asks himself, ‘What did I do wrong?’ He cannot understand why we reacted in this way. We should be mature enough to control our tempers. Thirdly, unreasonable expectations. We cannot expect a two-year-old to do what is normal for a five-year-old. She may try to do it but without success, which will lead her to become frustrated and provoke her to anger. In 1 John 2:12–28 we find three stages of spiritual growth among the children of God: fathers, young men and little children. John addresses them in different ways according to their maturity and experience so let us be wise and bring up our children according to their age and ability.

Ans.—The law among men has settled upon ages which are supposed to be ages of discretion, and as a rule such laws are just and wise: on the one hand, condemning lawlessness; on the other, tyranny, for there is danger in both. A refined moral sense will go farther than age limits, and demand subjection in the child during the time of dependence on the parent for support. Where the love of Christ prevails in the family, the children will not be anxious to shake off parental oversight and counsel, but will rather seek, cherish and obey it; nor will parents assert authority unduly, but will rather seek to carefully develop conscience in their children and leave them free, as soon as they deem it safe, to find their own path.

Verses 2, 3. "Honour thy father and thy mother," etc. We have in these verses a rare instance of a direct quotation from the Mosaic table, as a sanction for the Christian conscience. It is described here as the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with thee," etc. Now this promise, like all other promises of God, is to the believer Yea and Amen in Christ, to the glory of Him who by grace has blessed us in His Son. For Jesus has deserved all promise, and is become the security of all to us. But, in the practical administration of His government, God acts upon immutable principles; and His way is ever to annex a positive blessing to obedience. Thus even they who characteristically are not under law, but under grace (and, therefore, safe from the ultimate mastery of sin), are not the less subject to the positive ordinances of God. They are under law to Christ. As it respects the force and limitation of the present precept, there is no real difficulty. The relationship in question is temporal, and so also is the promise. What the land was to the Israelite after the flesh, the word of grace now is to the partaker of the heavenly calling. For such, godliness has promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come (1 Tim 4:8). It is well with us, and we consciously enjoy the Father's favour, so long as we are walking as obedient children in His light. A faithful compliance with the written precept will sweeten with the Divine blessing the present term of patience; while the promise, in its fullest import, will, together with all other promises, which make up in their mighty sum the full "recompense of reward," be realized in its perfection only in the day of Jesus Christ.

A Christian is not his own. His children, therefore, as they were given to Him by the Lord, are to be possessed in Him, and brought up in His way. The desire of the natural man is to fit his son to play his part creditably and with advantage in the world. The desire of the saint should be, to educate his child for heaven, and not for earth; not failing, indeed, to teach him that which may qualify him to maintain good works for necessary uses (Titus 3:14, margin.), but labouring to instil into his earliest mind the conviction that he belongs to Christ, and not to the present world. His father's God will be his God, if faith and patience have their perfect work in the single-eyed discharge of parental duties, according to the obedience of Christ (Prov. 22:6). It is plain that the responsibilities of Christian parents are of no light kind. To discharge them effectively, a man should be walking very near to God. There are, indeed, few things that put practical godliness to a severer test than the ordering of a man's house. For it is the will of God that the children of His saints should. learn their first ideas of Christ from such reflection of Him as they see in their own parents words and ways. A father, therefore, who ruled his children by the mere force of natural authority would be no true nursing father in the Lord. He would obstruct, instead of transmitting to the heart and conscience of his child, the rays of that blessed and holy Light which he should be reflecting upon all within his house. if the conduct of a parent does not commend itself to the conscience of his child, he is unfaithful to his trust. Personal inconsistency (so quickly penetrated by a child's discernment), especially when combined, as it sometimes is, with a harsh and repulsive system of religious restraint, forms about the strongest possible provocation to angry fretfulness in a youthful mind Discouragement is the effect of this (Col. 3:21). Thorns and briers seem, to the misguided heart, to be the only fruit of a way which it nevertheless hears daily extolled as a way of pleasantness and peace. On the other hand, a firm and resolute control by a parent of his children's wilfulness is no cause of discouragement. Anger may rage for the moment, while the rebellious will is yet unconquered; but conscience secretly approves. the parent's course. Severity is not unkindness, when its justice is appreciated. No father who wisely loved his child would nurture him in wilfulness. To do so would be to encourage him in sin, and to sow for himself a harvest of future sorrow, by despising the commandments of the Lord (Prov. 29:15). The perfect but holy kindness of God towards His children is to be the pattern of the Christian father's way. A fond connivance at his children's faults, on. the one hand, or an unsympathizing arbitrariness of conduct towards them, on the other, would be almost equally remote from the true nurture and admonition of the Lord. We are priests to God through grace; and His priests should make the law of the sanctuary the rule of their own house (Rev. 1:0; cp. 1 Sam. 2, 3.).

(V. 4). Parents are not to bring up their children on the principle of law which might lead them to say to the child, “If you are not good, God will punish you”; nor are they to bring them up on the principles of the world which have no reference to God. If they are trained simply with worldly motives, to fit them for the world, we must not be surprised if they drift into the world. Moreover, parents are to be careful not to irritate and repel their children, and thus destroy their influence for good by losing their affection. Only will their affections be retained, and the children kept from the world, as they are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They are to be trained as for the Lord, and as the Lord would bring them up.

However, it is not merely in reference to the object set forth in our children's education that we have failed, and so marred the testimony; but also in the matter of keeping them in general subjection to parental authority. On this point, there has been great deficiency amongst Christian parents. The spirit of the present age is that of insubordination. "Disobedient to parents" forms a trait in the apostasy of the last days; and we have specially helped on its development by an entirely false application of the principle of grace, as also by not seeing that there is involved in the parental relationship a principle of power exercised in righteousness, without which our houses must prove to be scenes of lawlessness and wild confusion. It is no grace to pamper an unsanctified will. We mourn over our own lack of a broken will, and yet we are strengthening the will in our children. It is always to my mind a manifest proof of the weakness of parental authority, as well as of ignorance of the way in which the servant of God should rule his house, to hear a parent say to a child, "Will you do so and so?" This question, simple as it seems, tends directly to create or minister to the very thing which you ought to put down, by every means in your power, and that is, the exercise of the child's will. Instead, therefore, of asking the child, "Will you do?" just tell him what he is to do, and let there not be in his mind the idea of calling in question your authority. The parent's will should be supreme with a child, because the parent stands in the place of God. All power belongs to God, and He has invested His servant with power, both as a father and a master. If, therefore, the child or the servant resist this power, it is resistance of God.

{"And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (Eph. 6:4.) There is great danger of provoking our children to wrath by inordinate strictness and arbitrary treatment. We may constantly find ourselves seeking to mould and fashion our children according to our own tastes and peculiarities, rather than to "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." This is a very great mistake, and will surely issue in failure and confusion. We shall gain nothing, in the way of testimony for Christ, by moulding and fashioning nature into the most exquisite shapes. Moreover, it does not require faith to train and cultivate nature; but it does require it to bring up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.