What does it mean to be a godly father?

‘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 tells us that it is the responsibility of fathers to bring up their children in the ‘discipline and admonition’ of the Lord. Some fathers leave the whole burden of this to their wives, but this is not according to Scripture. We have read the words ‘ye fathers’, so the challenge is: be a father and take responsibility for bringing up your children. There are two elements to this. Firstly, discipline,[1] which means to recognise a child’s wrongdoing and stop it. There are cases where fathers see their children doing something wrong and do nothing about it (an example of which we have in 1 Kings 1:6). Of course, different children have different personalities and we need to adjust our methods to take account of this, using the wisdom the Lord gives us. Secondly, admonition or exhortation, a completely different matter, which means showing our children the right and good way to act and helping them follow it. We need a balanced approach: some fathers emphasise discipline and forget admonition, while others only admonish and never act. But we also read that these things should be done in ‘the Lord’. He is our help, so we need to be dependent on Him.

But the duty is not one-sided. The apostle adds, "And ye, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (v. 4.) Both parents are to be obeyed, but this admonition is addressed only to the fathers. This may be partly because fathers are more likely to err in the provoking of their children to wrath than mothers; but the principal reason is that the father, as the head of the house, is responsible to God for the bringing up of the children, and he is treated on the ground of this responsibility. This principle, as seen in Eli's case, runs throughout Scripture. It is all the more solemn because under Christianity the children are already holy, as belonging to the house of God; and the obligation is therefore the greater to "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The Israelites were holy by birth - not personally, but as belonging to a nation set apart to God - and therefore the fathers were to instruct the children in the law, their then link with God. So Christian parents are to instruct their children as to what becomes the holy character which attaches to them as members of a Christian family.

But the duty is not one-sided. The apostle adds, "And ye, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (v. 4.) Both parents are to be obeyed, but this admonition is addressed only to the fathers. This may be partly because fathers are more likely to err in the provoking of their children to wrath than mothers; but the principal reason is that the father, as the head of the house, is responsible to God for the bringing up of the children, and he is treated on the ground of this responsibility. This principle, as seen in Eli's case, runs throughout Scripture. It is all the more solemn because under Christianity the children are already holy, as belonging to the house of God; and the obligation is therefore the greater to "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The Israelites were holy by birth — not personally, but as belonging to a nation set apart to God — and therefore the fathers were to instruct the children in the law, their then link with God. So Christian parents are to instruct their children as to what becomes the holy character which attaches to them as members of a Christian family.

But the duty is not one‑sided. The apostle adds, "And ye, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (v. 4.) Both parents are to be obeyed, but this admonition is addressed only to the fathers. This may be partly because fathers are more likely to err in the provoking of their children to wrath than mothers; but the principal reason is that the father, as the head of the house, is responsible to God for the bringing up of the children, and he is treated on the ground of this responsibility. This principle, as seen in Eli's case, runs throughout Scripture. It is all the more solemn because under Christianity the children are already holy, as belonging to the house of God; and the obligation is therefore the greater to "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The Israelites were holy by birth — not personally, but as belonging to a nation set apart to God — and therefore the fathers were to instruct the children in the law, their then link with God. So Christian parents are to instruct their children as to what becomes the holy character which attaches to them as members of a Christian family.

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.).

To the fathers is the admonition (more needed by such than the mothers, perhaps, though in principle no doubt intended for both), "Provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (Ver. 4.) What knowledge of the heart of both old and young! What tender consideration, after the pressure of obedience, lest a too stringent and capricious use of the parental authority might exasperate! The bringing them up, or nourishing, is, on the other hand, to be with the Lord's discipline and admonition. As the Christian knows His ways, as they are in exercise toward himself and others, so is he to train up his children for Him — an all-important principle for the parent's own heart and conscience. Do we desire the Lord alone for them, or the world too?

The exhortation to fathers is also remarkable — that they should not provoke their children; that their hearts should be turned towards them; that they should not repel them, nor destroy that influence which is the strongest guard against the evil of the world. God forms the heart of children around this happy centre: the father should watch over this. But there is more. The christian father (for it is always those within to whom he speaks) ought to recognise the position in which, as we have seen, the children are placed, and to bring them up under the yoke of Christ in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. Christian position is to be the measure and the form of the influences which the father exercises, and of the education which he gives his children. He treats them as brought up for the Lord, and as the Lord wo uld bring them up.

That we are to bring our children up for the Lord, is plainly the teaching of this word, "But bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." To do this rightly, we must ourselves be daily walking, before our children, in the practical exhibition of His character, and counting much on the sympathies and grace of His heart: remembering that He says to us, "Without me ye can do nothing."

"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.

(2,) "But bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The words employed are most significant. More exactly, it is discipline and admonition. Discipline will apply rather to the whole course of training or education; admonition implies constant watchfulness in order to warn against dangers, forgetfulness, or departure from the path into which they are being led. Nor should the exact meaning of "bring them up" pass unnoticed. It is to rear; and hence goes back, in regard to children, to earliest infancy. It is important to notice this, because many parents fall into the mistake of supposing that they must wait for their children's conversion before they seek to carry out this injunction; and hence the sad spectacle is often presented of Christian parents permitting their children all kinds of worldly ways, dress, and amusements, under the plea that they are not yet the Lord's. This is to miss the whole point of the teaching of these scriptures, as well as to forget the special place into which the children of believers are brought. The Spirit of God does not say, Wait and pray for your children's conversion; but He says, Rear them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You are thus to take God at His word, counting upon Him for the blessing contained in the promise, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6)