The good father

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Daddy Tried audiobook now available...

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Warhorn Media is pleased to announce that Tim Bayly's Daddy Tried is now available as an audiobook. If you haven't had a chance to read it for yourself, swing over to Audible.com or Amazon.com, download a copy, and have Tim read it for you.

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We're also pleased to offer a free download of the Chapter 1 audio to Baylyblog readers.

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The good father; Lighthouse Christian Academy and the education of our children...

Yesterday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appeared before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee where she was hounded by Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.).

Rep. Clark trotted out the case of Lighthouse Christian Academy here in Bloomington 1 which states publicly on its website their Christian commitment to honoring God by teaching the sinfulness of "homosexual or bisexual activity or any form of sexual immorality (Romans 1:21-27; I Corinthians 6:9-20)" as well as the practicing of "alternate gender identity or any other identity or behavior that violates God’s ordained distinctions between the two sexes, male and female (Genesis 1:26-27; Deuteronomy 22:5)." 2

Knowing no one was going to defend God or this policy...


The good father: so you don't like LaVar Ball?

Have at it. Everyone's put off by him so go ahead and join the haters. Loud? Proud? Profane?

Yeah.

About to set Nike and Under Armour back a few billion?

Likely.

About to give Magic a run for his money, courtside?

After Tuesday, it's done.

The executives of legacy sport brands are howling about LaVar being the worst thing to happen to sports since Tonya Harding smeared peanut butter in Lance Armstrong's helmet.

Actually, she didn't.

When USC complained about LaVar branding his sons while his oldest son Alonzo was playing ball for UCLA, LaVar faced down UCLA and the NCAA—and more power to him, I say. The execs of the NCAA up in Indy know very well what this means. Finally, they're going to have to pay their "student athletes" a few thousand of the hundreds of millions they and their Ph.D.s have been raking in from...


The good father: the family-centered church movement (2); water flows thicker than blood...

Whether we speak of the "family-integrated" or "family-centered" church, there's a problem. The Church doesn't exist to please mothers. It is not the church's purpose to keep children in the home, safe and happy until they make a home of their own. If this happens and the church has helped it come to pass, that's all good, but the church has larger fish to fry.

The church is to make disciples who obey everything our Lord commanded, and although this work normally flows in the direction of keeping families together, this work will also split families apart.

Let's put a fine point on it...


The good father: the family-centered church movement (1)...

The family-centered church movement can trace some significant part of its beginnings back to my friend Kerry Ptacek at Bethany Collegiate Presbyterian Church outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Kerry and I met when he was working for the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a Philadelphia-based conservative lobbying organization of the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). The Lay Committee published the Presbyterian Layman and several of its employees—including Kerry—attended Bethany Collegiate Presbyterian Church then pastored by my dear friend, Ben Sheldon.

Kerry and I were talking on the phone one day when he told me he didn't allow his wife to attend Bethany Collegiate's women's Bible study. Knowing the godliness of Ben Sheldon and his wife, Amy; knowing also the orthodoxy of Bethany's history and doctrine; I was shocked and asked Kerry why he'd made this decision?

Kerry responded that Scripture commanded wives to ask their husbands at home...


The good father: teaching your children to submit to authority...

Patriarchal homeschooling enclaves are dogged by rebellion against authority. Ask me. Ask your pastor. Ask anyone.

How does it happen that a movement promoting the authority of the father of the household also ends up promoting rebellion against the authorities God has ordained outside the home?

First, the children of patriarchal homeschooling families grow up being taught not to trust...


The good father: older women and younger women...

A friend and I were talking on the phone one day when my friend told me he didn't allow his wife to attend his church's women's Bible study. I knew his pastor was good and his church was good, so I was shocked. "Why not," I asked?

He told me Scripture says wives should ask their husbands at home. He was referring to 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35:

The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.

Knowing he hadn't been a Christian long, I probed to see if there was some harm the women of the church may have done to his wife; some emotional slight or alienation that might explain his decision...


The good father: fight the good fight (3)...

You can't live in this world one sinner married to another without fighting.

Not bickering, but fighting. Bickering doesn't rise above the personal, but a good fight is principled. (Or should be.)

We bicker over who's pulling the blankets off the other. We fight over how (or whether) to stop our Little Empress from manipulating her playmates and younger brothers.

Your dear wife doesn't think the Little Empress is manipulative, nor does she think it's worth the pain to deal with it. Time will pass, the Little Empress will get older, and if it still needs dealing with, we can address it then. But as you let your wife have her way, you say to yourself that you know where your Little Empress got it from.

What's wrong with you! Say "no" to your wife and spank your precious daughter, already.

If you need help to stiffen your resolve, stop and think about how...


The good father: fight the good fight (2)...

Chesterton is right. Marriage is the melding together of two incompatible forces, man and woman. So there's no avoiding quarrels. The point is to keep them lovers' quarrels.

It's been several weeks since I asked the question, "why do Christian pastors and childrearing experts never talk about battles between husbands and wives over the discipline of their children?" One reason I write about fatherhood is that Christian fathers need help having faith for these fights.

So let me gently say you really must fight with your dear wife for the faithful discipline of your children...


The good father: fight the good fight (1)...

Marriage is the melding of two incompatible forces, man and woman. Quarrels are inevitable. The point is to keep them lovers' quarrels.1

One reason I wrote a book on fatherhood is that Christian child rearing experts never bring up the fights between fathers and mothers over their children. Imagine Dave Ramsey getting through even a single radio program on money without dealing with marital conflict. It's inconceivable. Yet pastors preach and child rearing experts write books giving this and that advice to fathers and mothers on how to raise godly children without ever mentioning fights...


The good father: your child has no sexual orientation...

Last time, I wrote of the importance of your child's sex. At the moment of conception, God called your child to live his life obedient and faithful to whom God made him. Whom God made him was either man or woman. God has never given anyone a "sexual orientation." God did not make your son or daughter "gay." Everything else flows from God's decree of male and female assigned at the moment of conception.

If God decreed your child to be male, your son is to spend his life demonstrating his love and submission to the manhood out of which every part of his personhood has its origin. Today, we can't say it often enough: "from the beginning God made them male and female" (Matthew 19:4).

This is the truth placed in the womb of your wife before she had any clue she was...


The good father: it's a boy...

Until recently, fathers and mothers learned their child's sex at birth when the doctor or midwife announced "it's a boy" or "it's a girl!" Some still choose to protect this romance by telling their ultrasound technician and doctor they don't want to find out beforehand. I like that.

Sex is a calling from God and savoring the revelation until the moment of birth seems to protect its weight and glory. But finally, there it is and it is heavy. How heavy you won’t know fully until your child hits puberty, but from the moment of birth your duties as a father flow in the direction of your precious child’s sex. You want your little one to confess the sex God made him. If he’s a little man, you must teach him manhood. And womanhood if she’s a little woman.

What God decreed at the moment of conception is now visible to you and your wife and both of you must carry it forward. This tiny infant has male or female hormones which soon will begin to develop a man's shoulders or a woman's breasts. God assigned your child this calling and the calling can’t be removed by artificial hormones, surgical mutilation, or anyone's preference for this or that gender identity.

Sex is not a choice, but a command. And this command has been given...


The good father: the fearful romance of marriage and children...

At first, just the weight of responsibility of marriage is overwhelming. I remember waking up the second night of our honeymoon, looking at my dear Mary Lee sleeping next to me, and thinking "the rest of my life!"

Other than following Jesus, I'd never before consciously made a decision about the rest of my life. But now I'd said my vows and I would be responsible to care for my bride and the children God chose to bless us with, and there would be no running. No getting out of it unless I was willing to face the wrath of God and suffer shame before everyone who loved us.

So I lay there thinking to myself... 


The good father: work with the grain...

As soon as your first son or daughter is born, you'll be faced with work you don't like and don't really want to do. Diapers aren't real bad at first. A milk-only diet makes a newborn's diapers just a mild nuisance. But once your baby starts solids, dirty diapers get nasty. My brother Nathan always used a World War I gas mask. This isn't Nathan—my granddaughter Bayly standing next to me says it's her uncle Ben with his daughter Clementine. It does look just like Nathan. I'd watch him and wonder why none of his kids died of fright.

Not all the work of fatherhood is bad, though. The past couple of weeks I've been reminded what a joy it is to give hugs and kisses to your children when you...


The good father: childbirth brings a new standard of beauty...

How beautiful and how delightful you are, My love, with all your charms! Your stature is like a palm tree, And your breasts are like its clusters. I said, "I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit stalks." Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, And the fragrance of your breath like apples, And your mouth like the best wine!” It goes down smoothly for my beloved, Flowing gently through the lips of those who fall asleep.

I am my beloved’s, And his desire is for me. (Song of Solomon 7:6-10)

Several years ago we planted a bunch of bare root trees including a couple apple and one peach tree. Four years later none of the trees had produced a single piece of fruit, so we were quite excited this spring when our peach tree set well over a hundred little peaches. When I first saw them they were quite small—maybe the size of the tip of your pinkie. Thinking maybe I should do something to protect the fruit, I went on the internet and read that the little peaches should be thinned, leaving one every six inches or so. So up went the ladder and well over half the peaches were pinched off and fell to the ground. The peach experts told me if I let all the peaches ripen, they would be so heavy they would snap the branches off.

A few weeks later, still during spring, I noticed a friend of mine winced and limped as he walked... 


The good father: money vs. motherhood...

Until late in the afternoon the day my wife gave birth to our first child, Mary Lee and I worked together. We painted houses, cleaned carpet, and were the custodians of a church. Being together twenty-four hours a day was sweet. After Heather was born, though, things changed.

A dear friend of ours had been a grad student in astronomy when she met another grad student in astronomy, and they married. Both Rita and her husband, Jimmy, had serious intellectual firepower. You’ll see the humor, then, of what Jimmy said to Rita when they got home from the hospital with their first child. Laying their little baby boy down in his crib, Jimmy turned to Rita and said, "Rita, this little tike is completely helpless. He can't do anything for himself—we'll have to do everything for him."

Jimmy had completed eighteen or so years of education, yet no one had ever taught him that newborns are helpless and need their mother.

What this meant for Mary Lee and me was... 


The good father: a church with Biblical discipline...

We've been saying that a father does nothing more important for his children than choosing a church. But our culture presses us into the mold of individualism, so Christians have come to think of religion as "just me and Jesus" with the church a sort of religious social club. But get this: across history, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Protestants have all been in agreement that the Church is essential for salvation.

This is typical of what Roman Catholics say. It's from their 1997 Catechism:

All salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body.

Reformed baptists and presbyterians say the same. This is from our most loved doctrinal standard... 


The good father: a church with Biblical sacraments...

Sorry, this one is longer than usual, so please be patient and read the whole way to the end. What we're thinking about here is eternally important.

Right now, when your little family is just getting started and your newborn son or daughter is all a wonder to you, it seems a bit over the top to be talking about how important it is to find a good church. But watch out! Life seems to be passing slowly right now, but it's not. In a day or two, this infant will be leaving your home for college, and then comes marriage and grandchildren. Before you can snap your fingers, your children will be all grown up and the fruit of your fatherhood will be clear.

Last week, we saw that the most important food we provide our family is God's Word. Choosing a church where God's Word is preached faithfully is how we provide them that food. Yes, we read the Bible to our family at home, but home isn't enough. We must have the household of faith, and the most important mark of a Biblical church is faithful preaching. But there are three marks of a true church, so now we move to the second:

  1. A true church has preaching that is faithful to Scripture;
  2. A true church administers the sacraments as Scripture commands;
  3. A true church correctly disciplines her members.

What on earth are sacraments?

Sacraments are physical things God gives us to help us in our weakness...


The good father: a church with Biblical preaching...

As fathers, our job is not done when we provide bread for our wife and newborn son or daughter. The man of the house used to be called the "breadwinner." Men used to take pride in it, but remember that the spiritual bread we provide our family is more important than physical bread. When God brought the sons of Israel into the Promised Land, He warned them:

...man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:3b)


The good father: you are what you eat...

The last thing you think about when your first child is born is your church. Rather, your mind is focussed on the hospital (or midwife) bill, whether you have enough diapers, how long your mother-in-law will stay, which car seat to buy, whether you and your mother-in-law will get along, whether your mother-in-law and your wife will get along, when your baby's conehead will go away... But the church?

Isn't the church like a sound system; if you have to think about it, it's failed? Your wife has just given birth to your first child and the church should stay in the background. Yeah, the first day or so it would be nice if the pastor and his wife visit, hold the baby, read Psalm 139 (except those crazy verses near the end), pray, and leave. Also, it would be nice if the church women helped with food. They can fill your refrigerator with...