Well, one reason parenting is such daunting work is because of the balance required of us parents. We don't want to be too strict or too lenient, not too consequence-driven, and not so gracious as to overlook rebellion. Into this balancing act comes a question from a young mom who wants to be kind and who expects to be obeyed.

Her name is Emily. "Hello, Pastor John. I thank you for your ministry. It has helped me delight in God immensely. Recently, I have been stomped on how to blend two seemingly contradictory facets of biblical character into the parenting of my two small children. Number one, me displaying Christ-like humility and gracious servanthood, a la Philippians 2, verses 1 to 11.

And number two, me requiring honor, respect, and obedience from my kids, a la Ephesians 6, 1 to 3. Could you help flesh out for me what essentially discipline looks like with both of these aspects? How to discipline children in humility while maintaining my position of respect and authority? I feel stuck bouncing between being too strong with the "Obey Me" card and then trying to balance myself by being gracious and perhaps requiring too little obedience and respect.

I'm so confused. Can you help Mama out?" I hope so, because of all the questions Emily might ask, I think she has asked an absolutely excellent, central question. This question gets at the essence, I think, of gospel parenting. That is, how to raise children that have a humble respect for God-given authority, whether in parents or husbands or teachers or policemen or pastors or civic laws, and also see that God's pattern of leadership is servant leadership.

That leadership is not synonymous with self-exaltation or pride or bragging or power-grabbing, but, as Philippians 2, 3 says, "counts others more significant than itself and pursues the good of others even when it's very costly." In other words, the challenge in parenting is how to parent so that authentic, gospel-shaped young people come into existence.

And before I give any particular counsel about that tension, I should remind us all that no matter how excellently we teach and model gospel leadership, we parents are not the decisive influence in whether our children come to faith and walk in what we have taught. We are a huge influence, but we are not the decisive, final influence, which is why we soak everything we do in prayer and why we do not load ourselves down with the burden of being God, which we simply cannot bear.

Now, back to the specific question, and I'll make it even more paradoxical. How do you model the command to turn the other cheek while disciplining a child for disobedience? How do you model love bears all things and endures all things while requiring compliance to the rules of the family?

How do you model not returning evil for evil while spanking for blatant disregard for your authority? Now, here's some suggestions. Number one, there should always be a steady stream of more or less formal teaching—call it catechism, catechesis, whatever— a steady stream of more or less formal teaching happening in the home in which, in age-appropriate ways, you are trying to explain what the Bible means.

And that includes passages about children obeying parents and respecting parents and being kind and generous with siblings and how parents are called to teach and discipline and not provoke their children for their good and how we're all to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us and return good for evil and bless those who curse us.

And this ongoing steady stream of teaching will include, over time, efforts to help children understand that there are authority structures— parent-child, police civilian, pastor-church member, husband-wife, government citizen— authority structures that God has created that give different shape to how we love each other. In other words, God has given to parents a role for how to love their children that he does not give to children and vice versa.

So parents love their children in ways that children don't love their parents. For example, by teaching them, by setting boundaries for them, by showing them the painful consequences that happen in the real world if you disrespect God-given authority. In other words, alongside the thousands of daily interactions in the family which do teach, I'm saying there should be a steady stream—every day, virtually— a steady stream of teaching that provides an ever-growing grid, a biblical grid, through which a child comes to understand the world increasingly and all the relational dynamics of the home.

So that's my first suggestion, that steady stream of teaching. Here's number two. I think one reason God designed families to ordinarily have two parents instead of just one is that this creates wonderful possibilities of interaction with children that display both vigilance for a parent being respected and the humility of a parent not defending himself.

For example, if a child is very disrespectful to his mother, for example, say you got a 12-year-old or maybe just a 4-year-old or a 15-year-old for that matter, and the father—and he says something very disrespectful to his mother, and the father is in the kitchen, that father steps over, and she isn't saying anything yet, that father steps over, takes this kid by the arm with a grip he knows means something really serious here.

"Dad has a hold of my arm." He looks him right in the eye and says, "You may not talk to your mother that way in this house." Now, the mother, in the meantime, having been stuck up for by her husband, doesn't communicate a self-pitying woundedness, "Oh, poor me." This makes really sick relationships in the home when you do that.

Nor does she communicate a smug sense of the child got what is due. Instead, what she's communicating is a demeanor of love that communicates, "Son, daughter, I want what's best for you, but daddy's right." Now, there are dozens of settings, it seems to me, in which the interplay of mother and father capture both sides of the tension between humble patience on the one hand and severe rebuke on the other hand.

So that's my second suggestion. Now, here's the third one. Many families are single-parent families, and many times during the day, a two-parent family has one parent with the kids, right? For like eight, ten hours a day, mom might be the one who's got to bear the whole burden of the discipline here.

So what are some of the ways to help a child see both humility and servanthood in the Christian life of his parents, as well as strong God-appointed authority to be respected and obeyed? So here are just several bullet points. One, avoid correlating anger with the demand for respect. Insist on it and require it in tones of strength without anger.

Speak of it in times of happiness. Talk about it. Talk about respect and obedience in times of happiness, not just in the times of angry crisis. Number two, let the appropriate apologies that you owe your children be woven into your life. Never think, "Oh, this is going to weaken my authority if I get down low and say I'm sorry for some tone of voice I used this morning." It won't.

It won't weaken if you lovingly are strong when you should be. Number three, constantly model for the child the role of servant in all your relationships that the child is watching, including your relationship with the child. Don't come across just as a boss. So many children feel like, "I'm just a slave here.

All they do is say, 'Do, do, do, do.'" This does not mean picking up his toys when you have told him to pick up his toys. A lot of parents cave on that and think it's humility. That's not humility. That's stupid. But it might mean surprising him by cleaning his room before you ask him to clean it.

Or offering to take him somewhere in the car as a teenager before he asks you. But here's a warning. Children, including those teenagers, maybe especially, children are slow to see this for what it is, this servanthood of mom or dad. They may have to wait 20 years before mom and dad hear back in a letter how brokenheartedly thankful they are for what they gave them and how unthankful they were for so many years.

I lavished my mother with thanks in my mid-20s a hundred times more than I did when I was 14 and 15 and 16. And I'm ashamed of it. I'm ashamed of it. But that's what parents have to reckon with. Kids assume parents are going to serve them, and you can't do much about that if you are a loving, firm, caring, sacrificial parent, except pray that when they turn 25, you're going to get a letter or a phone call that's brokenhearted in their lavish gratitude to you.

Number four, let the dominant tone of the relationship be one of delight in your child. Let him feel cherished and admired and enjoyed, not just corrected and instructed. Otherwise, he'll feel that you're just using him for your private ease, not his good. And number five—I've got two more—number five, don't equate humility with leniency, as if the only way to communicate humility is by not requiring rigorous obedience.

Humility, in fact, may be what is needed to deny yourself the comforts of not dealing with a child's disobedience. And finally, teaching grace and mercy will mean that now and then, when wisdom dictates, you will in fact not punish a punishable offense. Just to give the child a taste of that form of grace, knowing that requiring obedience most of the time is also a form of grace, but you won't neglect discipline so often that it begins to be expected by the child.

So parenting is an art, not a science, and we must be praying constantly for wisdom from above. Like James 3:17, "The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." Yes, the art of gospel parenting, indeed.

Thank you, Pastor John, for your seasoned counsel here and for speaking out of your many decades of being a dad. Well, you can stay current with the Ask Pastor John podcast episodes on your phone or your device by subscribing through your preferred podcast app or by listening through our YouTube channel.

And if you'd like to search our past episodes or listen to our most popular episodes of all time, or if you want to send us a question of your own, you can do those things at our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn Well, back in a 2001 Gallup poll, respondents were asked to attribute the description "emotional" to one of the two sexes.

Was "emotional" truer of men or of women? Of course, 90% said "emotional" was truer of women. Such a survey adds fuel to a very old stereotype, a stereotype that is at least as old as Aristotle, that says the pink brain is more emotional and the blue brain is more rational.

But does this dichotomy hold up in Scripture? That is the question we're going to end the week with on Friday. That should be very interesting, Pastor John. Until then, I'm your host Tony Reiki. We'll see you then.