Lecture 14: Marriage and Family Counseling

Rueben's been a part of our class for, let's see, the entire semester. And Rueben, just as the class came in, made an announcement today, and we're going to let him make this particular announcement to everybody that's watching by way of DVD as well. So Rueben, come here and make an announcement.

And I want you to keep in mind that this particular announcement is part of the fruit or the benefit of marriage and the family counseling class. I have to say that the one who made the announcement was my roommate. So now I've been forced to come here. But gladly, I would say that I'm proposing tonight to my girlfriend, obviously.

And I would say, yeah, it's kind of a fruit for this class. And also, well, this class has made me think if I was ready to get married. And I realized that I was. So I'm going to make an announcement. And I'm going to make an announcement tonight. And I'm going to make an announcement.

And I'm going to make an announcement tonight. And I'm going to make an announcement tonight. And I'm going to make an announcement tonight. And I'm going to make an announcement tonight. And I'm going to make an announcement tonight. And I'm going to make an announcement tonight. And the funny thing about this particular story is that if you've ever had children, and if you've ever had multiple children, you realize how true this is, how parents go through sort of an evolution.

On their first child, they're a certain way. On their second child, they're a little bit different. On their third child, they're a little bit different. And this kind of explains the evolution in regards to several different topics. Well, the first one is clothing. On the first baby, it said you begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.

On the second baby, you wear your regular clothes as long as possible. On the third baby, your maternity clothes are your regular clothes. And what about the baby's name? You watch couples naming their babies. You pour over baby name books and practice pronouncing and writing combinations of all your favorites.

On the second baby, well, someone has to name their kid after great Aunt Mavis, and it might as well be you. On the third baby, you open the name book, close your eyes, you see where your finger falls. Oh, Bimbaldo, that'll work, perfect. So by the third baby, you don't care.

What about preparing for birth? On the first baby, you practice your breathing religiously. On the second baby, you don't bother practicing because you remember the last time the breathing didn't help a thing at all. On the third baby, you ask for an epidural in your eighth month. What about worries?

On the first baby, at the first sign of distress, a little whimper, a little frown, you run in and you pick up the baby. On the second baby, you pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake the firstborn. On the third baby, you teach your three-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.

What about activities? Well, you take your infant to baby gymnastics, baby swing, baby story hour on the first baby. Second baby, you take your infant to baby gymnastics. Third baby, you take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaners. How about getting out? On the first baby, the first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.

On the second baby, just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached. On the third baby, you leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood. And what about being at home? On the first baby, you spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.

On the second baby, you spend a bit of every day watching to be sure the older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the child. On the third baby, you spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children. That seems to be the evolution of what happens with parents in regards to children.

Well, we want to talk about this, and especially we want to talk about this in relationship to parenting in the 21st century. And we've chosen to start off this way because I believe that children are facing unique experiences today that you and I did not face when we were their age.

In fact, your children will face experiences at a much younger age and make decisions about those experiences that you did not have to face until you were much older. Most Christian young people today experience so much so young, and the habits and responses that they're learning and they're forming in reaction to those experiences end up staying with them for the rest of their lives.

As parents, I think our most critical role is to help our children develop the intellectual capacity to make informed, biblical decisions that really honor the Lord with their lives. This is what Ecclesiastes 12, 1 talks about, where to remember our Creator in the days of our youth. Before the evil days come, and the evil days there is really a reference to growing old when things get really hard and difficult.

Before evil days come, and it becomes more and more difficult to establish godly or biblical habits. What we're saying here is that Christian parenting, really in the 21st century, presents a whole new set of challenges. If you're going to pastor or you're going to counsel couples that have children that are facing a variety of different struggles, you've got to understand the broader context in which they are growing up.

Even though you and I have been 7 years of age, or 11, or 13, or 17, there is a sense in which we have never been the age that our children are or will be. Because you and I have not faced some of the choices that they've had to face.

So how do you counsel parents in an MTV generation with Xbox and iPods and instant messaging in the midst of rapidly changing societal customs, homosexuality, lesbianism, not only accepted but even praised, new designer drugs and specialty alcoholic drinks, and ever-changing cultural morality, that obviously has a huge impact upon the Christian family.

Because even though they may be very devoted and very holy and committed to raising their children in a godly way, it's difficult. They realize it's a difficult challenge. In fact, grab your Bible just for a moment and I want you to go over to 2 Timothy 3. This is not unanticipated in Scripture.

It's always amazing to me when Paul describes the last days. Of course, as a pre-millennialist, I'm very committed to the fact that this is a description of what the last days will be like. Verse 1, "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come." Literally, the Greek here is dangerous times.

Times or seasons or epochs will come. And then he gives a description of why these were going to be difficult. And it says here, "Men will be," first thing on the list, "lovers of self." And by the way, I believe that that little phrase, because of the way the Semitic mind usually puts together groupings of things, actually characterizes everything else in this list.

Men will be lovers of self, and so as a result of that, they'll be lovers of money. They love self, so they'll be boastful. They love self because, and they'll be arrogant. They'll love self, they'll be revilers. They love self, and they'll be disobedient to parents. And because they love self, they'll be ungrateful.

They'll be unholy, they'll be unloving in relationship to others, irreconcilable. Malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal. Haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. And then it says, "Avoid such men as these." So, this is not unanticipated in Scripture.

The fact that we live in a very dangerous day and age. There's a sense in which the challenges, in terms of the specifics, have changed. But children have not, and the way that children respond to things have not changed. And so, as Christian pastors, as Christian counselors, it's imperative that we help people.

That we minister the Word of God to view the Scriptures, not as one of the answers. But as the answer for rearing children in the 21st century. I think that's vital. This is not just one answer among many. This is the authoritative answer, based upon the fact that this is the sufficient, inerrant, authoritative Word of God.

Inspired by God. It is the ultimate answer. Now, in order to deal with this particular issue, let's go back to the Old Testament. And we've got to go to a particular text that I think has caused a lot of problems in misunderstanding. In Christian parenting and rearing children. And we're interested in Proverbs 22, verse 6.

Proverbs 22, verse 6. This verse, probably, is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible when it comes to child rearing. And the way that you understand, or use this verse in counseling, has a huge effect on the way that people will really rear their children. If they're conscientious Christian people who love the Word of God, it will have a huge effect.

And the question is, how do we understand this particular verse? Or, we could ask it like this. What does the verse mean? Does it guarantee that if I bring up my child in the right way, when he or she is older, they will not depart from it? Well, the New American Standard Version translates this.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it. So, when we ask the question, what does this verse mean? This is really a huge question. Does it really guarantee that if I bring up my child and give them the right kind of environment, and the right kind of circumstances, and the right kind of education, that my child will grow up loving the Lord?

That's certainly one way you can take it. Or, in the past probably 10 years, I've also heard a new twist on this verse where this has to do, and this is usually a psychological twist, has to do with personality. You bring up a child and you let him go according to his own personality.

For example, if you have a child that has a great appreciation for aesthetics or music, then you let him go down the route where they become musical. Or, if they have a great ability in the area of athletics, then you let him follow that propensity towards athletics. Does it have to do with the giftedness of a child?

Does it have to do with the personality of a child? That's a good question too. But by far, probably the most common interpretation of this is that if you bring up a child, and in the right way, with the right kind of discipline, the right kind of environment, when they grow up, they will not depart from the right way.

In other words, it would be viewed as a guarantee. And there are a lot of Christian parents who view this verse this way. They think if you're able to shield your child from society and only provide them with the right kind of Christian influences, then they will grow up as good, solid Christians.

And so, the tendency then is to shield the child away from all the negative influences that are out there in the world and just bring them up in a totally, just purely Christian environment. Obviously, you understand the problem with that thinking. The assumption is that all the bad influences are out there.

When in reality, if you really understand what the Bible says about a child, the bad influences really don't begin out there. The bad influences begin in their own heart. It begins with their own propensities, their own passions, their own desires that tend towards evil. And if you just define the environment as being the cause for the way in which the children go wrong, sort of like Skinner, though a child's life is like a tabula rasa, it's just a blank slate, and negative marks on that particular slate cause that child to grow up in a negative fashion.

Well, Skinner would be proud of this kind of Christian parenting because it's all about the environment. It's the environment that causes the child to go wrong. It's the environment that marks that child's life for good or for bad. So, you bring up a child in the good environment, the child will grow up good.

You bring up a child in the bad environment, the child's going to grow up bad. That is traditional approach to child-rearing that is very behavioristic. And you can see this in a lot of Christian organizations across the country that promote a "Christian form of child-rearing." You read a lot of Christian books that are out there that promote a Christian form of child-rearing.

A lot of that is very behavioristic, or if you take a look at exactly what they're saying, it's very Skinnerian. Now, we're not saying that you ignore the behavior of your child. We're not saying that at all. But is it what we are establishing, is it the environment that determines the child's life?

Is that really what determines life? It's interesting that here in the state of California several years ago, they did a series of studies. In fact, they invested millions of dollars into taking career criminals and using this Skinnerian idea, giving them the best education possible, providing them with everything. So the theory is if you put those career criminals in a good environment with a good education, then they will be naturally responsible citizens in society.

And what they found out at the conclusion of their study, to their shock by the way, that they just had at the conclusion, once they graduated and gotten all their degrees and so on, they just now had really smart criminals. But they were still criminals. Their character had never changed.

Their hearts had never changed. They were just more clever about what they were able to do. And that's the thinking here of a lot of Christians. You give your child the right environment, they're going to grow up right. And so a lot of Christian parents are very Skinnerian in their parenting, and they don't even know it.

Well, it's true that if you read the English translation of the verse, you could take it that way. But it can also be properly understood another way. And it seems that the key phrase in this verse is a little phrase that's used in the English. It says, "In the way that he should go." The question is, what does that phrase mean?

In fact, a similar Hebrew phraseology is used over in Proverbs 29 15. So if you want to grab your Bible just for a moment, put a marker here, because we're going to come back to Proverbs 22 6. But let's go over to Proverbs 29 15. And you notice the way the English translators here have chosen to translate this.

It says, "The rod and reproof give instruction, but a child who," and here's our little phrase again, "who gets his own way brings shame to his mother." And in fact, that little phrase is footnoted, and you go to the footnote, and it says, "A child left to himself," and I really like that.

That's probably getting at the core idea of this phrase. "But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother." That's the idea. "A child that's left to himself brings shame to his mother." Well, if that's the case, and you plug that back in, let's go back to Proverbs 22 6, and you were to take this similar phrase and train up a child and leave him to himself, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Now that changes the entire sense of the verse, we could say. "If it is teaching that a child that is parented in such a way that the child is essentially left to himself or allowed to do his or her own thing." You know, I've had parents say that to me before in counseling.

They've said that to me, but their whole philosophy of parenting is, "Well, you know, I'm just letting my kid learn in the school of hard knocks." That's the idea. "I'm just kind of letting that kid just learn by doing it the hard way." That's, in a sense, a laissez-faire approach to counseling.

Or approach to parenting, I should say. They're not getting involved in that child's life. They're not directing them in the right way. This also so changes the concept of the verse that we begin to sense that then it wouldn't be a guarantee. Instead, it would be a warning. It would be a warning.

In fact, if you take a look at the Hebrew, it would go something like this. "Train up a child or really dedicate a child on the mouth of his way," literally is the Hebrew, "on the mouth of his way." "And then when he is old, he will not turn aside from it." And that little phrase, "on the mouth of his way," is an interesting little phrase there because it is an old Hebraism.

Very, very old. It goes way back, ancient Hebrew. That means you let a child grow up according to what he wants to do or he says he will do on the mouth of his way. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. You let him grow up according to his own opinion of himself and his environment and people.

When he is old, he will not depart from it. The word for "train," the Hebrew word "hanach," means to dedicate. And it was actually used to dedicate a house or an image or the temple in the Old Testament. And only here in Proverbs 22, 6 is the only place in the English Bible that we translate this word, "hanach," as "train." But the idea seems to be to dedicate or start.

The concept behind the word means setting aside or narrowing or hedging in. So child training involves a narrowing of a child's conduct away from evil and towards godliness, starting him in the right direction. Or in some cases, it could be starting him in the mouth of his own way in the wrong direction, which is the propensity of his own heart.

And that's the way I tend to see this. On the mouth of his way, according to what he wants to do. For example, this little phrase "upon the mouth of his way" is an old Hebrew idiom that means "according to" or "in accord with." A servant will respond upon the mouth or at the command of his superior, his master, back in ancient times.

So, in this case, it would be the child responding to his own desires. You let a child grow up responding to his own desires, and when he is old, he will not be able to stop responding to his own desires. So, let's identify a principle here, if we can.

We would say then that Proverbs 22.6 is not a promise. It is a warning for parents to be actively involved in their child's rearing. In fact, if we were to take it as a promise, that sort of violates the nature of a Hebrew proverb. A proverb really is a literary device whereby a general truth is brought to bear upon a specific situation.

Many of the proverbs are not intended to be absolute guarantees, like other parts of Scripture would be or other genres of Scripture would be. They are expressed truths that are necessarily conditioned by prevailing circumstances. We can see several examples of that in Proverbs, where Proverbs is stating a general truth.

Generally, this is true. There are exceptions to it, and God usually always gives the exceptions. Sometimes in the graduate program, I'll teach a class on Proverbs in counseling or Ecclesiastes in counseling, and one of the things I like to say is that Proverbs presents all the general rules, and Ecclesiastes all the exceptions to those rules.

Now, if you take this as a promise, what you do is you place upon yourself exceptions or expectations that even the perfect parent would not. By the way, who is the perfect parent? God, right? God's the perfect parent. Well, what does God say about His own parenting? Grab your Bible just for a moment and go over to Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 2.

"Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth, for the Lord speaks. Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against Me." Wow, that's the perfect parent speaking. "Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against Me." Did God ever do anything that was wrong towards His children?

No. So He always responded to them perfectly. There are some parents who want to say, "If I had only been the perfect parent, then my kid wouldn't have turned out this way." No, they would have still turned out that way. Because it was in their heart to be that way.

Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do well by our children. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to do our best and be as good a godly parent as possible. But God is basically saying here, there are no guarantees. We bring them up the best way we know how, and then that kid, he or she, has a choice of whether or not they're going to follow the ways of the Lord, or whether or not they will not follow the ways of the Lord.

So, He always, that is God always, did everything perfectly for His children, and yet His sons revolted against Him. So, challenging the sinful heart of your child is going to be hard work that leaves no absolute guarantees. How many times have I sat across the desk from a Christian parent who really loved their kids and have done the best they possibly could.

They weren't perfect, but they did the best they possibly could for their children. And their children grew up and ended up rejecting their father and mother's value system, rejecting what they stood for, rejecting even their father and mother's God and their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the process, just walked away from things of the Lord, and how much grief that brought to those parents' hearts.

Well, if you're a parent who takes Proverbs 22, 6 as a guarantee, then you begin to question the reliability of the Bible, or the credibility of the Bible. I mean, if the Bible guarantees me that my kids are going to turn out right if I bring them up the right way, then what's happened here?

Well, the problem is that's not what the Bible does. The Bible doesn't do that. The Bible warns us that we need to do our best to parent our children, but there's no guarantees here. It's merely a warning. Secondly, I want you to see that there is a real balance here.

Biblical child-rearing must include a wise, progressive balance between structural and verbal discipline. And this is the text that we took a look at just a few moments ago over in Proverbs 29 and verse 15. He talks about the rod and reproof give wisdom. Both the rod, which is the physical punishment, children need that, and the verbal correction, which is the verbal punishment or verbal rebuke, are to be used in balance in child-rearing.

Parenting requires a wise admonition of both types of discipline during the growth of a child, both rod and reproof. But a child, in contrast to that, who is left to himself or gets his own way, will shame his mother. In other words, this is a child who hasn't had the proper rod and the proper reproof and instruction.

The rod, in a sense, addresses the behavior. The reproof addresses the heart, the internal child. So you're addressing both. And failure to establish and maintain this balance will ultimately result in an unruly and frustrated child. A child who is not disciplined and is left to himself or allowed to do as he pleases and whatever he wants will become an unruly person.

This kind of child will bring disgrace upon his parents. Now, there's a New Testament parallel to this. So grab your Bible just for a moment. Let's go over to Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4. "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger and bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord." You can see this same progressive balance here between structural and verbal discipline.

The word "discipline" here in the New American Standard Bible is the Greek term paideia, which has to do with structural correction. This is equivalent to the rod there in Proverbs 29:15. It's the same thing. And then "instruction" is our word "nuthesia." That's where we get our word "nuthetic" from or "nuthetic counseling." It's a verbal correction by encouragement and reproof and warning and counsel.

God has created every child with a conscience can be responsive to both the corrective training as well as the verbal admonition. That word "nuthesia" can mean admonish, warn, counsel. It can mean any of those ideas, but that's what you want to do with the child, which helps to address that child's heart.

Now, one of the best ways I like to illustrate this, especially in counseling for parents, is by putting out a chart something like this. From the time that a child is a little baby until they're a full-grown adult, probably around 20 years of age-- that doesn't necessarily assume that they're totally mature as an adult, but at least they're 20 years of age-- from that particular time, if we were to take this balance between the structural discipline and the verbal discipline, then it should look something like this.

Because as a child is very young, that child, you can do all the verbal admonition you want. That child's not going to understand what you're saying. What they need is lots and lots of structural discipline. That's what they need. So, but as that child grows older, slowly there's less and less structural parameters, physical correction, and much more verbal correction.

So, and this is where the rebuke comes in. The admonition, the instruction, the verbal correction, to the point where eventually that child has really all the-- you've lost all opportunity to have any kind of physical correction in their life, but certainly you have the opportunity for a lot of verbal input.

All of my children are at that age now. I have no physical correction left in their life. They're all adults, they're all functioning, and two daughters that have graduated from college and are married, and now two sons that are about ready to graduate from college. But the opportunity for continuing admonition, instruction, and verbal correction is still there, and that's real key.

We'll talk about that in a few minutes. So, as a child grows, there's less and less physical discipline and more and more moral or verbal discipline. And as a child grows and learns his or her environment, the child has to grow in their understanding of how their own sinful heart is interacting with that environment, with those challenges, the lusts and the cravings that tend to come up from that heart, and ultimately the difference that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ makes in their life.

It starts in salvation but continues as the child grows in grace. So it's critical for Christian parents to learn how to gradually let up on making all the decisions for the child and instruct him or her on how to make godly decisions on their own. They may fail in their decision making, but the Christian home needs to be the kind of environment where they can be lovingly picked back up and instructed on ultimately what went wrong.

So, as a child is very young, much more rod than there is rebuke. But as the child grows older, much more rebuke and less and less rod. Now, remember this. Every disciplined event becomes an opportunity for the gospel. Why? Because every time a child is disciplined, it's important that you help parents understand this.

Every time a child is disciplined, a Christian parent should be saying to that child, "What is it that God expects of you? What is it that God expects of you?" And the answer always is perfection. God expects that child to be perfect. We see, when a child is very young, that child assumes they can do that.

"I can do that. I can be perfect." But as time goes on and as more and more punishments come, because of their wicked sinful heart, they eventually, at some particular point, throw up their arms when you say, "What is it that God expects of you?" That child throws up his arms and says, "But I can't be perfect!" In frustration.

And then, you understand, the doors are thrown wide open for the gospel. That's why you need Jesus Christ. That's why you need Jesus and His death on the cross. You're right. You can't be perfect. And it's like the lights come on for the kids. It's like, "Whoa!" Because up to this particular point, they think that Jesus is just an additive to their life.

Now they understand that Jesus is not just an additive. It's not just a nice thing that I add to my life. Jesus Christ is my only hope. I can't be perfect. And my mom and my dad have reminded me that that's what God expects. Absolute, 100% perfection. Wow. Now, what we get in society and culture is something like this.

And we get a lot of this today. We have homes that are not growing up in a biblical way, or they're not using this in the right way. And those homes look something like this. This is, in a sense, the laid-back style of parenting that has been popularized by Benjamin Spock.

In American European culture, maybe you don't remember, but certainly I remember and my parents remember. Benjamin Spock, back in the 1950s, 1960s, and '70s, had a huge influence upon American parents. Benjamin Spock, impressionistic child psychologist today, this is their view of what the home should be like. That is, lots and lots of verbal correction, little or no rod or consequences.

In fact, this is what we would call probably the permissive home. This is the permissive home. Parents are afraid to do anything that would wound the psyche of their children, so they rarely punish them. But they're always trying to provide positive reinforcement for good behavior, which is Skinnerian. There's often lots of verbal instruction and admonition that's going on, seldom any worthwhile consequences for sinful behavior.

And more often than not, if you find in your church or your counseling ministry single-parent homes, especially where mom is the custodial parent, it becomes this kind of a home frequently. Not always, but frequently. She believes that children have already suffered enough with the loss of their father, either by divorce or by death, and she can't stand to implement any kind of painful consequences on the children, and frequently these children actually, as they grow up, lose respect for their mother and eventually grow up actually hating her.

So sometimes you get homes that are extremely permissive, really laid-back homes, where there's very little rod, lots and lots of verbal admonition. Or you may get the opposite. You may find yourself in a church with a lot of homes this way. And this is the harsh home, and it has a very flat view of Christian parenting.

For a couple like this, parenting is a set of do's and don'ts. Lots and lots of rod, very little verbal correction. In fact, if the kids ask the parents, "Why should I do that?" Well, the answer comes always, "Because I said so." All right? This type of home routinely produces an angry, exasperated child, like the previous home.

And once this child is outside of the home, he or she are going to throw off all restraint and fully indulge their sinful natures. Mom and dad is usually often very demanding, very dictatorial with the children. Living in a home like this is like living in a military boot camp.

Very difficult. Very little time is given to interaction with the children. The parents are viewed as cops that are lurking around the corner, trying to find every little infraction of the law. And homes like this have parents that sometimes are in very high-demanding jobs or military-type situations, and they produce young girls with anorexia neurosa or bulimia because this is the only area of their life that these girls find out that they can have any control in.

So you can have the permissive home, you can have the dictatorial home, or here's a type of home you can have as well. This particular home will produce a child that brings its mother shame or will be provoked to wrath or anger. This is the dictatorial home. There's another one.

This particular home. And I often ask, "What's going on here in this home?" Well, usually, lots and lots of freedom right up to this particular age, and this is just a hypothetical age, so you can move this line either direction on this timeline of how this child has grown up.

But what has happened here? Well, the parents get saved. Prior to their salvation, everybody-- this is just kind of a loose home. But all of a sudden, they get saved, and these parents begin to think, "I've got to make up for lost time." And so, boy, they throw in the rules and regulations.

And it's not uncommon for children in this type of home to wish their parents were back in their pagan days. Life has become miserable for them. Mom and dad have good intentions, but they are inadvertently teaching their children that Christianity really is a bunch of rules and harsh regulations.

They hate it, and they ultimately will reject their parents' God. This type of home also will eventually produce a child that will bring shame or will be provoked to anger or--there in Ephesians 6:4, some translations have translated that Greek term "exasperation." Pure exasperation. Parogizomai--it's a present active imperative-- has the idea to make anger or to bring one along to a deep-seated anger.

And the preposition here in the compound indicates really an ongoing type of motion. So Paul warns, "Don't bring up your child in such a way that you provoke that child to anger." You can do that if you have a pet like a dog. If you have a dog, and that dog is a generally well-mannered dog, and you take a stick and you keep poking that dog and poking that dog, that dog is going to get angry at you and eventually bite you.

Well, the same thing is true with a child like this. You keep poking the child and poking the child, it brings anger and exasperation out in this child. So this is what we call the new Christian home. So we would say this. Thirdly, then, the use of the rod involves the option of corporal punishment as well as other types of physical restraint and chastisement.

Most older parents understand that the use of corporal punishment gradually has diminishing returns as the child physically grows older. When applied under control, not giving full vent to a person's anger, as Proverbs 29:11 talks about, the rod is effective while children are still young, small, juniors. As a child becomes the parent's physical equal in high school and college, the rod becomes an ineffective punishment.

However, there are things that can equal the rod. Nowadays, you take away a child's cell phone and they think they've died. You take away their Nintendo or their iPod. You think this is a fate worse than death. In fact, God used a variety of methods to chastise his children.

Proverbs' use of the rod can be taken in Hebrew poetry to be a metaphorical reference to other types of punishment as well. It doesn't always have to be literally a rod. A loving parent, Proverbs 13:24, will inflict temporary discomfort on the children by spanking them, sometimes with a rod, or by causing them to be discomforted by something else similar.

Proverbs 19:18, here the verse is an imperative. It says, "Discipline your son." It's a command. It's a strong warning against parental passivity. We have a responsibility to do that. So a child that's guilty of misdeeds has to be punished. That's Proverbs 19:18. To neglect this kind of discipline is going to contribute to the child's death, the Bible says.

Now, we're not sure exactly what that death refers to. Maybe it referred to capital punishment under the law, Deuteronomy 21, verses 18 through 21, or to the danger of some kind of natural consequences that accompany a child's foolish behavior, like a law that says, "I don't want you to go and play in the street.

Otherwise, you're going to get run over." Ultimately, because of this misdeed and behavior, it ends up killing him. Children need discipline. In fact, grab your Bible for a moment. Let's go over to Proverbs 23. A little bit later on there in Proverbs, in verse 13, he says, "Do not hold back discipline from the child.

Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die. You shall strike him with the rod and rescue his soul from Sheol." So the pain here that's caused by spanking can make the parent and the child think the child's going to die. But that's not so. The punishment will actually deliver the child from death, not cause his death.

That punishment will help the child. So it's important to be willing to discipline a child, and that discipline is to be greater and more frequent when that child especially is younger. But then the other side of it has to do with verbal correction. Verbal correction then is just as important as that child especially grows up.

Now, Proverbs really is full of parental pleas for the son to listen to his father's counsel. Clear back in chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, you can see that strong if/then long extended sentences are set up there in Proverbs chapter 2. Simply punishing a child for misbehavior and announcing, now don't do that again, it's poor parenting.

Parents should not be mere behaviorists. Lazy parents won't take the time to address the internal issues of a child's heart. Your goal is to speak to a child's heart. Help that child understand what's going on in their heart. Help them identify the desires that tend to rule his heart and in a sense become his functional gods that he bows down to.

Several years ago, I'll never forget, I have twin boys and the boys were exposed to Nintendo for the first time. I'll never forget that experience and how the boys, they got into a fight with one another and I heard them yell and I went downstairs and I saw one twin with his fingers around the neck of the other one.

So, you want to see depravity in your children, just give them Nintendo. Now, it'd be very easy to say, "All right, now stop that. I don't want to hear either of you two and give them a good whack and go on about your business." But to sit down with each one of those boys and to address their hearts.

What was it in your heart that you wanted so much that you were willing to strangle your brother in order to get it? Or what about the other boy who was being strangled? What is it in your heart that you were willing to do to entice your brother to act in such a violent way towards you?

What is it that you wanted so bad? I wanted to win that game more than anything else. That was more important than my relationship to my brother. That became, at that particular point, your functional God. That became the God that you bowed down to and worshipped. That's the desires that ruled your heart at that point.

Help them identify how those impure desires dictate their attitudes and behaviors. How does that happen? That takes more time. Behavioristic parenting is very easy. That's for lazy parents. But when you're trying to address the internal issues of a child's heart, that takes a lot. A lot of time. So this is going to include rebuke, admonition, encouragement, help, entreaty, persuasion, all of those good biblical words to help a child understand the issues of his or her heart.

Let me see if we can help you to understand this in terms of a chart here. I think this will help you. As that child grows, there's nothing you can do about it. You're going to lose your authority with that child. You can be a big, strong, mean parent, but you're still going to lose your authority.

You can try to turn your home into a military boot camp and control every decision your child makes, and eventually your children are going to go AWOL when they get old. Maintaining tough discipline over the child as they grow older is not going to help. It's not going to help.

Maintaining tough discipline over the child as they grow older will only build resentment. There are a lot of parents who do that. They have almost a military-type home from the time that child is born until that child becomes 20, and then when they turn 20, the parents send them off to probably a Christian school that is known for all its rules and regulations to try to hold on to them and maintain their life again.

None of those children end up growing up or graduating from those schools and then rejecting everything. They never internalize their faith. But really, what should be happening, if you're properly admonishing your child on a verbal level, what should be happening is, as time goes on, your influence grows even though your authority decreases.

If you want your children to respect you in the future and seek you out for advice, then you have to start building into their lives an understanding of their own heart motivations that is critical for godliness. They've got to be convinced from a young age that you have their best long-term values in mind every step of the way.

I like the illustration that Ted Tripp uses in his book "Shepherding the Heart of a Child" when he talks about presidential advisors. He says, "Presidential advisors have no constitutional authority "in the United States Constitution." No constitutional authority at all. Nothing on the books. But they have plenty of influence in the decisions of a president.

Same thing's true with parents of older children. Many of them have no authority at all in those kids' life any longer. Those children are adults now. But they have loads of influence because over the years they've built that in through constant, very patient admonition. Where you take the time to address their soul, their heart.

You teach them how to make wise, godly decisions by taking stock of their own desires of their heart. It's that kind of thing. I know that as a parent with two daughters that are grown and married now, when my daughters and son-in-laws call my wife and I up and they're trying to make a decision and they seek our opinion about that decision, it's a great honor.

What do you think about this, Mommy and Dad? Because they believe we'll give them the wisest decision we could give them from our perspective. But you know what? That doesn't happen automatically. There are some parents who think they expect their children to do that just by sheer fact that they're their parents.

But the children don't respect them. You have to build that into your children over the years. Well, there's a final principle here and then we'll take a break. Harmony in your marriage is really vital to effective parenting. This is really critical to point out in counseling. Harmony in your marriage.

Proverbs, let's go back to Proverbs 17, 1 again. "Better is a dry morsel and quietness with it than a house full of feasting with strife." This whole chapter of Proverbs 17 relates closely to loosely or loosely to strife and peace. And here it starts off about strife and peace in the home.

And we know this. It's very interesting how many children manifesting ADD and ADHD-like symptoms come from homes filled with marital strife. Now, I don't say that. National and international statistics say that. Why? Because children are a barometer of the home and the marriage. Children are a barometer of the home and the marriage.

Yes, a child has its own choice, and a child can grow up and choose an evil, wicked way. But when children are especially young, their attitudes and behaviors reflect what's going on in that home. And there are an awful lot of church families out there that have beautiful houses, but they do not have an attractive Christian home because of strife.

Strife that has just torn them apart. You know, it's better to have just dry morsel with quietness. I used to pastor in a location where all around us were beautiful, beautiful homes. In fact, some of them were so nice, they had big iron fences around them. You had to go up and press a little buzzer at the gate, and then a maid would answer the gate buzzer.

And I counseled a lot of the homes and the couples that lived in those homes, and they had beautiful homes, indoor pools, indoor bowling alleys in these homes, but their homes were full of marital strife, and all of the children reflected it. I remember some of the young teenage children saying to me in counseling, "I would far rather that we lived in a little shack and Mom and Dad were at peace with each other than to have the home that we live in." And I believe those kids really meant that, and they reflected the whole attitude of Proverbs 17:1.

A house that's full of feasting, that you can have anything that you want, anything you want to eat. It's an abundant house. It's a wealthy house, and yet it's a house full of strife. So harmony in the marriage is vital, vital to effective parenting. Oftentimes, you'll find out in your own counseling ministry, the place where you start is not with how the parents are dealing with the children.

In fact, oftentimes, parents will come in, and they'll drag their kids into counseling, and they'll say to you, "Fix my kid." You know, the kid doesn't need fixed. Mom and Dad needs fixed. They don't want to hear that, but that's the real issue. Okay, we want to talk about God's design for blended families next, and this is one of those topics where I wish we had several hours to work with, and we don't.

We only have one hour to deal with this particular issue, but I do want to set some of the basic background framework for this, for counseling this kind of a situation. In fact, I think you're going to find out in your own counseling ministries that dealing with blended family conflicts is going to be one of the most challenging types of counseling that you'll face.

Now, the whole label "blended families" is really a secular label that is somewhat misleading. In fact, the usage of the label by most people and psychologists create, I believe, a lot of ambiguity and typifies the reason why there's so much struggle and difficulty in resolving the problem that it represents.

Two distinct people with their respective children who are properly married do not form a blended family. They form a family. Whether they or their children wish to acknowledge it or not, they are one family in God's eyes, not blended. So I think we have to resist the human tendency to think of them as two distinct families living under one roof who have to put up or cope with one another.

If they're legitimately married, the Bible says, "What God has joined together, they're no longer two, but now they're one." And I realize they may not feel like they're a family, they may not function like they're one family, and they certainly may not consider themselves to be a family. But that does not change the fact that they are.

I spent six years in the military, and when I first got in the military, I didn't function like a soldier, I didn't think like a soldier, but that did not change the fact that I was a soldier. In other words, at the very core of their problems is the way that the members of this family thinks about themselves.

Sometimes I prefer actually calling this, rather than blended family, a step-family with step-parenting and step-partnering problems, because ultimately that's where the real struggle lies. Now, what I would like to do is I'd like to give you a typical scenario that you may face in your ministry when counseling a family like this.

And if this scenario sounds like any particular family you know, it's only by coincidence, because the case study's generally fictitious, but it is built upon my own counseling experiences. Now, according to national statistics on family life in America, the most typical step-family with problems have a divorced father whose biological children live with their biological mother, his ex-wife.

And this divorced father now has remarried a divorced woman with an average of two biological children of her own still living with her. That's your average step-family. Now, the case study that I want to present to you is a slight variation on that theme. And I've specifically and deliberately picked the variations in order to highlight some important features here that I think will be important in your own ministry.

So I want to take a look at a couple by the name of Larry and Judy. Larry and Judy. They are a couple who were previously married and they found each other at church and immediately hit it off. Larry had been divorced for less than two years, but Judy had been widowed for almost eight years.

Everyone at home believed that they were the ideal couple. In fact, a couple of self-appointed matchmakers at their church took credit for putting the two together. And by the way, as a sideline parenthesis, it's always amazing to me how these matchmakers fade into the background when it becomes obvious this new couple is having problems.

Judy has two teenage daughters and a nine-year-old son from their first marriage living with her. Larry has a daughter of 13 years and a son of 10 that lives with his ex-wife. During their courtship, everybody was excited except for Judy's teenage daughters, who stood afar off from the whole thing, and they were very polite, but they were confused and didn't know what to think.

On the one hand, they were both happy that Mom seemed to be so happy, happier than they could remember her for years. And on the other hand, they were not comfortable with the fact that Judy--or that Larry was taking so much of Mom's time and was beginning to act a little like a father figure with them.

He wasn't their father. Their father was in heaven, and he could never take their father or replace their father. Any suggestion of that was really repulsive to them. Judy's son didn't seem to mind Larry's sudden intrusion into their home because he was only one when his father had died, and he always wanted a dad.

Larry's ex-wife had left him for another man, who she was living with and refused to return even after going through church discipline. The divorce seemed to be fresh in the minds of Larry's two children when he introduced them to their future stepmother, Judy. They disliked her from the beginning.

After all, they still hoped Mom and Dad would eventually get back together again, and this new stepmother was a serious threat to that dream. At least their biological mom had not married her boyfriend. Both Larry and Judy noticed the awkwardness and the tension when they first took a picnic with the two sets of children.

Both attributed it to adjustment jitters, which would only be a temporary thing. Once everyone got settled in, everything would work out, they reasoned. Even Larry's ex-wife didn't like the idea of Judy, not because she wanted to come back to Larry, but if Larry married Judy, then the courts would view that as a more stable home and she potentially could lose custody of her daughter and her son.

Well, in spite of all these red flags and the excitement of their romance and believing that would eventually blow over, Larry and Judy decided to marry. With the exception of Judy's youngest son, both sets of children did not want to come to the wedding. In fact, one of Judy's daughters showed up in a black dress to protest the marriage.

By the way, that actually happened in the counseling situation. Judy was angry and hurt, but withheld her comments to try to preserve the happiness of the occasion. She tried to smooth it over with Larry by saying, "You know, teenagers, changes are always hard on them. She'll get over it soon." Regardless of Judy's efforts to smooth it over, Larry did worry.

After a dreamy honeymoon on the Isle of Maui, the newlyweds returned to a tension-filled household. Both Larry and Judy were determined to make it work. Larry found out that Judy's daughters greeted him with a silence treatment. He decided to make the best of it by treating them kindly until six weeks had passed and things were only worse.

Every time they had a problem with homework, they would always go to their mother. When Larry was home alone with them, they refused his help. Larry was reaching the boiling point. He found that he and Judy were arguing more and more about the children. And to make matters worse, when Larry's children visited, they didn't like Judy's cooking and would often refuse to eat.

On weekends, when they were in the home, a turf war between the two sets of children would break out, and Judy's girls let Larry's daughter know that she was not welcome in their home. Furthermore, even though Judy's 10-year-old son enjoyed having Larry as his new father, he resented Larry's biological son coming on weekends.

He felt that Larry favored his son and would leave him out of their times together. He looked for times to secretly remind Larry's son that he had his father most of the time and sought to drive a wedge between Larry and his son. And it was beginning to work.

Larry noticed that his biological son was speaking more and more favorably about his ex-wife's boyfriend and all the fun that they were having, going to amusement parks and ball games. This left Larry with a sinking feeling inside, especially since this boyfriend was not a Christian and refused to go to church.

Then add to the fact that Larry's church had disciplined his new girlfriend for leaving Larry, so he was sour on Christians and church. To make matters worse, his influence on Larry's son was a bad one that resulted in a bad attitude and vocabulary. Every weekend, it seemed that Larry spent half of his time trying to correct bad attitudes and behavior in both his daughter and son.

From Larry's perspective, he thought he would see some improvement after six months of marriage. But the opposite seemed to be true. Instead of peace, things in the family were beginning to unravel. Judy noticed the same thing. She was beginning to realize that she didn't like the way that Larry ran the household.

It was not the way that she and her children were used to. They didn't like his rules. They were rigid and flexible. She found herself siding with her daughters when they denounced, "That's not the way that mom does it." Larry, too, noted they had very different parenting styles, and her daughters didn't accept his new role as head of the household.

Increasingly, he discovered that if he tried to exercise discipline or use any kind of parental authority over them, he was overruled when they appealed to their mother. All their dreams of having a loving Christian home were quickly vanishing. After a year, so much resentment and bitterness had built up that it was impossible to have fun together as a family.

The tension in the household was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Larry was spending more and more of his time at the office, and Judy and the kids seemed to be happy with that. Their dream had turned into a horrid nightmare. Even people at church knew something was wrong.

Judy's daughters could say nothing good about their stepdad. They would always refer to him with disgust as "That Larry," not as a father, dad, or even stepdad. People could also see that Larry and Judy were not the happy Christians they used to be. It seemed like they were dying on the inside.

There was no joy in their lives, just mere existence. Their goal became a simple one-- just make it through another day. 18 months into their marriage, Larry and a close friend were playing some golf when Larry dropped a bomb by announcing that he was thinking of divorcing Judy. "She doesn't respect me.

Her daughters despise me. My children hate her. The only person that seems to remotely like having me around is her son." "Do you know what is ironic?" he said stoically to his golfing buddy. "After my first divorce, I was determined to never allow this to happen again. I wanted to have the best Christian home possible.

I really tried, but I was overruled and frustrated at every turn. I almost can't believe that I'm saying this." "Do you love Judy?" his friend prodded. "I don't know. I don't feel anything anymore. All my emotions are gone. I'm cold and empty inside, going about my responsibilities every day like a robot.

I know this is not the way that the Christian life is supposed to be. Frankly, I've given up hope for this marriage, and if I read Judy right, she has too. I've tried everything, but I believe that we'd both be happier living apart. At least I know her children would be." "Everything" is a pretty big statement.

"Have you tried everything?" his friend remarked. "Have you and Judy tried going to one of the pastors to get some biblical answers for your problems?" "No," he shot back. "I know what they're going to tell me to do, pray about it and have devotions with the family. I did that, and Judy's daughters fought me every step of the way.

It was war every time I tried to be a spiritual leader." "Hey, give our pastors more credit than that. There are hard issues here that need to be addressed, and I think that you need to try to get some good biblical help. After what happened in your first marriage, I'd hate to see you give up so easily." Larry's friend was right.

So Larry and Judy sit in front of you for their first counseling session. Tension is thick. What are you going to do? Victoria says, "I'm going to defer to Andrew." All right, let me give you some background. First of all, when you come upon situations like this, you've got to understand that one of the top things that stepfamilies need is hope.

Usually, most of them, when they finally come into counseling, they are at their wits' end. In other words, they are hopeless. The first order of business, after you have thoroughly listened to the situation and gathered good data, is to give this couple hope. This problem is not bigger than God.

This problem did not catch God by surprise. We're not open theists. Neither is the Bible. This problem is not beyond God's help, and God has provided concrete answers for problems like this in His Word, and they need hope, and they need it in the first counseling session. One of the things you need to do is help them start broadly with broad hope.

There are great passages in the Bible, like Romans 8, 28, and 29. "All things work together for good to them that are called according to His purpose." 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 13. "There is no temptation taken you except for what is common to man, and God is faithful.

He will not allow you to be tempted above what you're able, but with that temptation He will always provide a way of escape." And then there's Romans chapter 15 and verse 4, which talks about, through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, "We might have hope." It says there.

Through endurance. That has to do with persevering in terms of obedience. And the encouragement, that comes from the very promises of Scripture. Verse 4 says, "For whatever is written in earlier times is written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope." And then later on in verse 13, He says, "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Now I realize the context here is not about blended family strife.

That's not the context. But certainly He is developing a broad theological principle that is applicable even to step family problems. And then, of course, there's 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 3. "Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead." That's a living hope.

That's what we have. I mean, imagine, what's the greatest problem that man faces? I think the answer will be death, the curse of death. And our God has conquered that in Christ. That's the biggest mountain out there. And so if God has conquered that bigger mountain, then certainly this lesser mountain of blended family problems can be conquered as well.

Yes? Well, usually, the question you're asking me, how do you give people hope who are really totally hopeless? You've got to understand that people like this are focused entirely on the problem, and they've been focused on this particular problem for such a long time that that's all they see is the problem.

They don't see anything beyond that. They just see the problem. And when you're taking them to these broad-based verses, you're causing them to step back and see the bigger picture. When all they see is the problem, God is not in the picture. But when they step back and see God operating through his control and his sovereignty in the events of their lives, then all of a sudden hope begins to come back, that yes, God is still at work here even though things seem to be so hopeless, like with Larry and Judy's home.

And he is. He is very definitely at work here. Or like I like to say in counseling, God is up to something. He's up to something good. So you're causing them to step back and take a look at the bigger picture, not just focusing on their problem. They're looking at God.

Sometimes I like to say it like this to counselees. I know this problem looks like a huge mountain in your life, but I want you to step back and look. God is standing behind and above this mountain. He's bigger than this problem. I want them to have a concept of God's absolute sovereignty over all these events for their good.

This is what Joseph did, wasn't it, in Genesis 50-20? You intended all this for evil, Joseph said to his brothers, but God has intended it for good, the saving of many lives. So Larry and Judy needs to have a faithful biblical counselor take these verses apart and minister hope to their despairing hearts.

Now, not only that, but stepfamilies also need specific hope. And when I say that, specific hope, I'm talking about the fact that they need to own their own personal responsibility for their attitudes and actions. And I'm afraid that this is not what contemporary psychology does. Contemporary psychology always makes you a victim of your problem.

Contemporary psychology does not help people own responsibility for their own feelings and actions. Most psychologists, Christians and otherwise, will label this family dysfunctional. This is a dysfunctional stepfamily. Even systems therapy will do the same thing. Ackerman's whole view on this thing is that this family is essentially dysfunctional, which gives the impression that a unique combination of people in this particular stepfamily, with their destructive or distinctive personalities, combined to form an incompatible set of relationships that is beyond their ability to change.

Since these personalities from contemporary psychology are fixed and established or ingrained, it's believed they have to learn to accept the differences and make the best of them. So the unique combination of adversarial personalities are the cause of the problem. It's sort of like making a family of pit bulls live in harmony with a family of poodles.

It's not going to be pretty. So you have to just kind of help them to accept one another, adjust to one another, you'll hear them say. One article from Minarth Meyer Publications says this, and by the way, this article goes on for several pages without a single reference to the Bible or Scripture in counseling "blended families." It says this, "If the parents do their job "and face their issues, the family will come through "the crisis and work to make adjustments." That's really key.

"Work to make adjustments that they learn "through counseling must be made. "These adjustments include negotiation of roles." Wait a minute. I thought roles were fixed in Scripture. Negotiation of roles. Relationship building. I don't have a problem with that. Validation of family rules, traditions, and customs. I will have a problem with that if those traditional rules and customs are not biblical.

Validation of the new family unit. Okay, that's okay with me. Now, the key where I think, though, in that definition is the word "adjustment." Families need to adjust to one another. Not a single word is given in the article, the personal responsibility for change when it comes to interaction with other members of the family.

And you see, what I'm saying is that kind of a treatment of the problem predicates the peace and harmony of the home upon everyone making external adjustments, seeking to change and grow. And I believe that kind of counsel strips stepfamilies of genuine hope. If the family is truly dysfunctional due to unchangeable personalities, then it's stuck in a hopeless quagmire of endless adjusting and coping.

That amounts to nothing more than age-old heresy of asceticism. It means you just resign yourself to a notion that you have to suffer through the indignities of the other members of your stepfamily by practicing personal self-abasement. That kind of attitude's not biblical at all. Colossians 2:23 says, "These things are matters which have to be sure the appearance of wisdom and self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value against fleshly indulgences." In other words, all the self-abasement, self-restraint is externalism that will never bring the passions of the flesh under control, the desires of the heart.

They'll be of no value against fleshly indulgences. There's no complete change that really needs to be there that starts in the heart. If, however, the members of the family, beginning with Larry and Judy, are willing and convinced that they can change and grow from the heart, then hope returns, a sense of expectation and re-energized commitment returns.

By the end of your first session in counseling Larry and Judy, they should be ready to re-engage this battle and begin to make changes in their own personal lives as individuals that desperately need to be made. In counseling, you have to win that battle up front. It's a fleshly battle, and the battle front is in the heart.

You have to view your role as that of an ideological warrior. He talks about speculations here, that which is lifted up, higher exalted. It has to do with high-sounding ideas that are not based upon truth but more related to man's ideas about life rather than God's ideas. And every lofty thing, to lift oneself up, it means to exalt oneself, one's own ideas or something that belongs to you.

For our purposes, we could say that many step-parents exalt their biological children or family to a higher plane of priority than God gives them. In other words, I realize that 2 Corinthians 10, again, is not within context of dealing with step-family strife either, but there is a theological principle that is related here, and that is that we have a tendency in dealing with stress and circumstances of life, which 2 Corinthians 10 is about, to elevate human ideas and human ways of thinking above God's ideas and God's way of viewing those things.

And you're going to find step-families to do the same thing. They will elevate their ideas on how to deal with this particular problem above God's ideas. And I'll give you some examples of this. So there's a sense in which, as a counselor, you are an ideological warrior. Like the Apostle Paul who sees himself as going to war in his ministry of the word to bring such a foreign enemy of thought into captivity and to make it obedient to Christ in verse 5.

One of the first battle fronts in this war is that most biological parents in step-family relationships operate with a low view of marriage. They don't think so. In fact, if you confront them, they'll never admit this, but step-parents have to be taught a high view of marriage. So one stronghold to be assaulted by the counselor is this false doctrine held by many step-parents, whether by statement or by practice, they advance the notion here, "My children come first." That reveals a low view of marriage, high view of kids, low view of marriage.

Another way to say this, sometimes you'll hear people say, "Blood is thicker than water." Or there was a national campaign a few years back that was entitled, "Children First." And a lot of step-family problems are rooted in this kind of thinking, this kind of ideology, and it prevails, and it's very, very strong.

And they don't even realize that it's a problem because like fish in water, fish don't know they're in water because they're used to water all the time. Well, they live in this culture and they don't even realize that this is a problem in terms of their thinking. They don't even understand it.

So you've got to engage this wrong notion with the Scripture. The Bible teaches us from the beginning that marriage takes precedence over children. Wow, that's really critical. Where do we get that? Well, you get that back in Genesis 2 and verse 24 from the very beginning in the first relationship.

We looked at this earlier. "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." So from the very beginning, even before Adam and Eve were parents, God is admonishing them that it's the role and responsibility of children to leave their parents and to cling to their spouse.

So the parent-child relationship is a temporary one. The husband-wife relationship is a permanent one. It's a permanent one. Reuben's going to be asking his girlfriend to make a permanent commitment tonight, a break, a change. All right, that's a pretty serious commitment. So from the beginning, the Bible teaches that marriage takes precedence here.

But I've got to warn you that most of them believe even though their marriage is threatened, they still have a high view of marriage. I've never found a situation in counseling this kind of problem where their concept of marriage was too high. I've never seen that. In fact, just the opposite.

So let me make eight observations here about this to help you in dealing with stepfamilies. Number one, husband-and-wife relationship is intended by God to be the permanent relationship, and just because this is your second marriage does not make it any less of a marriage in God's eyes. The husband-wife relationship is intended to be a permanent relationship.

"For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother," Genesis 2:24. And that's to be for good, for life. You remember when God gave this admonition in Genesis 2:24, they were going to live forever. So this was a forever type of commitment originally. Now because of sin and now death reigning, it's for life as we know it.

So the husband-wife relationship, even though this is the second marriage, is always to take priority. Secondly, the parent-child relationship is intended by God to be temporary relationship. Now here's what often happens. Because the mother or the father have a longer standing, oftentimes years of relationship with their children prior to this second spouse coming into their life, their tendency is to always gravitate towards the children and prefer their children over their spouse.

That's always the tendency because there's already a history there. You already have a history of relationship. This other person, no matter how much initially they say that they love that other person, is still new to them comparatively. They haven't had the years of relationship. They haven't gone through any struggles with this person.

And so there's not the kind of history that you have with your children. Not to mention the fact you're biologically related to your children. You're not biologically related to your spouse. So somehow in human thinking, that makes that a more permanent bond. But in God's thinking, that relationship with the child is not as permanent as the relationship to the spouse.

And in fact, we have a biblical responsibility to make our relationship to our spouse permanent and to rear our children in such a way as to leave the home, not stay in the home. And we help them to do that when we make our priority to our spouse number one.

So the parent-child relationship is intended by God to be a temporary relationship. Thirdly, your biological children, and in this particular case, stepchildren, must be reared to leave the home, not stay in the home. They must be reared to leave the home. Most stepparents, however, treat their children as if their children are always going to be a part of that home.

They've already lost their spouse through death or divorce, and that has hurt them a lot. So they're going to hold on to their children even more tenaciously than a normal home, intact home would, or normal parents would. So this is very, very difficult. After losing a spouse by death or divorce, to turn around and to let go of your kids, which is the last remnants of that original home, is very, very tough for a stepparent to do.

Not impossible, but it's going to be tough. Yet I want you to understand that this is exactly what the children need to see, which brings us to number four. Your example of setting their stepfather or stepmother ahead of them as children is the model that they need to see for their own future marriage.

We see this in creation in Genesis 2, verse 18, through chapter 4 and verse 1. We see it in Paul's description of the Christian home in Ephesians 5, verse 22 through 6, 5. We see it in the qualification of elders in 1 Timothy 3. The priority is always given to the husband and wife relationship first.

The children are always second. Now, I see theological significance there, much the same way that the Apostle Paul saw theological significance in the order of creation when he was talking about women who need to remain silent in church in 1 Timothy 2. And he says in verse 13, "For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve." So the Apostle Paul saw theological significance in the order of creation, creating Adam first and then Eve.

I see theological significance in the order of all of these passages preferring the husband and wife relationship over the parent-child relationship. So there is, I believe, theological significance in that alone. And it's something that these stepchildren and your biological children need to see. They need to see their dad putting their stepmother first.

They need to see their mother putting their stepfather first because that becomes the model that they need to carry into their future relationship and permanent relationship in the home. Well, as we said, there's that old saying, "Blood is thicker than water," but really from a biblical perspective, marriage is thicker than blood.

You may be blood-related to your children, but your commitment to them is temporary. However, even though you are not blood-related to your spouse, your commitment to them is for a lifetime. And this comes in the big and the small choices of life, how you treat your wife or your husband that is your children's step-parent in preferring them, honoring them, esteeming them, talking about them, in doing loving things for them, in caring for them has to be seen by the children and has to be seen by your spouse.

This is where the belief that marriage is thicker than blood becomes so important here. Number six, the powerful and very natural parental compulsion to love their children must be surrendered to the higher priority of being a godly mate and loving spouse. It's going to be very easy for them to follow their flesh on this, and their flesh will say, "Love your children first," because everything in their natural tendencies will tell them to do that.

Love your children first. But it's like anything else in life. Are we going to let our passions rule us, or our natural desires will rule us, or are we going to allow what God says rule us? It's like everything else in life. And it's important for your counselee to understand that.

Sometimes I'll actually have them make a list of specific ways that they can show their children and their stepchildren that they love their father or mother. And how are you going to do that? How are you going to demonstrate it? In fact, when they really start doing this and start doing this seriously, if these stepchildren are really observant, they're not going to like it at all because they realize they're losing status with their biological parent.

And they get angry. They get upset. They start causing more problems. And you have to prepare these parents on how to deal with those problems when they start to come up. But you cannot give in to these natural parental compulsions to love your children more than your spouse. You'll get yourself into trouble.

Number seven, not only that, but a child-centered home, whether it is a first or second marriage, will always experience trouble because children will eventually grow up and leave. You can't stop that. That leaves you as a couple with a relationship in shambles. Little or no investment or time or energy has been given to it over the years.

And we talked about this earlier in our class about how when you have a husband and wife who make their children the center of the home, then there have been many marriages who have existed for 20, 25 years, who even call themselves Christian marriage. And once the children grew up and left the home, there was no reason for the husband and wife to be together.

And to the shock of everybody in the church, this couple's getting a divorce. And they say, I don't understand it. I mean, we thought that they had a happy Christian home for years. But the problem is they made their children the center of the home. And once you move that center out, there's no reason for mom and dad to be together.

That's never to be the case. The husband and wife relationship is always the center of the home. The children revolve around that. And if the children grow up and leave, you still have an intact home. Then number eight, the fleshly and sinful passions and desires of your biological children.

Well, because Proverbs 22, 15 says, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child." Will always pit you as a biological parent against their step-parent, your spouse, if you allow your home to be child-centered. They will naturally, the children will naturally work that against your marriage. They will prey on your parental affections and use them to drive a wedge between you and your spouse for their own self-centered purposes.

And when you allow yourself to be manipulated, you are pandering their sinful nature. And in this way, you're hurting both your marriage and your children. This is why I say the contemporary approach in psychology, if you read the step-family, blended-family materials that are out there, the contemporary approach in psychology today is undermining the step-family as a couple because they're making them victim of dysfunctional elements, relationships, personalities that seem to be fixed.

They're making them victims of what's going on and just learning adjustment and coping mechanisms on how to deal with people. I hate those words, adjustment and coping. It's like I've got to adjust and cope with you, all right? That means put up with you. But in my heart, I really don't want to do that.

That's terrible. That's just turning everybody in the home into Pharisees. No, we're not--the Bible's not teaching people to adjust and cope with one another. The Bible is teaching them how to be godly with one another, how to be Christ-like with one another, how to assume biblical roles and be content in those biblical roles, how to genuinely love one another, even if that other person happens to be, like Matthew 5, 43 through 48, your enemy.

Even that's the case. So instead of being a dysfunctional home, it's a sinful home where people are allowing their sinful passions to rule. In this case, the kids don't want anybody from outside their immediate biological relatedness to their parent to interrupt what they've got going on. And the parent wants to favor their biological child because their child's already suffered enough through death or divorce.

So sinful passions tend to rule rather than God's priorities ruling. So we would say something like this. The genuine Christian home, remember this, the genuine Christian home rejects the notion, "My children come first." God always comes first. Before the children, the spouse comes first. Your spouse has to be your first human priority.

Now like I said at the beginning of this particular section, I wish we had lots more time in our particular class to work on this issue because there are so many little side tributaries that we could go down literally and pursue from a biblical standpoint that blended families get into.

But I wanted to give you, in a sense, a basic frame of work from which to counsel people. And hopefully you can build upon that with your own counseling ministry. Thank you.

Lecture 14: Marriage and Family Counseling - Dr. John D. Street

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