Discipleship Series Part 4 – Family Discipleship

We have moved through our understandings of:

This is where we want to jump off this high drive of looking at discipleship in an overview, but today I want us to get into the water and actually swim in the doing of discipleship. This brings us to this weeks topic: “Family Discipleship”

I will say that there seems to be a deeply held view of family discipleship that I believe is a modern-day oversimplification of the definition “Family Discipleship”. That deeply held view is that “Family Discipleship” is child-focused and child-centered. While I agree that as Parents we do need to be focused on the discipleship of our children, and we will be talking about that in just a few moments, but I do think it is an oversimplification of the call to discipleship in the context of the Family.

Richard Baxter, a Puritan Pastor that lived in the mid-1600’s had this to say about the discipleship of husbands and wives: “One of the most important duties of a husband to his wife and a wife to her husband is to carefully, skillfully, and diligently help each other in the knowledge and worship, and obedience of God that they might be saved and grow in their Christian life. Watching over the hearts and lives of one another, judging the condition of each other’s souls, and the strength or weakness of each other’s sins and graces, and the failings of each other’s lives, so that you may be able to apply to one another the most suitable help. Do not discourage your spouse from instructing you by refusing to receive and learn from their corrections. Join together in frequent and fervent prayer. Prayer forces the mind into sobriety, and moves the heart with the presence and majesty of God. Pray also for each other when you are in secret, that God may do that work which you most desire, upon each other’s hearts.”

The Colossians 3:16 passage of scripture calling for the “teaching and admonishing one another” ought to first and foremost apply itself to the home and the relationship between the husband and wife. Scripture also admonishes this in 1 Corinthians 14:35 for a wife to learn from her husband in the home, therefore a husband should be “teaching” in the home.

Jonathan Edwards in his farewell sermon to his Northampton congregation had this to say regarding the whole of Family Discipleship “Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by His rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace.”

The church in history saw not just the necessity of Family Discipleship, AKA Family Devotions, Family Religion or Family Worship, but they saw that the lack of it was considered a failing that should be dealt with by the church’s Pastoral leadership and those heads of the family be put under church discipline: “In Scotland, the church leadership instructed ministers to discipline any “Head of the Family” who neglected family worship and (those Pastors were) to discern in their pastoral visits, “Whether God be worshipped in the family, by prayers, praises, and reading of the Scriptures? Concerning the behavior of servants towards God and towards man; if they attend family and public worship? If there be catechizing in the family?”

Thomas DooLittle (No I am not talking about Dr. Dolittle) but rather a Pastor who lived and ministered in the late 1600’s; He had this to say “No man that will not deny the Scripture can deny the unquestionable duty of reading the Scripture in our houses, governors of families teaching and instructing them out of the Word of God.”

You may find yourself asking the question: Why all these quotes from church history? The answer: to point out that what was normative in the Bible, was also normative in church history and should be normative today. Family Discipleship IS the call of God first in the vein of the calling to discipleship overall. Notice I said “first” and not “only” I will add here that first is an orderly term in that if Family Discipleship is not taking place in your family you should subjugate any other discipleship priorities to the order of priority given in scripture, to Family Discipleship first.

With regard to Scripture and Family Discipleship, specifically as it pertains to the process of discipling our children, I point us to several key passages on the topic, such as Deuteronomy 6:7-9, 11:1-21, Psalm 78:3-4, 145:4, Proverbs 22:6 Ephesians 6:4,

Today I only want to dig into this one passage in Deuteronomy 11:1-21 but before I do let me share with you five things that Family Discipleship is NOT, taken from Matt Chandler’s book entitled “Family Discipleship:

So given a view now of what Family Discipleship is NOT you may be asking yourself “What then IS Family Discipleship?” And to that question, I am so glad you asked: Family Discipleship is the process of proclaiming the gospel for the purpose of conversion, the encouragement to follow Christ in obedience through Baptism and the lifelong life on life teaching of the essentials of the Christian faith towards becoming more Christlike, with a single caveat: It is this process done within the context of the home and with those members of the family with whom you have been given the gift to walk through life with as a family.

Looking now at Deuteronomy 11:1-21 Lets put some skin on this thought process:

“Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always.  Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen… (Dt 11:1-2)” “but your eyes have seen every great act of the LORD which He did. (Dt 11:7)” Between verse 2 and verse 7 Moses reminds the Israelite adults, the parents of all the testimony they have seen and experienced of the faithful God. Verse 8 picks up with the first aspect of Family Discipleship: Modeling. Verses 8 through 18, 10 verses Moses instructs those adults, those parents how they should live. These are the principles Moses highlights:

As a side note here before we move from the modeling aspect of Discipleship: Dt 11:16 warns that we must in the midst of this be careful to guard our hearts: “Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them”

Proverbs 4:23 “ “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.”

The condition of your heart as you model the life of a disciple will have not just the ability to lead you away but lead your children away. Take heed to the condition of your heart and let it not be deceived.

The second aspect of Family Discipleship we find here in this Deuteronomy text is: Teaching. Beginning with Verse 19 (Dt 11:19) Moses exhorts the Israelite parents with a restating of the Shema from Deuteronomy 6. “You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.”

John Wesley in his instructions regarding Family Discipleship exhorted Family worship and study was to be at least twice daily, morning and evening utilizing the following method:

Step 1: A short extemporaneous prayer. (Spontaneous off the cuff prayer, not rehearsed or written)

Step 2: Psalm singing. (a Chorus would do here)

Step 3: Bible study. A parent was to read the scripture for the day and explain it. Then the children were to explain the Bible passage back to the parents.

Step 4: Family prayer using both written and spontaneous prayers. (The Book of common prayers could be used here, or some other book Like Bob Hartley’s Adoration Prayers for Kids, etc. Apostolic Prayers would also work here, praying the scriptures)

Step 5: Singing of the Doxology. If you don’t know what the Doxology is I suggest this version:

Step 6: The Benediction given by a parent. (Closing prayer together as a family)

Step 7: The blessing. The parent lays his or her hand on the head of each child and blesses the child in Jesus’ name. The blessing in Jesus’ name, Wesley charged, was never to be omitted no matter how badly the child had behaved that day.

Can you imagine John Wesley sitting here right now instructing us on morning and evening Family Devotions using this method? How many of us would lose our minds thinking how hard this would be. In truth, it really is not hard. Seven simple steps, it’s like a great recipe for a great dessert: 3 parts Prayer, two parts Worship, 1 part Word and 1 part Blessing. What a wonderful dessert that would make for our families to enjoy together.