Being a Good Father: The Neglected Qualification for Ministry

Many years ago, my wife and I heard a message that we took
very much to heart. It was preached at our wedding. The message had been given
first more than 3,000 years earlier to a people who did not take it to heart.
It was part of Moses’ final talk to the new generation.

“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them
as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your
children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the
road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of
your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children
may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many
as the days that the heavens are above the earth” (Deuteronomy 11:18-21).

There was very little application of this teaching by the
people of Israel in the Old Testament. I have also observed hundreds of
Christians, senior to me, contemporary to me, and junior to me. My observation
is that evangelical Christians seem to be able to rear children who are nominal
Christians or not Christians at all. Or if some of the children are clear
Christians, some of them are not. I realize that such a statement may bring
many letters from people whose children are walking in close fellowship with
the Lord. It’s worth making such a statement just to get such a barrage of good
news.

When I was
a child, I heard a saying that the preacher’s kids were the worst kids in town.
From my limited experience at that time with preachers’ kids, the saying seemed
to be validated. I remember one such kid. He was not a roughneck, but he sure
was obsequious and unctuous to all his acquaintances. From my self-righteous
view, I looked down on him.

When I
became a Christian years later, I looked back on my earlier years and came to
the conclusion that the preachers I had known were ultra-liberal in their
theology and that’s why their kids were not godly. It was a simple explanation
and may have kept me from being disillusioned with the power of the Gospel.
However, it was not a true explanation.

Over the
years, I have spent many hours with many Christian workers about the
waywardness of their children. These are mostly missionaries and pastors. I
have also spent many hours loving the children of other missionaries and
pastors.

In
addition, the Christian gossip circuit brings to our ears stories of children
of famous Christians who have gone astray. The empathy is great among the
Christians for other Christians who have rebellious children. The empathy is
there because they either have such children themselves or perhaps expect to
have such children.

There are
many explanations, and they may be right, at least in part. “The Jones’
children did not turn out because they sent them to the public schools. We will
send ours to a Christian school or to a Christian boarding school.” Still they
do not turn out right. In all of the empathy and sympathy there seems to be a
lack of hard scrutiny concerning the cause of the problem and a lack of action
taken to solve the problem.

In the
Deuteronomy passage quoted earlier, two things are very evident:

1. The
continuous presence of Scripture in time and place—really all the time and in
all places.

2. The
continual presence of the father with the children.

I think
there is a lack in the Christian home on both counts, but the greater lack is
on the latter. There is very little difference in the time spent with the
children by a full-time Christian worker and by a father in the world system.
In both cases it is very little time. If there is a difference, it is that the
Christian father has a “spiritual” justification for spending so little time.
He is busy serving the Lord.

It may
sound simplistic, but the basic causes of rebellious and unbelieving children
of Christian parents are:

1. Not enough
time spent with the children, or, if there is time with the children, it is not
loving time

2. Not enough
time spent with the Scriptures alone and with the children

Christian
workers will give their time in counsel, in love, in the Scriptures to anyone
in need outside of the family. Children must compete for time with their
father. In most cases they cannot compete effectively. In order to get
attention they have to act as evil as the people to whom their father gives his
time. Even then it does not work because the children have now disgraced the
Lord, their father, and the ministry.

From my
perspective there seem to be many Christian pastors who know that what they are
doing is wrong for the family, yet they keep on doing it. Or they have already
lost one or more children to the enemy, and they keep on doing what caused the
children to defect.

In Titus 1
and in 1 Timothy 3, the Scripture gives the qualifications for being an elder.
Among the qualifications are these:

“An elder must be…a man whose children believe and are not
open to the charge of being wild and disobedient” (Titus 1:6).

“He must manage his own family well and see that his children
obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own
family, how can he take care of God’s church?)” (1 Timothy 3:4-5).

Among
elders who hold to the inspiration and the authority of Scripture, I have
encountered ignorance of these texts, hedging and defensiveness; they thought
their call to preach had a higher authority than the text. There were too many
explanations why the situation in their home was not covered by these verses:

1. “Yes, the
children are not believers, but they are not yet adult. The text does not
apply.”

2. “Yes, the
children are not believers, but they are adult and no longer under our
authority. The text does not apply.”

3. “The texts
apply only to people who are to be appointed elders. They do not apply to those
already ordained.” (If so, is this true also for drunk, violent and quarrelsome
elders?)

4.         “Yes, I
believed that it applied to me, so I submitted my resignation to the church.
The church would not accept it and begged me to continue as their pastor.”
Normally there is much sympathy from the congregation because of the apparent
godliness of the pastor and his wife.

5. “I was in
much confusion about my position as an elder, so I sought counsel from older
men of God whom I respected. They assured me that they had children who had
been far away from the Lord for many years and that they had recently come to
the Lord. They encouraged me to stay in the ministry, and they would pray for
my children.”

6. “This is my
profession. I do not know how to do anything else.”

With very
few exceptions, in evangelical churches we do not find discipline of elders
based upon the belief and character of the elders’ children. The church members
or hierarchy would not take action because of a false view of, “If any one of
you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7)
and “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matthew 7:1). I do not think it
is realistic to expect churches to suddenly reverse an attitude that has been
operating a long time. If they suddenly began to make judgment on such issues,
it could happen without love and with bad attitudes. However, it is realistic
and right for elders to judge themselves. As it stands, we have very clear
teaching in the Scripture that is universally ignored and disobeyed.

While you
are rereading and praying over 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, look at all of the
requirements, not just those concerning children. Are you still as qualified as
when you were called to the ministry? If not, then confess and forsake your
sins and begin to obey.

If the
results of your unelderly-like behavior include such things as unbelieving and
disobedient children, then leave the ministry.

These are
the reasons you should leave:

1. If you have
succeeded in justifying yourself, you will not confess the sin, and,
consequently, you are not walking in the light. You are not qualified to be an
elder.

2. For the
church’s good: you are not qualified, even though you have been forgiven.

3. For your
children’s good: they will not have to compete with God (or what they think is
God) for your attention.

4. For your own
conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ.

It is
likely that your children will turn to the Lord when they find that their
father is godlier, less busy, and more loving.

One of the
results is that you may be back in the ministry with power that you never had
before.

In Ezekiel
18, we are told that we will not be judged for our parents’ sins or our
children’s sins. We will be judged for our own sins. It is our own sins I am
writing about.

Early in
our ministry, when our children were very young, my wife and I made a decision,
a covenant or a very strong vow: if any of our children ever fit the
description of 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1 and were wild, disobedient, unmanageable,
disrespectful, and unbelieving, we would leave the ministry that same day. We
have not had to do that.

We do not
seem to have many good examples of fathers in the Bible. Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Eli, Samuel, David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, and even Josiah were godly in certain
ways, but poor fathers. We do not have the examples, but we do have the
teaching and the promises.