The Duties of Parents: Parenting Your Children God's Way [Updated, Annotated]

by J.C. Ryle

I know that you cannot convert your child. I know that they who are born again are born not of the will of man but of God. But I also know that God says expressly, Train up a child in the way he should go, and He never gave a command that He did not give man grace to perform. And I know too that our duty is not to stand still and dispute but to go forward and obey. In the going forward, God will meet us. The path of obedience is the way in which He gives the blessing. We only have to do as the servants did at the marriage feast in Cana – fill the waterpots with water; then we may safely leave it to the Lord to turn that water into wine.

And some in like manner honor a catechism more than the Bible or fill the minds of their children with miserable little storybooks instead of the Scripture of truth.

reverently.

Let there be no questioning, reasoning, disputing, delaying, or talking back. When you give them an instruction, let them see plainly that you expect to have it done.

You will see many in this day who allow their children to choose and think for themselves long before they are able;

See, then, how many things there are that God withholds from His children.

I was asked earlier today what it means to think of God as "Father."

Remember the word that the conqueror Caesar always told his soldiers in a battle. He did not say, “Go forward,” but “Come.”