Family Revision Quotes

“God gave fathers the power to speak words directly into the identity of their sons because a man becomes a good son by following the vision and leadership of his father.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“I was watching a documentary that described a night at Thomas Jefferson’s house Monticello. After the meal each night the family, with their guests, would retire into the parlor to drink tea and spend 3-4 hours discussing things they learned or were pondering lately. Without the television or other individualistic electronic means of entertainment I think we’d still do this to avoid boredom. When I first heard about this practice my first thought was, “Oh, that’s what a family does.” I grew up in an age where it was natural to entertain myself or go off with friends but it makes sense that, in the absence of these things, a family would need to learn to interact and really enjoy each other’s company. So 3-4 times per week we have an informal meal followed by what we simply call “family time.” This can be done around the dining room table or the coffee table but it’s been an amazing experience. I begin by asking if anyone learned or had any ideas or questions they’ve been pondering about God. We move from that topic into a more general question like, “Did anyone learn anything today or have something they want to discuss?” We share stories from the day, passages of things we’ve read, watch funny videos or play a family game. At the end we often talk about what’s in store for tomorrow and pray together.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“I was watching a documentary that described a night at Thomas Jefferson’s house Monticello. After the meal each night the family, with their guests, would retire into the parlor to drink tea and spend 3-4 hours discussing things they learned or were pondering lately. Without the television or other individualistic electronic means of entertainment I think we’d still do this to avoid boredom.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“Families must set up similar tests for their children. Remember the resources you have are not yours and you don’t owe them to your children. To simply give each child an equal share regardless of their fitness to steward God’s resources is both bad stewardship on your part and evidence that you really believe the resources belong to you and your family to do with them whatever you please. While you are still alive you must entrust more and more of your resources to the children in your family who are the most skilled and most faithful stewards. You must train your kids from an early age to understand that these resources do not exist for our family’s comfort. We don’t increase the luxury of our lifestyle when God blesses us, we increase the faithfulness of our stewardship.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“The Generous Family “The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” -Proverbs 11:25 One of the greatest and most consistent fruits of family-based stewardship of resources is the outpouring of abundant generosity. Living on a fixed income determined by someone else on a fixed work schedule dictated by someone else who works to direct your best energy toward their ends can leave us with a sense of powerlessness with little left over to give to others. Faced with the frustration this can often create, it becomes easier just to give ourselves over to our work identity. When we do, we tend to live a disintegrated life, always needing to guard against additional commitments since we often have to fight to give our family enough of what they need from whatever is left over, which can put a damper on a spirit of abundant generosity. Contrast that with income streams that produce money in ways that aren’t directly connected to how many hours you worked this week. This begins to disentangle the connection between our time and energy and our money.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“First, never stop finding creative ways to integrate your kids into more elements of your normal daily life. The underlying assumption of Deuteronomy 6 is that your kids are with you a lot. Anytime I go anywhere, my base assumption is I should take one of my kids with me. That could be a walk to the convenience store or on an international business trip. This is not always possible but I work really hard to be with my kids as much as I possibly can. I’m highly introverted so this can be costly in terms of my energy but it’s really worth it and is a critical part of their education. Our culture has developed this strange dichotomy between quality time and quantity time—maybe to make us feel better about the decreasing amount of time we spend with our kids—but there’s no substitute for quantity time. The most basic secret to increasing quality time is to increase quantity time.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“Even when the antidote of the Gospel story is pulsing through the veins of your children, the Gospel will still often need to be rehearsed to confront various idols that try to take root in their lives. When we see our kids fall in love with video games, popularity, sports or themselves, we often spend all of our energy attacking the idols themselves but the Gospel presents a different approach. The only way to break the hold of a beautiful object on the soul is to show it an object more beautiful (to paraphrase Thomas Chalmers's famous sermon “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”). It’s not enough just to say no—we need to give our kids something greater to which they can say yes. The greatest antidote for sin is not always more self-control but greater spiritual passion. The Gospel gives kids this passion for Christ. When they see what it cost Him and how glorious His love truly is, spiritual passion will begin to violently shove out the idols in their lives.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“This is because the Gospel story gives us an identity as freed slaves. We have a humble and downright humiliating past. Our ancient family wilfully chose to rebel against the rightful ruler of the world and became slaves to sin. Every Sabbath we have our kids tell the story of our enslavement through a question and answer time. I bring out a box and ask the kids what this represents and they say, “That we were locked away in slavery.” Surprised, I then say, “Really! When were we slaves? How did that happen? So was it our fault? Are we still slaves today? How were we freed?” We began this tradition because Deuteronomy 5:15 says, “Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day.” God was concerned that future descendants of the Israelites would lose their identity as freed slaves and become proud and forget the Lord once they were safe in the Promised Land. And if you are raising your children in a Christian environment, then your children are at great risk of losing this identity as well. Christian kids tend to take their salvation for granted. They often say a prayer for salvation when they’re very young and believe they are basically a good kid, deserving to be saved. Like the older brother in the Prodigal Son story,”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“By the nature of their basic design, families tend to have a strong, united identity. In this natural state families live in the same house, eat the same meals, work on the same projects, suffer the same misfortunes, have the same friends and extended family relations and protect the weaker members. It takes an alien, unnatural culture to create a family that eats separately, has separate friends, separate interests and identifies more strongly with a peer-based subculture than their own family. Most of what families must do to bring back a strong family identity involves resisting the forces that want to pull the family into its individual parts. In our family that means we don’t worship separately, we worship together; we don’t play sports separately but together; we don’t learn separately but together; we eat most of our meals together; we make money together; we go on adventures together because we are one unit and we opt out of many opportunities that force us to spend too much time embodying our individual identities.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” - Psalm 131:2”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“Grandparents, we need your help. When your children move out of your home and begin to have children of their own, when you retire from regular work or pass on your business assets and your free time increases, that is the moment we need you to serve the greater community. Please don’t head to a retirement community and leave us to be led by self-serving politicians. We need you in leadership. Your children's and your children’s children's quality of life will largely depend on whether or not you choose to serve.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“I can’t think of a better reason to get married and have children than to understand more deeply how God loves us like a parent or how Christ loves us like a spouse.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“We are called to be fruitful, multiply, subdue, rule, and make disciples. These callings are given to families in general and must be accomplished regardless of our unique callings. The New Testament is clear that everyone is called to make disciples and everyone is given a spiritual gift (or gifts), which means we all have the same general ministry (disciple-making) and we each have a special ministry (our spiritual gifts). We must do both. Yes, they may overlap, which is great. If your gift is to teach, that greatly overlaps with a calling to make disciples; but at any point if someone were to ask how your family’s ministry is making disciples you must be able to draw a direct line between the ministry efforts of your family and specific disciples who are growing and reproducing.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“There are two very different ways to view time with your family. One way is to see it as a compartment of your life to which you allocate time. If you spend time with your family in this way, you will never avoid the constant frustration that your family time is taking away from other important activities or that other important activities are taking away from family time. For working moms and dads, this involves long seasons where the family loses their best time and attention and those times can never be recaptured. We need to seriously consider another way. What if you decide to live in, with and through your family? What if you reject family as one of the compartments of your life and see family instead as the environment in which you experience as much of your life as possible? The more I began to identify myself with my family, the more this felt like the natural way to live. But be aware, virtually all elements of western culture are set up to separate individuals from their families. Rejecting this requires building a very different kind of culture. However, when I consider God’s design for the family and who he has called me to be as a father, I no longer believe treating family like a compartment is an option. Family is not a part of my life. My family is in me and I am in them and so we need to be deeply interconnected. To live like separate individuals is to deny this reality. How is this possible in today’s society? What does this look like? It begins by taking the elements of life that are compartments—work, worship, friendships, hobbies, learning etc.—and doing as many as possible with, in, through and as a family. Perhaps every day should be “take your child to work day.” Maybe it means you don’t separate and go into different groups to worship. You worship together, and even more importantly, you worship as a family in your home. Maybe it means your friends are friends of your family and that when you give your love and loyalty to a friend, you are giving that love and loyalty to their family. Maybe it means you either find ways to enjoy your hobbies with your family or you find new hobbies that your family can enjoy with you. Maybe it means that whenever someone in your family acquires a new skill, you complete the learning experience by sharing it with your family. But whenever possible you learn together.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers: An exploration from two secular psychologists of the impact of Western parents obsession with fostering peer-orientation in their kids. [Article] The Power of Family History Study by Emory University”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“This means that when a husband begins to identify more and more with his family, a mother will begin to experience her role as a part of a team, instead of the family being her own private project. As her husband shows leadership and begins to set a vision—and to work with and through his family instead of apart from it—she will be deeply impacted by this team spirit and discover, often for the first time, the true and deepest purpose of her feminine nature. Instead of being the only one who sacrifices, she will see her husband laying down his life to love her and their children. When the husband and wife enjoy God's design for the family, they experience increasing oneness.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“Every morning when he goes to work, it’s as if his family is sending him out on a mission to strengthen them by bringing back resources.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“He views all of his life as a subset of family life. His identity is totally and completely intertwined with—and is inseparable from—his family. He’s the father. He’s the patriarch. He doesn’t have a deeper or more significant identity”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family

“I'm a part of a package and in every way this makes me a better person and it makes what I bring to the table in a relationship whether in business, ministry, or my personal life far more extensive than if you only got detached little me.”
― Jeremy Pryor, Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family