Hunt, Sproul, and Sproul, Jr.: Questions and Answers #1

concerning giving ourselves to our families as Christ gave himself to the church and you were addressing there is a scripture that's the husband the questionnaire writes can you give me some examples what does this look like how can you tell what would be the signs of a husband that's giving himself to his wife and his family as as Christ he gave himself to the church RC senior law saying is ready there are lots of I mean that just myriads of ways in which the husband as the protector of his wife puts himself in harm's way and in that sense gives up his his safety for her which may actually may even require his death but not just at that radical a level but to to put himself as a shield between the darts and arrows of Satan and of people who would harm her and he stands between the harm and his wife when he is her shield and buckler the we used to do some marriage seminars and I would frequently ask the women there if they could have a mail-order husband where they could order a husband with all the options that that they would choose what were the virtues or characteristics that they most wanted to have from their men and the interesting thing that came out of all this surveys it's the same thing over and over and over again that they wanted a man who was tough and tender an interesting nation in other words they wanted strength in their husband but they didn't want abuse they want a sensitivity a tenderness within that strength what a wonderful composite description of the character of Christ who was I think this one I don't just think obviously the strongest man who ever lived and at the same time the most tender and so I think that to me to give myself away not to grab my wife and have her stand in front of me when time it gets rough and and when women are willing to do that I mean one of the things I found out in my own marriage and I find this with other guys that sometimes when we're under attack we can handle a little whole lot more than our wives can you know our wives are more defensive of us than we would be of ourselves and that's fine I mean I appreciate the loyalty and everything but I also remember probably the most embarrassing moment of my life as an adolescent when I was in ninth grade and I was a boxer and I was undefeated and I had a reputation for being tough and all that sort of thing well my girlfriend was in 10th grade and I had the respect of everybody in my school but I went to to take her to a football game one Friday night at her school very tough town and we were walking up the street towards the stadium and this gang known as the graveyard gang seriously Paul this is true with the guy who was their leader his name was Turk Hagee I still remember and for some reason they picked me out of the crowd and came up and wanted to pick a fight with me I didn't know these guys but I could count and I didn't like the odds at all and there's Turk Agee standing there with the graveyard gang trying to taunt me into a fight on the street and bestest jumped in front of me and God in tark Aggies face and said you leave him alone this isn't fair stuff like that saved my skin but I'm down here it got all over the school the next thing you know they are see got saved by Lester there's you didn't feel she was surfing your god-given design at all there I was not good I mean I was that was not not what Christ had in mind I think you know in our relationship sometimes we're alone I'll tell you what happened the next year when I went back in that town and got a hold of Turk without the graveyard game but that's another story I didn't need that sir that but that'll be next year's conference than the but you see it that night Sproule couldn't say that the sprawls don't clear men I was scared any other suggestions on what this might this characteristic might look like in a husband or a man who gives up himself or his family I would add one of the sacrificial nature of a husband's love for his wife and it's right there in the passage it doesn't it's not just Christ gave himself for her but that for the church that he sanctifies her and that involves sacrifice in this sense let's suppose that your your wife has difficulty with inappropriate anger what's the husband's call here well the husband's call is to sanctify the wife and while the wife is in the midst of this inappropriate anger does she want the husband to say now dear let's talk about this anger thing okay the husband desperately wants his wife's love and approval and it takes a sacrifice in that circumstance to say I'm going to accept her wrath at me to deal with the wrath that needs to be sanctified that's that sacrificial love to say I know you're not going to like this I know you don't want to talk about this I know you you want me to just leave you alone but I can't and I know I know you're getting more angry at me because I can't leave you alone you know I think that's that's one one place one way we need to hear from a woman's point of view what does it look like what do you see when you see a husband who like Christ gives himself up for his wife for his family it was like my husband a man so wants to glorify God that her woman his wife can have the confidence in the decisions that he makes and what I would say to young wives because I think what you're saying is exactly right we need our husbands to do that and I encourage young wives to give their husbands in a sense permission to say to them not at the time when the husband is having to confront them but to say to them at other times I really want you to be a man who calls me to task for my sin that let it takes a mature woman to do that and I encourage women towards that maturity because it is scary for a young husband to confront his wife about her sin but when he's a man who who's longing in his heart is to glorify God then it is safe for her to listen to him RC jr. this comes from a young man who's here at the conference his name is Brandon and he anticipated your talk and handed this question in before you spoke husbands and wives have jobs but what our sons supposed to do but obey their parents and live for a long time sons and daughters have a duty as they're being obedient to become and culture ate it into the culture of God that this is not merely a passive thing for children that's first secondly one of the one of the reasons we suffer from individualism that mrs. hunt talked about so so wonderfully is again because of we're worldly because we think like the world does and I think one of things that would help us stop doing that would be to begin to see our families as single economic units we've lost that sense of interdependence because I can hire someone to do things that women typically do then I don't really need them and because when we can go out and make a living they don't need the men that's bad that's unhealthy we ought to be dependent upon each other and that includes the children you know my children are a part of my as my family we're trying as a family to exercise dominion over God's creation one of the things that I do in that role is I serve as the editor of table talk and I come here and talk and one of things that my wife does is she bears children and it's fruitful and multiply one of the things that my children do is feed the chickens and collect the eggs from our chickens and bury the chickens from the dock bury the chickens when they die give daddy the bad news because daddy can get angry too but we try to see our family as as that the bottom line so to speak and I think it also touches on what my father talked about with respect to loyalty that we don't see ourselves by ourselves we see ourselves as our identities not only in this family but our identity is this family and this is what we are and then that means that the family's goals become the sons goals and the daughters goals someone was talking to me about about well let me add one other thing the job is the same for everybody first to glorify God and to enjoy him forever what does that mean I think that means building his kingdom seeking first his kingdom and what does that mean I think that means exercising Dominion and what does that mean I think that means being obedient to his law gets us back to obey so I think it comes full circle is Brandon here in this session Brandon where are you stand up Brandon be like to have young men like you there he is right back there let's thank Brandon for that good question wave your hand there Brandon looks like maybe he's in about the sixth grade is that right thank you for participating Paul you know it's interesting how these things like Carol said you go through one generation to the next generation of Donson generation I was really moved when RC jr. was talking about his children as gems precious stones because that was a reflection of his own childhood where his nickname in our family even to this day is precious and he received that nickname from his sister because she says precious never does anything wrong and now he's turning ruby red over there there ought to be a time limit on some of these stories this moon pass beginning to feel a bit squashed you may have to referee Susan I have another question for you but I want to follow up with RC on something of my own that I'd like to know and I bet others would like you know how you distinguish and I mean this legitimately how do you discern between Barney the Dinosaur and Barney Fife both of those come from the other culture but you make a distinction there and help us that way it's a first the distinction is this and it comes back to what I'm saying about being families we don't watch part of a dinosaur not because he's wicked but because I'm not interested in part of the dinosaurs I'm a grown man and so if we are going to watch something on television I want to watch something that we can watch together as a family my children might like Barney but I don't my children do like Barney v and I do too so that's part of it secondly I could argue that the culture of Mayberry is certainly a lot closer to a biblical culture or thirdly I could just concede that I just like it okay come on Paul there's one more family story one more family story he hid and the last time I looked he had every single Andy Griffith Show on ever produced on videotape except three seven seven seven yes and he has the dialogue memorized it's really something he watched one of those Andy Griffith reruns with him and he's telling the dialogue before the he's a he's crazy but Barney Fife don't let him kiss me before I've been a big Barney Fife for a long time myself yeah I can appreciate this and you want to talk to my wife ever found a CD last night here in Orlando of hymns by Andy Griffith's oh there you go complete the whole says Susan how do we unknowingly and instill in our children the unbiblical idea that they must work to achieve God's love and approval you talked about how insidious that can be how can this be prevented by example and principle in a home well it needs to be explained in word as well as in principle in other words we need to teach them the biblical truth teach them the language of faith even our little children can begin to learn the language of justification and sanctification that we're justified by grace and sanctified by grace and then we hook meaning on that as time goes on but it can't just be an issue of by example but rather we need to hook the example to the theology and so we begin by teaching our children frameworks of truths such as catechizing them catechizing children is so important and so they begin to learn a definition for justification and then we can build upon them and then we do it in practice as we explain to them I don't love you more or less when you disobey if I do I'm sinning because God doesn't love me more or less when I obey or disobey God loves us fully and completely and we say to them over and over think of the wonder of it he loves me as much right this minute as he will love me for all eternity not because of who I am but because of who Jesus is and we tell them about being clothed in the righteousness of Christ so this is a very intentional day by day precept upon precept way that we teach our children in Word and in deed and when we do get caught up in expecting them to perform so that we will look better we need to flee to the cross and repent because we're cultivating an atmosphere in our homes then that is an atmosphere performance rather than an atmosphere of grace and so we just need as parents and grandparents as adults in our churches to be clinging to the cross and asking God to help us to understand the depths of his life and then to help us drip like that so principle and practice now I need to follow up too because this wasn't a question that is on paper but somebody gave it to me they wanted to know it's to the Paul Harvey question the other half of the story what did Cassie do at the ball after Mary Kay gave it to it I was afraid somebody was going to ask that she turned around and ran with it I made a three-pointer right that was a great story flying out here from Los Angeles my wife Sue and I were talking because Sue is a a mentor mom in a ministry in our church with young mothers and last Tuesday she interviewed or MC to panel a four admired women in our church two of which did homeschooling one had their children in Christian private school and one in public school and it was a very exciting day now I say that because that's a big question and it's a big question with our group here and I'd like each of you to respond to this the questioner says in our small church there is great division amongst homeschooling separated families birth versus public school families how can we bridge the gap in this and feel that we are doing what's right by our children and without causing division within our church community like each of you to respond to that if you you would well you add to the mix the Christian school option to which is another right but like you I think in many many churches the homeschool phenomenon has provoked serious controversy and it's become a very sticky thing in the church and there's several reasons for that homeschooling is I think an extremely demanding burdensome task that not everybody's willing to do and it it takes a tremendous commitment of energy time and all the rest and I have found I have seen people who resent parents that homeschool because it sort of makes them feel guilty that they're not doing it and that's too bad that that happens that way I think that there's less tension between homeschooling parents and parents who send their kids to Christian schools in fact I have seen in Chris many Christian schools a cooperative spirit with homeschooling parents where even the Christian schools will provide certain programs and make them available to home-school children but when you get into the arena of the public school you get into the the fierce ethical controversy that I know RC juniors had to endure over whether it is appropriate for Christian parents to turn the principal education of their children over into the hands of a pagan state now there's no doubt in my mind that there are many Christian people who are teaching in the government schools we know that and are trying to bear witness to the to the virtues into the truths of God in that environment however the state has become more and more and more hostile towards allowing any kind of Christian influence to filter through the educational system and some of us make the mistake of thinking that those schools are today like they were when we went when years ago the public school so to speak was so much more informed and shaped by the local community and ergo from the parents than it is today today federal law has a strong grip on public education and as I say there's more and more hostility and antithesis present there with a Christian life and worldview and if you take your children's I mean there is no greater responsibility we have then rearing our children in the things of God and to just turn them over to a pagan worldview I don't think Christian parents really have thought this through Paul I think it's a very very dangerous thing if that's your kid it put your child if you're a Christian under the tutelage of a system that is not only not Christian but is actually hostile towards Christian then then you're saying that you can't be a set apart family and have your kids in public education is that the what I'm hearing I would say that those two things are basically incompatible more and more so in our culture today yeah I mean I said I hesitated because I wouldn't want to say that's absolutely the case I think that's what's you know that question causes the strife that the question is all there's great and again that this thing that causes fear strife in the local church and I would say you know we need to back off of the strife and really look at it and and say wait a minute what is the life and worldview that is being communicated in this school system is it compatible with what we're trying to teach our children as Christians and if it isn't how serious the matter is that let's go to the moon by I think that this is again a very serious question and one that we as covenant communities local covenant communities need to give a lot of thought to first of all I would encourage church leadership to be very intentional and not allowing this to become our doing everything they can to prevent this from becoming a point of controversy don't just assume that it's not because it is young parents feel very emotional about the educational choice that they make and oftentimes in their youthfulness they want others to make the choice they have made because it helps to give validity to their choice and so then what we have is that they begin to cluster by those choices and I don't think that's good and so I think church leadership needs to really help them such as we think like the panel that your wife did that helps them to begin to hear each other to find out how they can pray for each other and and that's just such an important thing to happen another thing that I think that we have to do is Covenant communities I tend to fall on the side where I'm where our sin mentioned but I think then if we say that we've got to be willing to go the step of saying then it is our responsibility as a covenant community to make that kind of education that kind of Christian education possible even to go to the point of being willing to invest my generation needs to help to pay the money so it is possible for any family in our church who wants that kind of an education and we need to help our covenant bodies understand their responsibilities to each other I heard one of the most precious stories recently I was in a church up in the Northeast and a young woman came to me and told me how her husband had left her but that her church had taken such good care of her she told me all that the elders had done but then she told me about how that she had been a homeschooling mother when her husband left and she had to go back to work to support her children but another homeschooling mother in their church took those children in and is home schooling them that's the way the community must work we can't just say that this is the way it should be when some young parents have to make the choice between food on the table and a Christian school and they shouldn't have to make that choice I have a responsibility there nicely I think it's important Paul that you separate the issue for everything else there's a difference between the question is it a sin to have your children in government school and how do you deal with interpersonal relations in a church on this issue it's very easy for homeschoolers or Christian schoolers to have a prideful attitude about it if the scripture teaches that government school is not an option and we're not doing it how did we get there because we're so wonderful and wise and know we got there by the grace of God if we're right we're right because of the grace of God okay the difficulty is with so many as is with some of the issues you have to ask two questions one what's the right answer and two how important is it see if I say it's a sin to send your children to government schools and other people want to do this they're the immediate responses this is legalism or it's judgmental or or why can't we all get along if I said you know I'm in the adultery party I believe an adulterer have in favor of adultery no one's gonna say I'm not gonna say what something gets mad at me hey why can't we all just get along right that said there's a the question which is right which is wrong and how important is it that's what I'm trying to get at and those who think it's okay obviously think it's not that important okay so therefore presume that those who think it is important are judgmental so that that's a hard hard thing and it requires grace and it requires patience and all that but the issue itself requires rigorous careful biblical thinking okay it doesn't matter if it's a sin to send you've got your children to government school it doesn't matter whether you have to choose for food or Christian school you don't just say anything you don't do it okay now it may mean that there are additional obligations what we did in our church is instead of inviting the children into some other home school which would be a fine thing to do when we had a young woman who became a de facto widow her husband left her she had two small children we said okay we'll pay your bills okay we'll put a roof over your head we'll put food on your table you raise those children okay oh and by the way and we'll put a godly young man right next to you with his wife to to be to nurture you all so that's what we did in our church and you know we're a little teeny tiny church but we were willing to make those kind of sacrifices because that's what we believe and and and even if we couldn't again you don't make the decision is make bad law so what's the general issue the general issue is what is it okay or is it not okay as my conviction it's not okay it's my conviction that you are enculturated your children into the world's culture when you hand them over to the government school they're professionals this is what they do this is why they exist I appreciate the desire of those who will take the witnessing defense you know my children are winning countless lost people to Christ I appreciate the hardships and all that and I don't want to I don't want to center the argument there the issue is all things being equal should we do this and and I'm saying the problem is not even necessarily hostility to the Christian faith but I don't think you can educate your children in the nurture and the culture of God himself in a place where God can't be mentioned problems not hostility it is that Jesus is not there and sound biblical education begins with the fear of God and God's not allowed to be mentioned even you have wonderful godly teachers trying they can't the law forbids it now dude though I want every parent here who has three kids the government school screaming and knocking me on the head no and I'm not trying to scream and knock them on the head either I'm talking about the issue I'm not saying well it's an issue thing not a personal thing and after we get the issue settled then we need to work our lives out in such a way that we can act in obedience now I may be wrong it may be that God permits this it may be that God requires this I don't know I don't think so but my conviction is is if the scripture forbids it so it's for the sake of this topic then on set of our families you feel this is I would say the three of you in agreement that this is almost cynic why non of set apart families I'll say I don't think he believes that do you have an old family story to bring that truth out hey just compromise you know he's weak he fears people he doesn't think it's almost too cynical oh no and he thinks it is a cynical right yeah okay so he went out on that almost you know it's funny poem when I sit here and listen to this and and look at this because I sent him for part of his education to a secular private school and to a government school for part time and of course things weren't as bad then as they are now but still I look back and I think that was not a good thing or wise thing for me to do under God and and here's the other the other side oh he's turned out to you know yeah the other thing I mean I spent a lot of time trying to teach him the things of God while he was growing up and I never really abdicated that responsibility to to the school system whatever school he was in all the way through school even in graduate school we had a deal where I had to sign off on every course that he took as an elective I was very careful to monitor his education and yet I thought that I was being I was doing due diligence as a father by doing that and now I have watched how he is parenting his children and it blows me away if I have ever seen anybody who's earned the right to say what he's saying here today by doing he he has I mean I can't believe the time he spends with his kids instructing them and the things of God and in in a delightful way I mean in ways that I never even thought about I mean I just never occurred to me when he was three years old to be teaching him the children's catechism and I didn't think three-year-old kids couldn't learn the things that he teaches his kids and so what I'm saying to you is he has put me to shame and when he talks about these things I listen okay we we had a number of questions and I bet you would anticipate this from fathers who said I failed being the priest in my home and now they're all gone and some of them are raised in covenant communities and are away from the Lord what do I do now a number of questions of men of URC to to respond a little bit to that thought you know in keeping with this this thing that we were just talking about last week I was spent the whole week teaching my seminary course and one of my courses was in ethics and the other course I was teaching was on the doctrine of God and man Christian anthropology and when we when we were looking at the doctrine of God I was saying I took a I took a piece of chalk and I said I dropped the piece of chalk and I said what made that chalk fall and every one of my students agreed that what did it was gravity and just by asking a few Socratic dialogue type questions it became very clear to me that every student in that seminary believed that gravity was a power inherent in nature that operates on its own steam and I went on to use that as an illustration of how we are bombarded from the time we are infants in the culture of the United States of America with a radically pagan life and worldview the biblical view is that gravity is a secondary cause it has real power but in and of itself it is impotent but that it's in God we live and move and have our being and that that piece of chalk couldn't fall a half an inch through the air apart from the governing Providence of God upon whom which moment-by-moment whatever natural laws we discern such as gravity or electromagnetism or anything else depend but at that point in on son understanding nature we're not thinking as Christians because we didn't even realize there was any difference between a Christian view of nature and a pagan view of nature when we get to the question of free will and I started canvassing among my students their view of human freedom it was clear where that came from it was as far away from the biblical view of a fallen corrupt will as you could imagine because again from the time they're infants they're taught what freedom is according to classical humanism which is a pagan way of understanding human volition and I said look we I first thing I do every morning is I read the newspaper from cover to cover for crying out loud I put in into my head a pagan worldview and listen to it on television I read it in the books I see it in the movies and then I have to go to the Word of God and find a completely different perspective and I was trying to tell my students as long as I live I'm gonna be cleaning out the cobwebs from the Attic of my mind that have come in there from a perspective that is not Christian now I wasn't trying to lay a guilt trip on on husbands here who look now and they say wow I haven't been a priest and my kids are gone it's too late it's never too late to be a priest it's never too late to intercede for your children until they're dead it's never too late to intercede on your knees your wife it's never too late to learn the things of God and have a ministry of the word to your own family forget those things that are behind the Apostle said and press towards those things which are ahead in the high calling of Christ that's the benefit of something like this today I mean my patterns have changed and thinking was changed because I'm what I'm learning from him and maybe somebody else can learn something from him or from what was said here today the wisdom that I heard from Carol and listening to the older women you can change how you've done things beginning this afternoon if you learn something about it from her right so I mean I think you know let's not say it's too late because it's not too late maybe too late to raise them up as children because they're no longer children but we still have an influence and a relationship your your comment about the newspaper reminded me of I think it was Hegel that said in his autobiography that he knew the day he switched from being a theologian to a philosopher and it was the day when he realized he was reading the newspaper where before he read his Bible and before that he used to read his Bible that's exactly right yeah yeah well we thank you for not only your presentations earlier but for also entertaining some of these questions and it's been instructive for all of us to listen to you chew on these together once again we thank our cease Perl junior Susan hunt and dr. RC sprawl senior and let's thank them again for the afternoon

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

Views: 14,012

Rating: 4.961165 out of 5

Keywords: family relastionships, spouses, children, love, education, homeschool, parenting, School, Family

Id: rsHK5RiTYi8

Length: 41min 49sec (2509 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 26 2013