Matthew 18:5-9, Not Provoking Children to Wrath

We have recently worked our way through the center of Matthew’s Gospel, including Ch. 18.  The subject of that passage revolves around the treatment of “little ones.”  We understand that Jesus was speaking of young believers in Him, those who became like little ones (children) in their faith.  The use of young children as an illustration of young believers tells us the principles are true of children in a family as well as children in the family of God.  That is the basis for today’s post.  The strong connection between human families and the family of God is seen often, both in terms of marriage (Eph. 5:22-33) as well as in managing the home and training up the children (1 Tim. 3:4-5).

A common warning for parents in the NT is, do not provoke your children to wrath (Eph. 6:4).  It is much like the warning in Mt. 18:6, don't cause the little ones to stumble.  Thinking about how we do this with our children will help us not to do the same with young believers. The following list came from Fred Barshaw in a booklet titled "Emergency Handbook for Parents."  (Barshaw was the Family Pastor in John MacArthur’s early years at Grace Community Church.)  We can exasperate (NIV) or provoke our children to wrath (KJV) through...

·        Physical abuse.  My reminder: not physical discipline which the Scriptures command but physical abuse.  Failure to discipline our children will provoke them to wrath.

·        Psychological abuse (persistent debasement and embarrassment of them).

·        Hypocrisy (failure to keep promises, acknowledge our own mistakes, or abide by our own standards).  My reminder: it should be obvious that hypocrisy in the church is deadly for new believers.  It should be obvious in the home too.

·        Forced acceptance of parental goals & values.  My reminder: Thinking we can force children to behave denies the strong emphasis in Scripture of the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s ministry and of our need to intercede in prayer for our children.

·        Neglecting them for lower priorities.  My reminder: Note that it says “lower” priorities.  I think we can also set a poor example (this relates to the “hypocrisy” point above) when we sacrifice higher priorities for them.  Sometimes an emergency requires us to drop even family to attend to the need.  Those are times, when possible, that we might want to include our children in meeting the need.  The story of the feeding of the five thousand is in this context, where Jesus wanted time alone with His disciples and yet had compassion on the crowds that followed them.  Therefore Jesus involved His disciples in the feeding.

·        Failure to really listen to them. 

·        Setting unrealistic performance standards and too high an attitude and behavior expectancy for their maturity level. My reminder: Jesus referred to this when He reproved the shepherds of Israel for laying heavy burdens on people and not lifting a finger to help, Matt. 23:4.

Let us meditate and pray over these things in dealing with our children at home.  Let us also consider how we treat new or young believers.