by David Gibson<\/p>\n
What William J. Bennett wrote years ago has even more relevance today: “There is a coarseness, a callousness and a cynicism to our era. The worst of it has to do with our children. Our culture seems almost dedicated to the corruption of the young” (Reader’s Digest, August 1995, 37). Examples could be multiplied to illustrate Bennett’s premise.<\/p>\n
Can we parents afford to abdicate our responsibility to teach our children the ways of God? The Bible has much to say about parents’ training their children to know God and obey Him (Genesis 18:19; Exodus 10:2; 12:24-27; 13:7-8, 14-15; Deuteronomy 4:9-10; 6:4-7, 20-23; Joshua 4:1-3, 6-7, 21-22; Psalms 78:6-7; Ephesians 6:4; II Timothy 1:5; 3:14-17).<\/p>\n
As James Burton Coffman has written, “The silliest and most satanic attitude we have ever encountered in Christian parents is this, ‘Oh, well, we are going to let Johnny make up his own mind.’ Indeed, indeed, that is exactly what the devil would have Christian parents do. If only Satan would be so neutral! The Evil One will exert every pressure possible to persuade children to forsake the Faith and wallow in licentiousness” [Commentary on Psalm<\/em>s 73-150, p. 48].<\/p>\n My dad used to tell me Bible stories on the way to school. It’s amazing how much teaching we can do by using a few minutes here, a few moments there. But for my dad to be able to drive and tell Bible stories, he had to know those stories well. Can we do that?<\/p>\n What can we as individuals do to save this great nation of ours? We can pray. We can be the best citizens we can be. We can be faithful Christians and win souls for Christ-especially the souls of our own children!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by David Gibson What William J. Bennett wrote years ago has even more relevance today: “There is a coarseness, a callousness and a cynicism to our era. The worst of it has to do with our children. Our culture seems almost dedicated to the corruption of the young” (Reader’s Digest, August 1995, 37). Examples could…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,1028],"tags":[665,29,107,987],"class_list":["post-90327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-parenting","tag-child-rearing","tag-parenting","tag-raising-children","tag-wickedness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":89632,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/parenting-battles\/","url_meta":{"origin":90327,"position":0},"title":"Parenting Battles","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 23, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Randall Caselman A game reserve in Africa was experiencing difficulties with young bull elephants. They were going on rampages, killing other wildlife and just generally being destructive in the park. They were even killing endangered rhinos, and no one knew why. As a result, several of the young bulls\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adolescence"","block_context":{"text":"Adolescence","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/parenting\/adolescence\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/young-elephant-201x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":60394,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/thoughts-on-parenting\/","url_meta":{"origin":90327,"position":1},"title":"Thoughts on Parenting","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Adapted from a study by Ralph Walker via\u00a0The Exhorter, Bulletin for the Henderson Blvd. church of Christ in Tampa, FL June 2009. Parenting has never been easy. But ask yourself this question. Do you really think your parents had as tough a time rearing you as you have with your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67897,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-blessing-and-a-heritage\/","url_meta":{"origin":90327,"position":2},"title":"A Blessing and a Heritage","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 3, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Chadwick Brewer \"Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward\" (Psalms 127:3). For most of history, having a large family was viewed as a blessing. For example, when Job's wealth was listed in Job 1, his most prized and valuable blessing from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/family-300x200.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":56143,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/expect-more-out-of-your-kids\/","url_meta":{"origin":90327,"position":3},"title":"Expect More Out of Your Kids","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by\u00a0Matthew Allen Earlier this week, I participated in a discussion concerning alcohol and advertising. The debate was over whether alcohol companies target youth in their advertising. There is very strong evidence to suggest that the alcohol companies do in fact target adolescent audiences even though such persons are under the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adolescence"","block_context":{"text":"Adolescence","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/parenting\/adolescence\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55257,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/five-smooth-stones-of-parenting\/","url_meta":{"origin":90327,"position":4},"title":"Five Smooth Stones of Parenting","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Sewell Hall In Goliath, David faced what seemed an indomitable foe. David's goal was not so much to kill the giant as to protect the children and honor God. He took five smooth stones from the brook to achieve his purpose. In the pervasive humanism of our society, parents\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/five-smooth-stones-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":69333,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/whos-leading-whom\/","url_meta":{"origin":90327,"position":5},"title":"Who’s Leading Whom?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 16, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Perry Hall After WWII, a new family unit was created-the teenager. Before that, \"teens\" didn't exist as a celebrated age. Before that, \"teens\" were young adults. Since then, the trauma of war-torn youth has led to the coddling of teens. That has led to a verse you might be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What a difference we can make!<\/h2>\n