Todays boys are either barbarians or wimps?

The parents give them money and the churches have a glorified baby sitting program designed so every child can have fun. The denominations are in a crisis and desperately wanting more nickels and noses. They talk about how many baptisms and members, but how many workers are sent into the fields of harvest prepared to share their faith and understanding the historical background of each book of the Bible so they have something to share? How many are trained to interpret scripture in light of its historical context? It can be done. It is a lot of work for the person being taught and for the person teaching. The person teaching cannot just come to a Bible study as though it were a class. But he must come knowing each life is being touched by God and each person is different.

I was fortunate years ago when an older man helped me to grow and held me accountable even until a few weeks before he died. Every time he wrote me (even after I got married) he would always ask about my time with God in the Bible and praying. Was I sharing my faith? Who was I discipling. I watched this man share his faith. This man helped me to study the Bible. I prayed with this man. We had personal times together. I saw a man who loved and trusted God. He is still my model of ministry today. I have been meeting with others for 30 years now. All because someone took an interest in me and guided me along the way. He didn't just tell me. He showed me.

That one layman did more to help others grow than any pastor or preacher I know. Yes, he did graduate from Bible College. Some of us worked for him as a carpenter. I lived in his home for one year shortly before I was married. When he died there were 640 at his service and many more who could not come because they were people spread all over the world as pastors and missionaries. He sought to do one thing--make disciples.

John Maxwell writes in one of his books that strong leaders had strong leaders as their models. There is no excuse for us not knowing how. If we want to learn then we must pay the price to learn. The man I wrote about told me that he hade gone to Bible College and until he was 55 had not learned to disciple others until someone much younger showed him how. He died at the age of 76. Imagine if he had known at the age of 18 or younger what he knew later in life.

 

I heard Dr. Adrian Rogers say a long time ago---something along the lines---"What the parents do in moderation, the children will do in excess!"

Think about that!!

Good post---Brother Daniel

 

blackbird;

That's good. Sometimes it goes the positive way too. I became a Christian several years ago and I am serious because I grew up in a religious home. I never heard the gospel until I was 18 from a fellow college student. My sister and her husband came to Christ just four years ago and they are on fire for Jesus.

He was a police officer and shared his new faith with each person he stopped. He told me it was against the rules but he didn't care. How's that for a new believer telling me that after being a Christian for only about six months? He was fiven some flack for this. I asked him where the other Christian officers were in this. He indicated that they just roll over and play dead. That was a new believer talking!

We must get to the point where the only thing that really matters is serving God.

 

What(!), is there one in the oven. If so, DD, your a machine!

I'm falling behind.

 

The root problem is that the roles of Christ and the government in personal family lives has been reversed.
Gina

 

A MAJOR problem is we allow 'boys to be boys' (all ages included) and don't stress the Fruits of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and SELF-CONTROL!

Stick 'em in day care by time they're 6 weeks old. Leave them with strangers to raise them and then wonder what went wrong!

Diane

 

I'll get to work, DD. And those boys better not be wife beaters. If my smart, athletic and beautiful girls who I walk down the aile have a single scratch on them I'm going over to issue a beat down on that boy . . . and probably dad too.

 

What one would expect from the CBMW. There is no doubt the old line, "boys will be boys" has some truth to it. That is what makes being a Christian so exciting..Christ promises to make us new creatures. Mutual submission is a biblical concept based on the selflessness that we are to model in every aspect of our lives. I don't know what else you would call loving your enemy and your neighbor as yourself. Mutual submission is not losing yourself in the opposite sex, it is losing yourself in Christ, in your marriage, in your job or as a parent. Regardless of what Paige says, boy's don't need guns and dogs (although I have both and enjoy them both greatly), they need father's and mother's that try to live as Christ lived, exhibting the fruits of the Spirit as best they possibly can. That is much more difficult then simply proclaiming "I'm the boss, I have the final say cause I'm the man".

 

Go2church

Thanks! When I was growin' up we had all that--guns and dogs---and listen to this

The guns stayed in the clothes closet but my dad was always in full view(know what I mean) Nowadays, we have "Closet dads and openly displayed guns"---I thank the Lord Jesus Christ that my dad left me something faaaaar more valuable than a measley gun as an inheritance! I can hardly wait to see him again, you know that?

Brother David

 

Once I was in a mall with my wife, and there was this bunch of boys, 12-16, in baggy kimono shorts and t-shirts or A-shirts, sporting Iroquois cut colored hair (blue and purple, or two-colors), with various tatoos on their arms and legs and we can hear snatches of the f--word and mother--word and sh- word. I felt glad my kids did not grow up in this country, and I feel glad for my son-in-laws' decision to have my grandchildren finish high school in the Philippines.
Oh, sure, we have the same phenomenon in the Philippines, mostly copycats of what's on the scene in the US (KevinK mentioned something in one of his comments in another thread about those in Iraq thinking of Americans only in terms of what they are fed and of what they see on TV, and in some ways he is right) but by and large, we still raise our boys with the belt, the fist, and by example.

 

DD, I agree! My two grown boys would defend to the death me, a wife, their children and those who cannot fight for themselves. My 27 year old stands for NO prejudice and that means a lot living in Georgia. My 9 year old will quickly find an adult if someone if picking on a weaker child at church or on a playground.

That being said, my two grown boys can cook, clean, sew (mend), iron, take care of a child (better than a wife in one of their families) and yet are still baseball, football, white water rafting men. Our only daughter can cut the grass, change her oil, repair a toilet, paint, wallpaper, etc., and is more of a man than the mama's boy she married, as well as being very tiny and feminine.

I think Dobson, and I'll quickly admit I only read portions of his Raising Boys book off the internet, is off base with his idea of how to make a boy a man.

I also disagree with the teaching of mutual submission. My husband is head of our household and will ask my thoughts on things but the final decision is his, as scripture dictates. It's worked very well for us, going on 34 years.

Diane

 

PinoyBaptist said: but by and large, we still raise our boys with the belt, the fist, and by example

There's no excuse for hitting. Never see Jesus busting someones nose and He even told Peter that those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

Diane

 

Diane Tav---you are my sister! Thank you for your testamony!

Brother David

PS---Dobson's book is an awesome one---probably the best one he's written. Fortunetely my dad brought me, a brother and sister up long before Dobson made his debut! It was my dad and mom who led me to a saving knowledge of Jesus---I want my dad and mom to introduce me---in a formal, physical way to Jesus one day! I can picture it now

"Jesus! This is our boy, David!"

 

Diane:

We use the belt when the boys are too young for the fist, the fist when he's too old for the belt (do you tell a 14 year old boy who's got hair all over to bend over ?) and example all the way.

And besides, I'm talking from a general perspective, not just a Christian one. The article wasn't simply addressing Christians. It was addressing all kinds of people, including people like you, who would spare the rod, which the Bible says we shouldn't do.

That's the way they do it in Southeast Asia, with the rod, or with the hand, either way, the child learns discipline.

And using the fist does not necessarily mean 'busting a nose'. When a boy knows he's going to get hit, and that his parents do not merely threaten, one doesn't really have to use his fist.

The problem is when a youngster tests his parents, and all the parent does is huff and puff and beat his chest.

 

Another book worth reading on this subject matter (raising boys to be what God created them to be) is John Eldredge's Wild at Heart.