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Ben MarquezDirector of Discipleship

bmarquez@eastminster.org316.737.6383

Last Week: The Primacy of Discipleship in the Home

The instrumentalities of the family are chosen and ordained of God as the most efficient of all means of grace—more truly and efficaciously means of saving grace than all the other ordinances of the church.

Robert L. Dabney, Presbyterian Theologian & Pastor (1820-1898)

Last Week: The Primacy of Discipleship in the Home

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6 ESV)

The home is the place where the heart and mind of a child is developed and trained for better or worse.

Last Week: The Primacy of Discipleship in the Home

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6 ESV)

The home is the place where the heart and mind of a child is developed and trained for better or worse.

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

If we are ever going to have families that honor and obey God, we have to master this point: As husbands and fathers our central task, our central garden that

we are called to till and dress, is our family.

R.C. Sproul Jr.Bound for Glory

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

Father Factor

63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.

90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.

85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Center for Disease Control)

80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average.  (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)

71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average.  (National Principals Association Report)

Father Factor in Drug and Alcohol Abuse

Researchers at Columbia University found:

Children living in two-parent household with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink, or use drugs compared to all teens in two-parent households.

Teens in single mother households are at a 30% higher risk than those in two-parent households.

Father Factor and Daughters

Daughters of single parents without a Father involved are:

53% more likely to marry as teenagers.

711% more likely to have children as teenagers.

92% more likely to get divorced themselves.

Father Factor and Incarceration

70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average.  (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 1988)

85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Fulton Co. Georgia, Texas Dept. of Correction)

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

At the very beginning of the creation of our world, God proclaimed that it is not good for man to be alone, and through Adam He instituted the family as the center of

human community. Throughout the historical transitions of a variety of cultures, the family existed

as a natural society that provided the soul of each nation and that was to be nourished and protected

through fatherhood.But what is fatherhood? Certainly there is more to true

paternity than merely breeding offspring. Author Clayton Barbeau does a good job of defining the

essence of fatherhood when he writes, “The notion of responsibility is at the crux of true fatherhood. The

conscious sense of responsibility for the physical and spiritual well-being of others is the mark of a true

father.” (p. 384)

RECOVERING BIBLICAL MANHOOD AND WOMANHOODEdited by John Piper & Wayne Grudem

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

5When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for

the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7then the Lord God

formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the

man became a living creature.

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

Fathers, you especially are to be ministers in your own houses. Your home is a little church, a little

seminary, in which together with your wife, you are to serve as an instructing prophet, an interceding priest, and a guiding king. You must teach your children God’s truth, addressing the mind, the

conscience, the heart, and the will. That means you must teach your children Bible stories and Bible doctrines, and you must apply those stories and

doctrines to their daily lives for their proper development—spiritually, morally, socially,

emotionally, and physically.

Joel Beeke Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children

Week 8: The Father's Role in DiscipleshipGalatians 5:25-6:4

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27so that he might present the

church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28In the same way husbands

should love their wives as their own bodies.

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,

30because we are members of his body.

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

31“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall

become one flesh.” 32This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

33However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her

husband.

Week 8: The Father's Role in Discipleship

6Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2“Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3“that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and

instruction of the Lord.