Children in the Home
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Summary
In this episode, Dale and Veronica talk about the importance of a Christian home and how to cultivate a home that is a place where children are nurtured and cared for by God. They also discuss the effect of a father's work schedule on children, especially those with jobs that require them to be gone often.
Transcript
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Welcome to our home. My name is Dale Partridge, and I'm here with my lovely wife, Veronica.
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Our hope is to help you cultivate a glorious Christian home.
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This episode is titled Children in the Home, and if you're new here, each episode is broken
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into two parts. Part one is available for free on every podcast platform. Part two is only
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available in the relearn app if you're not familiar with the relearn app it is a library
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filled with theological content for the christian life for your spouse for you for your family for
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your children it is such a wonderful resource we have been building over there filled with
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hundreds of audiobooks that we're adding sometimes even two a day audiobooks ebooks videos all types
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of things for just a small monthly fee that supports our ministry. I often communicate
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to people recently just because they're asking me what the relearn app is. And basically what
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we're doing is we're taking great Christian content from previous generations from the 1600s,
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1800s, early 1900s. It's public domain content. What we're doing is we are mining out these gems
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of theological gold are really helpful reminders
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we're bridging it, and we're professionally recording them,
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including all of my books are available in there
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If you go to relearn.org forward slash app, you can look at the entire library of content.
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You can also find the welcome home section to listen to all of the part two sections
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In part one today, we're going to be discussing what raising children in a Christian home
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with a focus on how to have a heavenly home or how to have a heavenly perspective on home.
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in part two we're going to be talking about kind of a related topic but i think it's very important
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to discuss the title of that will be the effect of a father's travel schedule on children and
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that'll be around dads who have jobs that require them to be gone often and this is going to be a
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very important conversation we've dealt with this much in our ministry and i think it'll be very
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helpful for those that are dealing with that problem and how to overcome that so let's open
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up with part one children in the home and i'm going to start and veronica you pipe in when you
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want to one of my favorite historical prayers is from a book called the valley of vision which is
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a collection of puritan prayers and the prayer that i'm going to read to you today is a prayer
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for the home. And it has a particular line in this prayer that I want to discuss, but I'm going to
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just read a part of the prayer. It says, Oh God, I cannot endure to see the destruction of my own
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children. Let those who are united to me in tender ties be precious in thy sight and devoted to thy
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glory. Sanctify and prosper my domestic devotion, instruction, discipline, example, that my house
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don't you wish you wrote prayers like that yes definitely anytime i hear a puritan prayer i'm like
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man i got a lot of work to do yeah just a real deep devotion the phrase i want to focus on is
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that my house may be a nursery for heaven the imagery here is this sacred place that we get
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to build where children are nurtured not only in earthly matters like sports and skateboarding
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if you're at our house uh but also spiritual truths right where the seeds of faith are sown
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they're cultivated with like a real intentionality and tender care um it's an atmosphere where mom
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and dad, you know, by God's grace, we're infusing the home with holiness and a vision, not just
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for the present, but for the future state for heaven. Um, it's a work of kind of weaving
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the gospel into the fabric of our lives in every possible way. And, you know, we do this
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through other episodes that we've talked about, you know, regular prayer and devotion and
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scripture reading and you're doing um scripture memorization right now with the kids musical
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praise we've done scripture memorization we've also done like the apostles creed things like
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that other you know um documents or prayers of saints past um we've done memory work for those
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things those things as well so yeah we're constantly figuring out ways to weave it together
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but i want to talk really about just this overall if we're going to use a new age term aura
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of don't worry we're not new age over here but that term has been hijacked by the new agers but
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it's it's a good word of just kind of the overall vibe right uh healing feeling atmosphere atmosphere
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that's a little better we want to give them a foretaste of the kingdom of god the order of the
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the kingdom the holiness the submission to the kingship of christ um you know in every possible
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way i mean we have it's funny our church has these signs called that say christ is king and we have
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it their yard signs and so we have them in front of our house um there's actually lots of our
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neighbors that have them in front of their house now but our kids just see that it's a small thing
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but they see that christ is king and and what are you gonna say you're smiling i'm just laughing
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because um we in our neighborhood we have several people that go to our church that also live in our
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neighborhood and so sometimes in the evenings after dinner we'll meet up with somebody just
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hang out with them for like an hour or two and then come home and so in arizona it's not against
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the law for your for people to sit in the bed of the truck and so if the weather's nice we'll just
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let the kids go on the bed of the truck while we drive you know one street over to go to our
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friend's house and i remember one time we were driving home and um honor he's he just turned
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eight a couple of days ago but this is you know almost a year ago uh he was sitting in the back
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of the truck and i turn onto our street and i just hear him go christ is king like super loud
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multiple times i've done i've done that too yeah both boys have done that basically
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they're yelling the neighbors you know christ is king christ is king i'll get out of the truck he's
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like mom mom did you hear me like at the first time actually i heard him yell something that
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i didn't know what he yelled yeah i was like no what was that and he goes i just yelled christ
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is king to everybody he's like i yelled christ is king to that halloween house oh yeah i remember
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that i said all the halloween decorations um so i want to talk kind of again high level here
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and i want to discuss covenant children thinking about children covenantally i think this is kind
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of a big shift for us when we first met with doug wilson um in moscow like five six years ago
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yeah it was a long time ago he has a quote that says hard legalism is never attractive
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panicked insecurity is not attractive either what you need to do is have a seat on the couch
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And it's a fun, it's a little bit of a tongue in cheek,
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but it's a fun way to essentially let your kids know
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we will we will serve the lord and you are part of the household part of the household so when you
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when you become a citizen at in another country let's just say that veronica and i went to brazil
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and we got brazilian citizenship uh well our children would be nationalized with us
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like our young children would be nationalized with us
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um and so the same is true is that when you are baptized into the covenant um your children are
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are nationalized with you that is the historical reality it's why um you're gonna if you're feeling
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this right you should be thinking about infant baptism and the whole discussion around the
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presbyterian belief of that and why that works together with this kind of thinking
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i actually did a sermon probably five months ago now four months ago now called a biblical defense
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for infant baptism now i've been a baptist my whole life so how many years did it take me do
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you feel like studying yeah infant baptism yeah i feel like you were studying that probably
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six years ago or so six seven years ago yeah and do you remember coming in the house going like
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flip-flopping back and forth just like yeah i think i see it and then no no we're baptists
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we're baptists and yep yep yeah and so i mean you'd go through several spurts of studying so
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you'd study and then you'd be like nope still baptist and then you know a year or two later
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you would delve back into that and nope still baptist um but you're definitely wrestling with
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that for a long time yeah i remember actually during seminary i had to read all these presbyterian
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writings so like jonathan edwards and martin lloyd jones and rc sprawl and um thomas watson
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and all the puritans and calvin and and i'm like all these guys baptize infants like what what do
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they know that i don't know and it's this covenantal thinking and uh so if you want to
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listen to my sermon a biblical defense for infant baptism would be helpful probably with this
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discussion today you can listen to on the kingsway sermons podcast it's also in the app
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it's available in the app for you to listen to it's a three-part series but the more i study it
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the more i'm convinced that that is the biblical position um but thinking covenantally is key
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because it's believing that your children are actually going to be christian in the sense of
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being born again but also believing that they are christian in the sense of how like an israelite
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parent would think about their child they're they're a jew they're an israelite like uh they're
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part of god's people um they would never think individually like why wouldn't they be they're my
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children yeah they're they're not the children of the hindu family that worships the hindu gods
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no my children if you were an israelite pre in the old covenant you would go my children uh we
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worship the, you know, the one true God and yes, children, you're going to worship the one true
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God too. It wasn't like thinking of us as independent autonomous entities like we do in
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America. You know, it was thinking very corporately or familial structure. You know, I think about
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Abraham, the promise to Abraham that all the families of the earth will be blessed in his
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seed. God saves family and family lines. So the way that God saves people is that he saves a person
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and he grafts that person into the, the, the tree of life, or, you know, if you want to use these
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imagery and to the vine, right. And we are, uh, to, to marry within, um, the church, right. So
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we're only to marry other believers according to scripture. And so we have a, we have now created
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a family that births out children that are a part of that family line. And we don't need to treat
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them as independent entities. Like you make your own decision. You got to come to the Lord on your
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own. This is you, this kind of sense of independent, autonomous individualization that we have in the
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church. We expect our kids to be Christians because God gave them to us. He didn't give
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honor and valor and aria and deacon to the atheist family or the hindu family or the muslim family
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he gave them to us and for us to steward yeah us to nurture and train them up in the nurture
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and admonition of the lord um yeah it's it's really awesome when you view it that way because
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it's one it's really humbling it's such an honor but it also makes you want to
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truly invest your time and resources well into your children so i think about this as like
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we think about the doctrine of unconditional election it's not random election god's not
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like randomly electing people like i'll save this guy and then that guy over there no god actually
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intends to save down family lines it's really beautiful if you've seen this in a family
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where you have you know mom and dad are christian grandma and grandpa are christian all the children
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are christian um their children are christian um great great grandchildren are christian that's
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a beautiful thing now i'm not saying that god promises that every single child will be saved
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i i think if you go out and look at a tree and you look at a branch
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the normative reality of a branch that is healthy and into the trunk of that tree is that it grows
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produces leaves and fruits on that branch now if you look at any branch you're going to see
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a couple dead twigs and a couple dead leaves and you're going to see that but the normative
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reality is that you're seeing fruitfulness and if we as parents are faithful um we should expect
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this is the what i would call the doctrine of expectant redemption we should expect we should
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not doubt that god intends to save our kids we i don't doubt that he's going to save all of our
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kids i i think that all of our kids are saved we don't know what deacon deacon small right
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but like i don't i don't have any doubt that that god's going to save deacon because
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the means of coming to christ is the gospel and we preach the gospel
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all day every day in our home and our older three understand it and can communicate it as well
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yeah and and they're they're demonstrating fruit and conviction and their own childlike way
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and so there's a lot there and it's worth a study and we can't talk about it all here but I want to
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talk about the difference between covenant nurture and evangelism and I think covenant nurture
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goes with this nursery for heaven so if you're if you're doing a nursery for heaven it means that
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you expect your kids to go there right um you know covenant so we we think about this as
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we want to evangelize our kids and it doesn't mean that we don't share the gospel to our kids
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but i don't think i'm sharing the gospel to my kid that's an outsider of the covenant
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that like he that the chances of him coming to christ are the same chances of the hindu boy
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coming to christ i don't think that i think that i expect god to save my kid and that i'm going to
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communicate the gospel and i'm going to nurture him in a gospel home and they need to be gospel
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fluent though in order to share the gospel with others yes they grow older so it's it's a subtle
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shift from raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, because they're your
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kids and you're Christian, then thinking of them as pagan outsiders that need to be evangelized
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the same way that the guy on the corner does. And I don't think anybody in their home actually
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acts like that but i think there's a mentality there um that shifts now i'll say this for this
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reason why when when a five-year-old or a six-year-old comes to you and and can communicate
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the gospel because you've catechized them you've raised raised them in christ um and they they the
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parents like i don't think we should baptize this this kid this is just a wrong perspective on
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baptism but i'll just play a baptist role for a second they they i don't think we should baptize
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this this kid and you remember we were doing that too i think i struggled with it more than you did
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yeah because i would be like are you sure they just did this yeah so so exactly so yeah veronica
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was now like looking back i could see it a little bit more clearly but we were still like you know
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new to pedo baptism or covenant theology yeah covenant theology and so it was i was still
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trying to grasp it all and in a little bit of legalism because because veronica was like are
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And I'm like, but you just sinned today too, right?
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and communicates the gospel and asked to be baptized,
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okay well we'll see we'll see yeah we'll see are you sure we'll see we'll give it
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some time to see if you can basically prove yourself what does that do to a
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child I think it makes them have doubt it makes them question themselves what am I
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I mean I do love the Lord I think I do but maybe I don't it's yeah it's your
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lane also like if you're basing it off of their actions it almost makes them
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become little legalists it does yeah veronica's like having her mind open right now just realizing
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that she was a little bit of a legalist i was too don't worry hey um never mind i'm gonna get into
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that um yeah but it's just uh it makes them a little legalist because it makes it all about
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rule following and performing making sure they're checking all the boxes um not about faith it's
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and again, there's an element of this where you're like,
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We expect like 22-year-old fruit from our seven-year-olds.
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Is it like, no, you want fruit that's appropriate
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it would be better for him to have a millstone fastened around his neck and
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I'm not saying that that's what people are doing.
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I'm just saying is that God cares about his little ones.
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And now the word, the context here, Matthew 18,
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six is little ones is talking about anyone who's new in the faith,
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They just actually also happen to be little. Yes.
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um and so how do we how do we take that consideration in in the home that your child
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is so so let's just use deacon as an example okay so deacon's been baptized and he's he's seven
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months seven months old he was baptized and he was probably three or four months old yeah and he
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He is, you know, the way that a Presbyterian or a Reformed person would view baptism is that
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baptism is not my testimony to the world that I'm saved.
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you know jesus is baptized and the father testifies to the world who jesus is so we've
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made baptism about ourselves um you know we have these these shirts that say i have decided and
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it's all about me instead of god saved me or whatever but it's it's not my testimony it's
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kind of like um when a farmer puts a brand on a cow and it says like that one's mine
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um we're applying the sign and seal of the covenant it's covenant entrance the lord's
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supper is covenant renewal or covenant sustenance but it's covenant entrance and um we are you know
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again you might be thinking what does this change god's sovereignty over their salvation of course
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not god will work despite our faithfulness but um we get to actually remind deacon that hey you're
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a christian child born in a christian home you you've been baptized you're part of god's covenant
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people um you're holy and set apart according to first corinthians chapter seven um and so
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what's, what are some ways that we have done that?
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And what are some ways for families to do that, to start,
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start thinking about them as little Christians,
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like little people that are actually Christians covenantally a part of the
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Just the first thing that I can think of off the top of my head is,
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is when they do sin and there does have to be a conversation and a
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consequence is being able to relate to them i feel like when we were um more in the legalist mindset
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it was just you know discipline and law it wasn't a lot of grace and understanding it was like be
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better like me yeah exactly and it wasn't a lot of grace and understanding being like hey
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i know what it's like to i don't know want to hit your brother or whatever it is yeah we've
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got a bunch of boys well three boys um but two our two boys are only 17 months apart so they're
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very close um and so just meeting them where they are and just like i i know what it's what it feels
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like to want to hit my sibling i used to want to do that too you know what i'm an adult woman and
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sometimes i want to hit people too but i but i don't yeah you're self-control so i think for
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for us it's also just you know yes sharing the law but also bringing in the grace as well
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i've even heard christian baptist parents an author who teaches at midwestern seminary his
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name's donald whitney something along the lines he said like and actually likes most of his stuff
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but he said something along the lines of like don't teach your kids to pray because until
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they're saved god doesn't hear them and so or i've also met with a gentleman who wrote a couple books
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for nine marks um and he said i i just don't let people get baptized until they're 18 because i
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want to see their fruit and it becomes this like so it this again this performance based well it
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takes away the let the little children come to me it takes away the pray like this our father who
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art in heaven hallowed be thy name yeah like it it removes those passages of scripture yeah and
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it's it creates just this weird culture of performance performance you know i like doug's
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opinion he said something doug wilson he said um christianity imagine christianity was a nightclub
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and the baptists are bouncers at the door they are people saying show me your credentials before
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you can come in um presbyterians are the nightclub where you anybody can come in
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but if you prove that you're not meant to be here we'll kick you out which is exactly
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how israel functioned if you were born of an israelite family you were an israelite
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you would partake in the passover and you would partake in the sacrificial realities
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of the feasts and all those things that were going on but if you proved apostate
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to the covenant you would be removed and so i think just the big thing is that just treating
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our kids like they're christian all the time from early early age has been probably the biggest shift
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for us right i mean yeah i mean it's i think it's still something that i'm trying to i have to be
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aware of and do you ever worry that our kids aren't going to be saved i mean i have a flesh
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there are days where i where i do but then i'm reminded you know it's what's the title of doug
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and nancy's book standing on the promises oh yeah like i have to remind myself to stand on the
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promises yeah scripture and trust that the lord will bless our faithfulness and save our children
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yeah and that he just again he god loves to save families um just look at any faithful family and
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look at their children and look at their grandchildren well and it also helps when
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i look at the faithfulness in our own family like what god has done in our family yeah um
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in little things and big things saving our son's life on multiple occasions it's like yeah you know
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god has a plan for our son's life and he could have ended it on multiple times yeah we were
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just on a podcast with uh katie and elisha katie elisha of oberg and their families are really
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great examples of this right they're multi-generational yes faithful and you're just
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like yeah like you shouldn't be shocked that if you plant a tree and you take care of it
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that it will produce good fruit and that's just what multi-generational faithfulness does
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and raising your children in the nurture and admonition of the lord um yeah that's probably
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another reason why my flesh can struggle with it sometimes is just we're first generation
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we're kind of paving the way and lord willing he will bless it and bring up our children and
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our grandchildren behind them and our great grandchildren so that's that's uh you know
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what we're aiming for and by god's grace and um he can equip us with what we need to
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train our children well so the question you should ask yourself is how are you treating your children
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are you treating your children with covenant nurture are you treating them like little
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christians are you treating like them like they are in the covenant of the church or on the outside
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not citizens of god's people but waiting for their credentials to come to be before you allow them in
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are you having a nursery for heaven because you actually believe that your family is going there
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and that your children are coming with do you have an expectant redemption doctrine that you can rest
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and you expect that your children will be saved
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because he gave them to you who loves the Lord.
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So all important questions to discuss in your home
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them. We'll close it up right there. Thank you guys for joining us for listening to this part
00:29:49.580
one. We hope that this content will help you build a glorious Christian home. In part two,
00:29:55.700
we are going to be talking about the effects of a father's travel schedule on children. It's a very
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important discussion for many families. And I hope that you'll join us there. You can do that by
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going to the relearn app relearn.org forward slash app and you can sign up online and then
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download the app for google or apple and log in and you will be able to see the welcome home
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section on the listen tab and join us there so thanks for joining us in our home my name is
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dale partridge i'm veronio partridge and we'll see you guys next week