OF A CHRISTIAN HOME
by Kenneth Taylor
“ victims” of our emotional environment and of our strong and natural approval of whatever our parents believe. And so the child brought up in the Chris tian home is blessed beyond all others, since he often automatically adopts the Christian point of view, the truth. And that is why the Christian home is so important. It brings about an automatic favorable response to the gospel and the proper attitude in Christian living. The statistical results can be enormous. Canada, for instance, is now said to be Catholic for the major ity of its population. That was not so a few years ago, but is today because of the Catholic emphasis on large families and the Protestant emphasis on small ones; and thus year by year and generation by genera tion the proportion in the population grows in geo metric proportion. Or take India as another interesting example. To day there are probably less than 1% of the popula tion who are Roman Catholic. But if India widely adopts birth control—as has been done the last few years in Japan—the Roman Catholic population will continue to grow as fast as ever while the rest of the population slows down drastically. And within 250 years it would be possible only through the cradle, and apart from outside conversions, for the present Roman Catholic population in India to have grown to a majority of the population of India. Does that cast some light on the great importance of the Christian home in America? It seems to me that it certainly does. Our homes must continue to send out well-trained young people, and I believe in increasing numbers, to live for Jesus Christ. The average Christian parent in America probably nets more souls for the Lord in his home than he does in all of his lifetime in personal work outside the home.
How Are Christian Homes Failing? But here a warning must be sounded and a solemn caution given as to the reason why some Christian homes do not produce strong Christian lives in their young people. I think there are two main reasons. The first is that some of our Christian homes are not truly Christian. The name of Christ is honored in word but not in deed. Uncomfortable family relations make plain to the children that Christ is not real and as a result many a child has come to the place of mocking that holy Name. The solution here is of course that the parents themselves should decide to live for Christ rather than for themselves, and learn how to work out this decision in their everyday living before their children. The second reason concerns homes where the parents truly love Christ, but do not understand that children need negative guidance as well as positive, and need the stick as well as the carrot. A child’s dear little heart is a potential cesspool of damning ini quity. It is a garden where weeds spring up easily and where when quickly dealt with they can be quick ly destroyed. But a parent who neglects this God-given responsibility, pitying the child and sparing the rod, can build disaster into a child’s life before he is five years old. I feel that a major key to the solution of both of these problems lies in family togetherness, when the whole family can be together around the Word of God listening to the admonitions of the Scriptures and discussing together what they mean and how to put them into effect. Let us remember that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
NOVEMBER, 1960
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