I don’t know if it was the ice storm or the reality of what I was doing that made my hands shake as I drove home. For the first time in my life as I looked in my rear-view mirror I was met with a car seat. Strapped into this car seat was our little bundle of joy, Isaiah.
I kept looking in the mirror. Then the road. Then back in the mirror. Is he breathing okay? Is he too hot? Too cold? There was no reason to believe that this little guy wasn’t perfectly healthy but as a first time daddy I had no clue what I was doing. I vaguely knew how to change a diaper. I was still scared to death to hold the little guy for fear that I might break him. All of this not to mention the high calling of raising him to know the Lord.
I’d laughed at comedians in the past that made some lame joke about babies not coming with an instruction manual. I probably rested in some weak theological statement; something like this, “babies do come with a manual it’s called a Bible”.
Idiot.
Habakkuk doesn’t tell you how to change a diaper. Malachi doesn’t tell you what to do when your 6 month old is laughing and giggling as he’s bathing in a pool of yellow paint. Yellow paint that he somehow opened and spilled all over his floor.
Overwhelmed by my own ignorance I did what any nerd like me does—I scoured the web for the best Christian parenting books. And I bought as many of them as I could afford at the time. (So I likely bought a couple of free samples).
My wife and I poured over article upon article. Book upon book. We were met with rules upon rules. Occasional grace but mostly a list of things to do as a parent and things not to do. We learned about how to biblically discipline. How to shepherd our child’s heart. How to bring up a boy. How to talk to him. How to swaddle him. What not to do. What to do. 30 reasons why pacifiers are the devil incarnate. And 55 reasons why they aren’t.
Through all of this reading we developed a theology of parenting. And in that theology of parenting were several rules. If we broke these rules we were being bad parents. (For some reason, a couple of years later I found myself back on Amazon searching for books on grace for parents).
The Sufficiency of Scripture
Wayne Grudem defines this doctrine well when he says,
“The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains everything we need God to tell us for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly. (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 127)
One of the implications of this doctrine, as noted by Grudem, is that “nothing is sin that is not forbidden by Scripture either explicitly or by implication”.
That is really helpful for weary parents that have read many books giving advice that might be good and wise but it’s not necessarily explicitly or implicitly spoken of in Scripture.
What does the Bible say?
I don’t want to be guilty of simplism but there are many issues in parenting to which the Bible does not speak. I think the Bible says three overarching things to parents. First, disciple them with my life and my lips (Dt. 6 among other places). Second, Don’t be a heavy-handed jerk to them (Ephesians 6:4). Third, treat them as the Bible tells you to treat any other human being (with love, grace, and everything else that models Christ).
Maybe I’m not a terrible parent, in danger of the fires of hell, if my kids eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch instead of something twig flavored like Kashi. I agree with Kevin DeYoung when he says, “They will remember our character before they remember our exact rules regarding television and Twinkies”. (From Crazy Busy)
If I really believe in the sufficiency of Scripture then I’m going to chill out as a parent. I’m not going to beat myself up and feel guilty if I don’t do it by the book—unless of course that book is written by God Almighty. Everything else falls under the category of helpful advice. But only rebellion against Holy Writ ought to cause me to tremble. And it’d probably be best if I held other parents to the same standard.
