Read 2 Timothy 2:1–10

New parents who bring their first child home from the hospital often feel overwhelmed. The nurses are gone. We can no longer ask them to take the child away so we can rest. The responsibility is on our shoulders now. But mercifully we are not as clueless as we might think. In a way, our whole lives have prepared us for this moment. From watching others, we’ve absorbed more parenting skills and knowledge than we knew.

The responsibility of spiritual parenting operates the same way. It is a skill learned through modeling. We will train others the way that we ourselves have been trained. Some of this training is conveyed by means of church services, classes, and Bible studies. One responsibility of church leadership is to pass on biblical truth to the rising generation (see 1 Tim. 3:2). But spiritual parenting is also informal. We might say it is caught rather than taught.

Both dimensions are essential. Formal teaching puts into words those truths that are essential to the faith and which guide our behavior. As the Westminster Confession puts it, everything that is necessary for God’s glory, man’s salvation, faith and life is either expressly set down or may be deduced from Scripture. Spiritual parenting expresses those same truths by how we live (see 1 Cor. 4:17; 2 Tim. 3:10). The primary way we learn from this kind of modeling is through imitation (Heb. 13:7), which is unsurprising—imitation is the way all children learn!

Sharing the gospel is the first step to spiritual parenting. After that comes instruction and modeling. Study the Bible so that you will know what to say. Study yourself so that you will mirror what you say in the way that you live.

APPLY THE WORD

The key word in spiritual parenting is watch. Watch yourself—because someone is watching you. And ultimately, we should be watching Christ as the true pattern for faith and obedience. Ask God to grant you the grace to be a wise and godly spiritual parent to those who are watching you.

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