Marriage and Family / Parenting

  • Ministry to Grieving Parents Article by Nancy Guthrie

    FROM TABLETALK | August 2014 | Romans 8

    When we witness the anguish, the anger, the questions, the devastation that comes to families that experience the death of a child, we find ourselves desperate to figure out what we can do, what we can say, that will truly help. In the retreats my husband and I host for couples who have faced the death of a child, participants often talk about the ways people have “been there” for them in the midst of the worst pain they can imagine, as well as the ways people have added to their pain. If you could be a fly on the … View Resource

  • Teach Your Children Article by L. Michael Morales

    FROM TABLETALK | May 2013

    Bernard of Clairvaux, the twelfth-century doctor of the church who penned the hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” opens his devotional classic On Loving God with the following words: “You wish for me to tell you why and how God should be loved. My answer is that God himself is the reason why He is to be loved. As for how He is to be loved, there is to be no limit to that love.” Similarly, the Shema leads us from a contemplation of the being and essence of God to our response in loving Him. For this article, we … View Resource

  • Relevant, Old Paths Article by Burk Parsons

    FROM TABLETALK | March 2013

    My dad was fifty-two years old when I was born. When I was thirteen, he asked me if I was embarrassed that he was so much older than my friends’ dads. I told him I wasn’t embarrassed but that I respected him and learned more from him because he was older. He was born a few years after the end of World War I and fought in World War II. He had a newspaper route during the Great Depression, and he told me stories about real cowboys, bank robbers, and his father, who grew up at the turn of the … View Resource

  • Listening at Home Article by Tedd Tripp

    FROM TABLETALK | January 2013

    How well do you communicate? Most of us will answer in light of our ability to present our thoughts and ideas in cogent ways. But I would suggest that the finest art of communication in our family life is not expressing our ideas. It is understanding the thoughts and ideas of the other people in the family. This is a recurring theme of the book of Proverbs. “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion” (Prov. 18:2). The agenda of a fool in conversation is getting things off his chest. Even when he is not … View Resource

  • Hope for Prodigal Children Article by Burk Parsons

    FROM TABLETALK | December 2012

    As a pastor, I am often faced with the difficulty of counseling deeply saddened fathers and mothers with prodigal sons and daughters. Parents who enter my study for counsel and prayer are usually trying to come to grips with the harsh reality about a prodigal (lavishly wasteful) son or daughter. The child they have loved, prayed for, educated, nurtured, protected, and discipled has left everything to chase after the fleeting pleasures of the world, forsaking not only their father’s home but their father’s faith. There are likely many parents and grandparents reading this who have prodigal children or grandchildren, and … View Resource

  • Sinners in a Fishbowl Article by Barnabas Piper

    FROM TABLETALK | July 2012

    Being a pastor’s kid (PK) is the only life I know. I was born one, and though I am no longer a child, I am still a PK. The greatest advantages and blessings in my life are products or bi-products of being a PK. Those blessings are not what I am setting out to describe, however. I am out to set forth the unique struggles PKs face. Pastors’ kids have a reputation. We are the rebellious ones. We are the contrarians and the problem children. We are hell-raisers and hypocrites. Not all of us, mind you, but the shoe definitely … View Resource

  • Christian Parenting Article by Elyse Fitzpatrick

    FROM TABLETALK | March 2012

    Allie was having a rough night. She had already been disciplined once for slapping one of the pastor’s sons across the face, and she had just done it again, this time to his brother. Her mother was humiliated and frustrated. Allie was angry, ashamed, and hopeless as she sat in her room awaiting the consequences. When her mom went to speak with her, Allie cried, “I don’t deserve to be out there with my friends.” How would you have answered her? Practically every parent on the planet has had a conversation with a child about the impropriety of hitting others. … View Resource

  • A Child’s (Mis)understanding Article by Keith Mathison

    FROM TABLETALK | February 2012

    Like many, I have watched my fair share of films over the years, and the vast majority have been quite forgettable. There are a small number that I enjoyed enough to purchase in order to watch them again. But there are very, very few that were so powerful in one way or another that they have stayed with me years after seeing them. (I am still not sure I will ever forgive Walt Disney for the trauma inflicted by Old Yeller.) When I think about the films I’ve seen as an adult that have really stayed with me, three … View Resource

  • It Takes a Church to Raise a Child Article by Mark Bates

    FROM TABLETALK | March 2011

    I have often heard parents of college students lament that their children return home from school, drop off the laundry, and immediately go out with friends without spending any time with the family. I remember hearing that complaint and thinking, “My little girls will never do that.” After my daughter’s first semester in college, she came home, dropped off her laundry, and immediately went to see a friend. However, I wasn’t upset. I was thankful. The “friend” that my daughter went to see is the wife of an elder. That my daughter would want to spend time with this godly … View Resource

  • By Faith, Not Fear Article by Scotty Smith

    FROM TABLETALK | November 2010

    “Lions and tigers and bears, O my!” That’s not only one of the more memorable lines from cinematic history, it’s one of the more recognizable themes in contemporary discipleship. Sometimes fear of the enemies to our faith seems much more pronounced than faith in the object of our faith — the Lord Jesus Christ. View Resource

  • Evangelizing Our Children Article by E. Calvin Beisner

    FROM TABLETALK | January 2010

    God tells us to command our children to keep the way of the Lord (Gen. 18:19), which includes faith in Jesus Christ. We are to command our children to trust in Jesus for their salvation. We are to teach them the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother,” and its implication, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord” (Eph. 6:1). “Child, God tells you to obey me. I tell you, repent of your sins and trust in Christ.” View Resource

  • Future Hope Article by David Eby

    FROM TABLETALK | August 2009

    THE MISSION OF THE FATHER My wife Darlene and I became second-career missionaries to Uganda in 2006 after I pastored in the United States for thirty-four years. God had worked in us a heart for missions, and for Uganda in particular, over many years. The Lord entrusted to us five children who are now grown. What a thrill for us when, in 2007, God led our son Josh and his family to Peru as missionaries. How do parents raise children to become servants of Christ no matter what vocation He leads them to choose? Here are some thoughts from an … View Resource

  • Bedtime Stories Article by Douglas Kelly

    FROM TABLETALK | November 2008

    As a father of five children, and now a grandfather, I have spent three and a half decades seeking to pass down the Christian faith to the next generation. Let me deal with only one area of this vast work — one, I believe, that appears to have had some effectiveness in bringing up our little ones “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” so that now as adults they all confess Christ. I take for granted the general atmosphere in which Christians are to raise their children: faithful church attendance, some kind of daily family worship, love of … View Resource