Many years ago, a boy got into a terrible argument with his father. The father lost his temper and slapped the boy across the face. The boy ran out of the house and climbed up on some rocks above a lake. He said he was going to drown himself. Everyone knew he meant it. The father ran after him, still screaming. All the family and half the town became involved. Finally, they got the boy to come back home, but awful bitterness remained between the father and the son. The bitter son grew into a gruff man. He reached a point where he was considered one of the most dangerous men in the world. His name was Mao Tse-tung, the former Communist leader of Red China.
God calls Christian fathers to be different than what we see in the father of Mao Tse-tung. Ephesians 6:4 teaches, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Although Timothy’s father is not mentioned in Scripture as a person of faith, we do see Timothy was born, reared and instructed with the faith of his grandmother and mother, which became his faith, too (2 Timothy 1:5; 3:15). Christian faith made a difference in Timothy’s life, and we know him as a young man trained by the apostle Paul to be a great evangelist in the early church (2 Timothy 4:5).
What could have been if Mao Tse-tung’s father had raised him the way Timothy was raised, in the Lord? It may be too late for Mao Tse-tung, but it is not too late for us to influence our children in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. May we raise our children in the way Timothy was raised!
