19/12/2019
What the Bible teaches about Children
“Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord. … As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. …” (Ps. 127:3–5.)
The Lord commanded Adam and Eve to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” with their children (Gen. 1:28), with the promise that they would find joy in their posterity.
However, he has always required that parents do more for their children than simply beget them. Parents are expected and even commanded to teach their children the gospel of Jesus Christ and to help them learn how to apply it to the events and circumstances of life.
This major facet of parenthood was highlighted by King Benjamin when he admonished his people:
“And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another. …
“But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; … to love one another, and to serve one another.” (Mosiah 4:14–15.)
And the Proverbs tell us that the “rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.” (Prov. 29: 15.)
In writing to Timothy, Paul outlined the qualifications of a bishop, qualifications that apply to all fathers. He wrote that a bishop should be “one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity: (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?)” (1 Tim. 3:4–5.)
To the Latter-day Saints the Lord has said: “… inasmuch as parents have children … that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin shall be upon the heads of the parents. … And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.”
