A father’s relationship with his children is the most important relationship in life. It is no exaggeration to say that everything else hinges on this relationship: not only the welfare of the children themselves, but the general well-being of the family, the health of the church, the welfare of civil society, the strength of the economy, the moral climate of the civilization, the prosperity of the Kingdom of God in history, the future of the world. Everything depends upon what is happening between fathers and their children in their homes. Such is the central place of the family in God’s plan, and such is the pivotal role of fathers in that foundational institution.

We know this is so simply by applying common sense to the matter. The home is the original society in which each person is placed by God at birth. It is, for better or worse, the place where people are shaped: their intellect, their values, their character, their aspirations. All that a person later becomes depends upon the factors that forged him in his youth, and the home is the primary shaper of young human beings.

Over the family stands the parents. And of the parents, it is the father who has the calling, the temperament, and the position to be the primary molder of the family. He may abdicate his role or do a poor job, but that, too, shapes the family. There is no escaping his influence—for better or worse. The central role of fathers in the foundational institution of the family is simply an inescapable fact of life.

However, we also have God’s word on it. One of the most surprising findings when one studies Scripture concerning fathers, their roles, and their influence, is the prominent place given to them in connection with the progress of the God’s saving plan in Christ, the Kingdom of God. The crucial part played by fathers is highlighted at the very close of the Old Testament and the very opening of the New.

The prophet Malachi, the last mouthpiece of God to speak in the Old Testament era, ended his oracle with a forward look toward the "Day of the Lord." After calling for the people of God to "remember the law" of God given through Moses (Mal. 4:4) and thus continue the life of holiness that marks them as His people, the Lord then speaks of his plan to send "the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes" (v. 5). This is followed by the very last words God’s people would hear from Him for over four centuries: "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse" (v. 6).

Preparatory to sending his Messiah, God would send one who would be empowered with same measure of the Spirit as the greatest prophet Israel had ever known. And what would be the definition of his mission? How did God characterize this, the highest calling of any prophet, the assignment preparatory for Messiah’s appearance? He will turn the hearts of fathers and children toward each other.

About 430 years later the Lord breaks His silence to announce the arrival of the prophet He had promised. The angel Gabriel appeared to the priest Zechariah to tell him of the coming birth of his son, John, who would be "the Elijah who was to come" (Matt. 11:14). Here is how the angel described his mission: "Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord" (Lk. 1:16,17).

This inaugural revelation of the New Testament age repeats the definition of the prophet’s assignment as a turning of fathers’ hearts toward their children. Like Malachi’s message, this one also stresses the need for holiness among God’s people: the disobedient will need to repent and turn to the wisdom of the righteous. And both these conditions, holiness of life and fathers being good fathers, are presented as vital elements of preparing God’s people for the Messiah. These conditions describe the kind of people who are ready, "prepared for the Lord" to be used in Messiah’s work on earth. Malachi had said the same thing in a negative way when he warned of God’s visiting the land with a curse. God’s people will either be fit and ready to serve His purposes—or they will come under His discipline.

Holiness of life we can understand. God cannot use corrupt instruments to perform His work. But what is so important about fathers and children? How does this condition rank as so vital to the success of God’s plan in Christ? What is so critical about fathers turning their hearts to their children?

The short answer would seem to be that the family is central to God’s plan to advance the gospel and kingdom of Jesus, and the turning of hearts is simply a way of describing a healthy family which is useful for God’s purposes. We will proceed in a bit to explore exactly what it means for fathers to turn their hearts to their children, but let’s first be sure we understand that families are the foundation of God’s redemptive plan for this world.

The home has always been the foundation and center of true faith in the world. God’s original fellowship with man was with a family unit in the Garden. God entered into covenants with men and their families (Noah and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). The Old Testament church, Israel, was one huge family. Families were prominent in the New Testament as whole families came to Christ and were baptized and as the church met in the homes of Christian families.

Throughout the ages the family has been the nursery of faith for each new generation, the primary place in which Christian discipleship has occurred. The future is shaped, generation by generation, in homes. Other institutions come and go, but the family remains a constant part of life in this world and of God’s plan for the ages. Even the New Testament church itself is modeled on the family and copies its patterns of life among its members.

The home is the primary arena for living out the Christian life. In it the experience of sin, hurt, reconciliation, and healing occur over and over. In it the ignorant are instructed, the rebellious disciplined, the repentant restored, the hungry fed, the naked clothed, the sick cared for. In it is exhibited the relationship of Christ and His bride, the church, in the relationship of husband and wife. The home is the place where proper roles and relationships are learned and practiced. The Christian home is a sanctuary, an oasis of holiness, sanity, and beauty in the midst of an evil, insane, and ugly world.

For God’s plan for families, and thus for His world, to proceed, He must get hold of fathers. Marriage and family commitments are the chief way men learn to redirect their natural energies to truly productive purposes. Someone has suggested that most men would be barbarians but for the domesticating influence of women and children. This may be essentially correct. Family duties mitigate against the natural tendency of men to pursue selfish ambitions and pleasures and to focus on merely temporal concerns. For the Christian man especially, the duties of family call him to higher, even eternal, concerns.

Here is a Bible quiz. Fill in the blanks. "Like a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a _____ who wanders from _____ home" (Prov. 27:8). If you guessed "woman" and "her" you are incorrect (though the thought is a true one). What the verse actually says is that a "man" who wanders from "his" home is like a bird who wanders from her nest. The nest of family is to be attended by both "the man of the house" and his wife. We have addressed before in these pages how a man is called to be home-centered, though in a much different way than his wife (see "Father, come Home… and Change the World!" in issue #20, Sep/Oct ’96).

The benefits of a man being home-centered goes beyond the welfare of the rest of his family. The rigors of family life also develop the man himself by providing a training ground, preparing him for his larger dominion tasks in this world. A man must prove his skills as a family shepherd before he is considered ready to become a shepherd of God’s sheep, an elder in the church (1 Tim. 3:5). Certainly the same prerequisite would apply to a role of leadership in civil government and other larger domains of responsibility.

So families are at the center of God’s plan, and fathers are crucial to the welfare of families. That, we recall, is why He is so interested in fathers turning their hearts to their children. Now we must proceed to discuss what is meant by the phrase "turn the heart." What does it mean for fathers to turn their hearts to their children? And how do we go about doing whatever it is God desires as expressed in these words?

Obviously our answer must begin with an understanding of "heart". In modern usage "heart" tends to connote primarily matters of the emotions or affections, and while that is a part of the biblical definition, it is not at all the whole picture.

The word "heart" in both Testaments generally refers to the whole of man’s soul and all of its faculties as they are focused together upon something, whether good or evil. It is this usage which is in view in Proverbs 4:23 when it says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." The heart is here viewed as the source from which the whole of a man’s life flows. Similarly, Jesus says, "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks" (Lk. 6:45; cf. Matt. 15:18; Rom. 10:10). This truth is why God repeatedly admonished His people to give Him their whole hearts (Deut. 6:5; Ps. 119:2; Jer. 29:13; Matt. 22:37). The heart is the person at his core, the seat of all his faculties.

Sometimes the word "heart" refers to a particular faculty considered as distinct: the mind, the affections, or the will. Most commonly it encompasses all of these. Jerry Bridges writes, "The mind as it reasons, discerns, and judges; the emotions as they like or dislike; the conscience as it determines and warns; and the will as it chooses or refuses—are all together called the heart" (The Pursuit of Holiness, p. 61).

We may conclude, then, that for a father to have his heart turned to his children he must be wholly oriented toward them, focusing his mind, will, and affections upon them. Such a man will use his mind to study God’s perspective on his children, to learn of God’s purpose for them, the means of their training, their needs. He will seek to understand his particular children so that he can apply God’s wisdom to their personal needs and circumstances. He will take responsibility before God by exercising his will to act on what he comes to understand concerning his children. He will set his affections upon them, cherishing them, expressing his love for them. In short, his children will be a top priority in his life; he will be absorbed in his God-given duties toward them.

So now we must ask, How specifically does a man make his children a top priority? In what particular ways is he to be absorbed in them? What exactly does it mean to turn his heart toward his children?

In Ephesians 6:4 we find the Bible’s most pointed and specific command addressed to fathers concerning their duty to the children God has given them: "And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." Two primary duties are presented in this verse. Taken in reverse order they are: godly training and a loving relationship. Let’s look at these in turn.

Godly Training

"The discipline and instruction of the Lord" encompasses a lot. We will not cover all the details of the Bible’s teaching on child training, but let’s summarize. To properly train a child a father must first deal with sin in his child in a biblical manner. He must discipline rebellion with the rod. "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him" (Prov. 22:15). "Folly" here is not just silliness (though that should be forbidden), it is willful disobedience. If a father does not use the rod for both active and passive rebellion (both overt acts of defiance and subtle evidences of a rebellious attitude), no other training will have much effect.

Training also includes positive direction and instruction. The scope of the curriculum here is great, covering character development, equipping in life skills, vocational training, preparation for future roles as father/husband and wife/mother and as churchmen and citizens.

Psalm 78:1-8 describes the process of fathers passing on a godly heritage through the generations. The two main components of that heritage, the content of a father’s teaching of his children, are these: the works of God and the Word of God. God’s mighty works include creation and redemption and His whole plan for history as it unfolds in fulfillment of His purpose. To study the works of God is thus to explore science, history, literature, art, music, language, etc.—all that He has made and all that He has done through history and culture. The Bible itself, of course, must also be at the center of a father’s teaching plan. It’s content, its doctrine, its application to every area of life—the Bible must be the foundation of all other learning.

The method the Bible prescribes for this discipline and instruction to take place is what we call discipleship. It is the pattern provided by Jesus as he apprenticed his disciples for over three years by simply being with them all the time so that he could be not only their teacher, but also a model of what he taught. This pattern is also suggested in the language of Deuteronomy 6 which says, "And these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up" (vv. 6,7).

How does the truth of God make its way from the heart of a father to the heart of his children? Through an intimate discipleship relationship, a relationship that continues at all times (from rising to lying down) and in all places (at home and along the way). This, by the way, could be called "home education". Those of us who have chosen homeschooling for our children have (perhaps inadvertently) hit on something very close to what the Bible presents as the way to provide godly training for the next generation.

Having mentioned the discipleship process which is essential to godly training we have already touched on the second duty of fathers, the second way in which they are to make their children a top priority, the second means by which they should turn their hearts to their children. Fathers must create a loving relationship with their children.

A Loving Relationship

Whenever the Bible gives us a negative command we should sit up and take special notice. "Thou shalt not"—so begin most of the Ten Commandments. It is sin to fail to obey the positive command to "love your neighbor," but it is worse to disobey the command "thou shalt not murder"!

Ephesians 6:4 presents a negative command for fathers: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger." To disobey this command brings devastating results. The parallel text in Colossians 3:21 does not include the positive words about providing training at all. It says simply, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart."

God has made children so that they are naturally inclined to respond to their fathers’ initiatives. Malachi mentioned fathers’ hearts being turned to the children and the response of children who would turn their hearts to their fathers. This is the natural order. If fathers treat their children right they will win their hearts; if not, the children may "lose heart" and their hearts may be lost to their fathers.

So how do fathers win the hearts of their children and avoid "exasperating" them? They do so by maintaining a loving relationship with them. Without this heart relationship, all the efforts at providing godly training can come to naught.

A loving relationship exhibits justice. There is no quicker way for a father to exasperate his children than to be inconsistent in his standards, unjust in his discipline, or to show favoritism. The God-fearing man of Psalm 112 is one "who conducts his affairs with justice" (v. 5). That is certainly also a description of a father. Jacob was unjust toward his sons, showing favoritism toward Joseph. This embittered the other sons, alienating their affections from their father, and led to their mistreatment of Joseph (Gen. 37:3,4ff.).

A loving relationship is also characterized by sacrifice and service. Jesus showed "the full extent of his love" for his disciples by washing their feet (John 13:1ff.). A father must wash the feet of his children. He must set aside his will in order to do what is best for them. He must sacrifice his desires, his comfort, his self-pleasing agenda in order to meet their needs. Such sacrifice may display itself in everything from taking the time to teach them himself, to giving up his plans for an evening in order to have family time, to yielding his desire for a new computer for his home office in favor of his children’s desire for a new camper for family trips. Children will become exasperated by a self-centered father who fails to yield his time and resources to serve his family.

A loving relationship is further characterized by demonstrations of compassion and tenderness. "Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him" (Ps. 103:13). Our heavenly Father has modeled the gentleness that is a manly virtue.

It is tempting for men who may not have a natural inclination to demonstrate tenderness to define their fatherly roles purely in terms of training, decision-making and such. But we must not miss the essential quality of demonstrated love and affection which are so necessary to reach the heart of a child. Observe what Paul wrote to those who were his children in the faith: "But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having thus a fond affection for you we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us" (1 Thess. 2:7,8).

Men have a lot to learn from women. We need to learn how to show tenderness and affection to our children. We need to impart not only training; we need to give a hefty measure of ourselves as well. Gentle touches and embraces, intense listening, consistent eye-contact—these are not feminine traits only. They are profoundly masculine. And we need to heap a generous dose of them upon our children. There is nothing more winsome than genuine compassion tenderly expressed. It is a key to winning the hearts of children. Imagine what it did for their relationship when the prodigal’s father "filled with compassion for him … ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him" (Lk. 15:20). (See also the accompanying selection from the autobiography of John Paton.)

A loving relationship, finally, is characterized by heartfelt encouragement. In the same passage from 1 Thessalonians we quoted above, Paul continues farther on, "… just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory" (2:11,12). The heart bond between men and their children is strengthened by the manly exercise of exhortation.

Hear the cry of the father in Proverbs: "Give me your heart, my son" (23:26). A godly father does not merely present truth and duty to his children; he appeals to them earnestly to believe and obey! He urges them. He encourages them. He entreats them. He lets his children see his own passion for the Lord and he invites them to share in that passion.

Jesus said in John 10:14, "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me." An effective leader has a transparent relationship with his followers in which his life is open to them and theirs to him. Family shepherds need to be open about their faith and their fears; they need to confess their sins. Their fear of God, their love for God, their trust in God must all be on display. They need to live the total Christian life in full view of their families.

All this assumes, of course, that the father himself has turned his own heart to the Lord so that he has a life that is a model for his family. The command of Deuteronomy 6 began: "And these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart…" (v.6). It is impossible to pass on to children a heart for the Lord and His Word if the father himself is not truly walking with God.

Fathers must be known by their little flock, but they also must know the condition of their flocks. Perhaps the most important characteristic of a loving father is that he makes it a point to understand what God is doing in the life of each of his children so that he can encourage that work of God. "A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding draws it out" (Prov. 20:5). The godly, loving father is attentive to his children, to their heart condition, their character, their walk with God. It takes a lot of understanding to discover what is in the heart of a child, but fathers must make it their business to know. Only then can they give the encouragement that will be most helpful to the child. (See the accompanying list of "X-ray Questions For the Heart" for some of the things to look for.)

The parent-child bond is one of the strongest relationships God has created, and He created it to assure the success of His great plan in history, namely, to create a people for Himself in Christ.

God said to Abraham, "I will… be your God and the God of your descendants after you" (Gen. 17:7). But how did God plan to pass the heritage of the true faith from generation to generation so that this promise could be fulfilled? The answer is in what the Lord Himself said about Abraham in the next chapter of Genesis: "For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him" (18:19). As Abraham fulfilled the assignment for which God chose him, as he turned his heart to his children in godly training and in a loving relationship, they would follow in his faith and the Lord would fulfill His promise to be the God of each succeeding generation.

You see, the concept that Malachi and Gabriel presented—the heart bond between fathers and their children—has been God’s plan from the start. It has always been God’s "secret weapon" for changing the world. And whenever men have faithfully employed it, they have seen good fruit.

It is just as the Lord promised in Proverbs 22:6: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Why? Because once a father’s heart is turned to his child and that child’s heart is turned to his father, there is no breaking the bond that is created! For that child to turn from his father and the faith of his father would be to destroy his own heart.

One of the saddest facts of history is that godly men lose their children to the devil. The book of Judges records one such time. The generation of Joshua had witnessed God’s miraculous hand in the defeat of their enemies as God gave them the Promised Land. But then we read this sad record: "After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then Israel did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt" (Jdg. 2:10-12). One generation has an experiential encounter with the living God and walks with Him; the next generation hears the stories but has no direct experience of God, so they lose their faith. Is there no remedy for this course of affairs?

According to Scripture there is, and it is nothing other than the heart bond between fathers and their children which we have been considering. This is what preserves a living faith in the living God. Each generation may not have the opportunity to witness the crossing of the Red Sea or the Jordan River on dry ground, but each generation has the opportunity to experience the living God in a way that will preserve their faith. As fathers open their hearts, love and train their children, walk with God openly before their families, urge their children to follow the Lord with them—then the children come to experience the God of their fathers, not as memory and story only, but as living reality in their own lives. The parent-child heart channel becomes the means for each generation to have an encounter with God that assures their continuance in the faith.

As children come to walk with God as they walk with their parents, they will create their own history of divine encounters. Sin confessed, God’s discipline received, forgiveness experienced, prayers answered, guidance gained from Scripture—all these create a personal history of God’s dealing with the child that assure the genuineness, depth, and perseverance of his faith. The faith of the fathers becomes the faith of the next generation… and so on.

When God has the hearts of fathers and children bound together He has the prerequisite He needs to spread the gospel and kingdom of Jesus through the generations. Such a family is "ready… prepared for the Lord" (Lk. 1:17). From this kind of family will come all that God needs to carry out His world-changing plan in Christ. Not only will the family itself multiply the number of godly people in the earth as time goes on, but each new generation of saints will provide leaders for the church, state, and every sphere of life in this world. "Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands. His children will be mighty in the land; each generation of the upright will be blessed" (Ps. 112:1,2).

A. E. Winship in 1900 made a study of the descendants of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards. It turns out Jonathan was not only effective as a preacher during the Great Awakening, he was also effective in populating with world with godly offspring. This one marriage produced, over the following 150 years: 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers, 30 judges, 66 physicians, 3 U. S. Senators, 3 mayors of large cities, 3 state governors, and a Vice President of the United States. Edwards’ descendants authored 135 books and edited 18 journals and periodicals. Scores entered the ministry and at least 100 served as missionaries overseas. Other descendants were leaders in industry and commerce (banking, insurance, mining, oil, etc.). And this is just the public fruit. More important is the unrecorded heritage of quiet faith and holy life that proliferated in hundreds of family units, and spread then to others under their influence. For all his other reasons for fame, Jonathan Edwards’ greatest work was his work as a father.

Do you see the potential for godly influence when just one man turns his heart to his children?! We must elevate our vision beyond just "surviving" the process of child raising. Our goal must be loftier than to have children who merely profess Christian faith in their adulthood. We must pass on this multi-generational vision of what God can do when fathers do their job in the home.

God’s plan is so simple, and yet so comprehensive! He puts the tools for shaping the world and advancing the kingdom of God into the hands of every man. The truly great men are the fathers. History books record those who gained notoriety through position, power, or wealth, but the true shapers of history are men in their humble houses, in their shops, in their fields, with their children by their sides. Each man is privileged by God to be the molder of the future in the form of the children God has given him.

Fathers, stop looking for greatness in your work, in what your hands and mind produce, in some passing status or prestige, in the wealth you can accumulate. Your true greatness is in the hearts of the children God has given you. There lies your potential for true greatness. There lies your greatest opportunity to bring glory to God.

So we end up where we began. A father’s relationship with his children is the most important relationship in life. The question is, What are you going to do about it?

We will end with a list of practical actions you can take to turn your heart to your children:

1. Confess your failures to your family. As you see ways you have failed to be a good father, confess them to your wife and children. Call your mistakes what they are: sin; and ask for forgiveness. Humble yourself, and God will do great things out of your brokenness. (Basic humility training.)

2. Ask for correction. Ask your wife and children to tell you your "blind spots", those areas where you need improvement as a father that you may not see. (Advanced humility training.)

3. Homeschool your children. How can you have the heart relationship God intends you to have with them if they are turning their hearts to their peers all day long in a classroom? How can you teach them the Word and works of God if you are not their teacher? How can your hearts be turned to each other if you are not together.

4. Have daily family worship. This provides a good opportunity to teach the children, to share your faith, to see their needs, to read their hearts, to pray for them, to let them see your passion for God.

5. Pray and work toward having a home business. This is not easy, but it is a worthy goal for any man. It makes the process of fathering so much easier when your work is home-centered, when you are more accessible to your family.

6. Chastise with the rod for rebellion. This includes every occurrence of disobedience, and every manifestation of passive rebellion (sighing, rolling the eyes, slow obedience, talking back, etc.).

7. Listen to your children. When they talk to you, stop and look at them. Ask questions. Show interest. Take the initiative to find out what is going on in their minds and hearts.

8. Show affection. The cliché about "hugging your kids today" is rooted in the truth that physical affection is a very powerful way to communicate love and facilitate openness. It opens the heart channels between people. Real men are not afraid to touch and to hug.

9. Verbalize blessing. This can be as simple as expressing genuine affirmation for a display of godly character. Or it can be more "formal", as when you lay your hands on a child and pray for him and speak your desire for God to bless him.

10. Pray for wisdom. The Lord knows you heart. If your desire is to turn your heart to your children, He will show you how to do that; this list is a just a start. Just get ready first to repent, then to experience a fresh surge of joy in your walk with God.