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And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring
them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. |
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| Primitive Baptist |
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Family Worship |
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I confess to
having been negligent for the first several years of my married life
in keeping family devotions. I have known families who were
consistent in this practice and felt for a long time that I need to
do so as well. Establishing a time and method to conduct our family
devotions has not been easy. I often have to travel with my work
and establishing a routine has been difficult. It was not until the
summer of 2005 that I finally became convinced of its absolute
necessity. Besides the example of others I was also convicted by a
Question and Answer from the minutes of the 1808 Association of
Mississippi Baptists found in Griffin’s History of Mississippi
Primitive Baptists, pg 71. Query. – What shall be done with members of our society who live in the constant neglect of family worship? Answer. – We recommend to the heads of families in our connexion [sic], to keep up family worship, as a Christian duty, and where they do not, that Gospel steps be taken, in order that they may be reclaimed. Griffin notes, “This is the only instance in forty-odd years that the subject is named.” Griffin’s History was a defense against the New School Baptists promotion of Sunday Schools as a means to save Children. Griffin indicates that family worship was so universally practiced that it hardly bore mentioning. It’s widespread practice is evident from the assumption that is made both in the question and in the answer that heads of families would lead them in private worship and that “Gospel steps be taken, in order that they may be reclaimed”. That Primitive Baptists were not against the education of their children in spiritual matters as can be seen in this extract from the Black Rock Address in 1832. “The Scriptures enjoin upon parents to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; but this, instead of countenancing, forbids the idea of parents entrusting the religious education of their children to giddy, unregenerated young persons, who know no better than to build them up in the belief that they are learning the religion of Christ, and to confirm them in their natural notions of their own goodness.” While “giddy, unregenerated young persons” engaged in teaching Sunday School lessons “may” be an exaggeration, the fact that Sunday Schools build children up in the “belief that they are learning the religion of Christ” and “confirm them in their natural notions of their own goodness” is not. We must realize that we can not be everything we desire to be if we continue to allow our children to be far more influenced by an ungodly world through the public schools and Hollywood media and expect our churches to grow in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It is imperative that fathers take the time to read the Bible to their families and personally instruct their wives and children the other six days of the week besides Sundays. Elder James Taylor |
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10/1/2006
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