If you are a parent, try this challenging exercise. Consider the last six months in your home. What would be the Top 10 commandments that your children have heard from your lips?
According to ChatGPT, here are some common commands that may have appeared on your list:
- “Clean your room.”
- “Do your homework.”
- “Get ready for bed.”
- “Brush your teeth.”
- “Turn off the TV / put away your phone.”
- “Come here.”
- “Say please and thank you.”
- “Stop fighting / be nice to your brother or sister.”
- “Hurry up.”
- “Eat your vegetables.”
Such lists as the one above may evoke a few chuckles or head nods from parents. From a utilitarian perspective, many commands that parents give their children throughout the day are practical in nature. Mom needs to have all her children put on their socks and shoes, get in the car, or they will be late to soccer practice. At the same time, Christian parents also know that they have a significant responsibility. God has given fathers and mothers the privilege of having the authority as “parent,” along with the responsibility of playing the primary role in the formation of their children. Fathers are called to “raise their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4). Children, in turn, are exhorted to forget not their parent’s teaching “but let your heart keep [their] commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you” (Prov 3:1–3).
Here are two principles that can help Christian parents reflect upon the most common commandments that define their home.
What We Command (and don’t command) Reveals our Values
In his book Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family, Paul David Tripp draws a critical insight from Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 6:19–34: “Everything you do and say in your life, every choice you make, and everything you decide to invest in is a reflection of a system of internalized values in your heart.”1 As Jesus says, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). In other words, each person—including each parent—has a system of values in their heart that informs their emotions, desires, commitments, as well as their parenting.
A simple yet revealing exercise is to reverse engineer what your commands and instructions reveal about your values as a parent. A mother’s command to a child to pick up their room reveals the importance of cleanliness and order. A father’s command to adopt proper speech to address superiors—using “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir”—communicates the importance of respecting others. A parent sending their child back into a store after swiping a candy bar reflects the principles of accountability and responsibility.
A cluster of commands communicates to a child a set of values—integrity, responsibility, order, accountability, and others. Parents seeking to understand their own parenting habits should reflect upon the long-term influence of their commands and instructions to their children using the following questions:
- “Which actions from my children evoke the greatest response from me as a parent?”
- “What picture of the ‘good life’ am I presenting to my children in my instructions and commands?”
- “Based upon my commands, what would my children say is most important to me in life?”
What We Command (and don’t command) is Accountable to God
Understanding your values as a parent is an excellent step in assessing the overall tenure of your parenting. Christians know that such periods of reflection are essential due to the stewardship we have before God regarding how we raise our children, including the content and manner of our commandments. As Christians, we understand that our children do not ultimately belong to us. Our children belong to God as their creator (Ps 134:13–18), and it is to him that they are ultimately responsible to obey (2 Cor 5:10). That is why, in Deuteronomy 6, God commands his people to teach his instructions and his commandments to their children (Deut 6:6–9).
If our “top 10 commandments”reveal our values as parents, we must also acknowledge that God has his own list of “10 commandments” that reveal his most important values for his people. As Scripture teaches, the Ten Commandments are a summary of one overarching value: Love. Paul writes in Romans 13:9–10, “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” The two-directional structure of God’s Law—love for God and love for neighbor (Matt 22:36–40)—is not surprising when we remember that love is not merely a shade of God’s personality but is assigned in Scripture to God’s very nature—“God is love” (1 John 4:8), a window into the inter-trinitarian love between the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that has existed from before the foundations of the world. Furthermore, God the Father has revealed this love to the world by sending his Son into the world (1 John 4:9) and desires this same love to be manifested among his people (1 John 4:11–12). Truly, the person who is fully walking in perfect love (hypothetically speaking) no longer needs the law or commandments (Gal 5:23), for he will perfectly fulfill what the law requires.
Comparing God’s Ten Commandments with our own is an exposing exercise. If I were to reflect upon my own commandments to my children, would they expose that my heart is finely tuned to Christ’s beating heart of love? Probably not. Rather, how often do my commands reveal how easy it is to put my inner peace and comfort over the people in my home? How often are my commands almost instinctively oriented toward protecting the possessions that I have acquired—my car, my living room furniture set, or my appliances—instead of caring for these precious souls under my care that will live in eternity? How often do my commands communicate to my children that their behavior (and misbehavior) must protect my pride, my status, or my reputation within my community or even my church? How often do my commands expose the fact that our home is not really our home, but my little kingdom, oriented according to my will, wishes, and desires? How often are my commands more tuned to the cultural norms of the day instead of loving God, siblings, family, the church, and neighbors in thought, word, and deed? Would the values of my ten commandments in my home align with the values of God’s Ten Commandments in the Scriptures?
At this point, the conversation must address an important issue in Christian parenting—discipline. A seasoned parent knows that there are many tools at their disposal when desiring obedience. A command is a very specific tool with logical consequences. When a request transitions from “will you” to the commanding “do,” parents are setting themselves up with a critical choice—”If my child disobeys, what happens next?” Yes, it is for a child’s well-being to learn respect, obedience, honor, and submission to their parents, but Christian discipline is reserved for measured responses to sinful disobedience, not reactions to parental inconveniences or uncontrolled outbursts. As Tedd Tripp reflects, “Your correction must be tied to the principles and absolutes of the Word of God. The issues of discipline are issues of character development and honoring God.”2
Consider a hypothetical scenario. I command my child to stop running in the house. He disobeys. By his choice, his actions warrant discipline. And yet, I, as a parent, must stop and ask a critical question: “What ultimately was my motive for telling my child to stop running in the house? Was it for the good of my child out of love, or was I using my authority to ultimately serve myself?” In this way, even if parents follow through with their discipline, they should stop and prayerfully reflect on whether God would approve or disapprove of this use of authority that ultimately belongs to him.
Conclusion
Parents have an important responsibility in their homes to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. A primary means of exercising this authority is through the commands that they give to their children. Christians can assess their parenting by comparing their top ten commandments with God’s commandments to determine whether the values in their home align with the heart of love that pervades the Ten Commandments and all of Scripture. Yet Christian parents also know that commandments in themselves are insufficient for family discipleship. Children do not only need to hear God’s commands; they need to hear from their parents God’s message of grace. As Paul David Tripp says, “If rules and regulations had the power to change the heart and life of your child, rescuing your child from himself and giving him a heart of submission and faith, Jesus would have never needed to come!”3
