June 8, 2018 Show with Andreas and Margaret Köstenberger on “Equipping for Life: A Guide for New, Aspiring & Struggling Parents”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this eighth day of June 2018, and I'm delighted to have as returning guests to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Andreas and Dr. Margaret Kostenberger. Dr. Andreas Kostenberger is founder of Biblical Foundations and senior research professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and his wife,

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Dr. Margaret Kostenberger, is associate professor and director of women's programs and mentoring at Shepherds Theological Seminary in Cary, North Carolina, and today both of them are going to be addressing their new book,

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Equipping for Life, a Guide for New Aspiring and Struggling Parents, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Andreas and Dr. Margaret Kostenberger. Great to be with you again, Chris. Thanks so much for having us.

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It's my pleasure. And greetings, Margaret. Thank you so much. And in studio with me is my co -host,

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Charlie Liebert. Charlie Liebert, who is not only a former colleague of Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis, but he's also the founder of sixdaycreation .com

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and author of a new book himself, My Christian Children's Education, What Should I Do?

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A Christian Educator's Analysis and Advice, and it's my honor and privilege to have you in studio as a co -host once again,

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Charlie Liebert. Thank you, Chris. It's great to be here. Thank you, Charlie, and for some reason you're not connected.

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I don't know why you're not connected, Charlie, but we'll have to figure it out eventually. And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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And Charlie, if you could quit fiddling around, you're making me go deaf here. I'm trying to get a microphone to work,

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Chris. Okay, I'm good. And well, first of all, let's have the

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Kostenbergers tell our listeners something about the two different seminaries where they are on the faculty.

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Andreas, let's start with you. Tell us something about Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

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Absolutely, Chris, I'd be glad to. I've been teaching at Southeastern for 22 years, and for 12 of those,

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I directed the PhD program as well. The last six years, I've served as research professor, and I've actually just accepted a call to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which is a sister seminary in Kansas City, and so I will be transitioning starting there in the fall.

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Oh, great. And tell us also something about Biblical Foundations, the ministry that you founded.

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Yes. Well, about 15 years ago, I wrote a book,

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God, Marriage, and Family, and that book was written out of the concern for the fact that the biblical teaching on marriage and the family was increasingly being marginalized in our culture.

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Sadly, the years after that, you know, certainly we've seen that, you know, the

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Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, and, you know, just the other day,

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I read that now, you know, close to half of Americans don't find anything wrong with pornography, so we've seen an incredible moral decline in our culture, and so I started

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Biblical Foundations to specifically address issues related to marriage and the family, and in many ways, the book we're talking about today,

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Equipping for Life, our new parenting book, is just extending that concern and that conversation to equipping the next generation to live by the biblical teaching on God's design for man and woman.

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Great, and Margaret, Dr. Margaret Kostenberger, tell us something about the

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Shepherds Theological Seminary in Cary, North Carolina, where you are the Associate Professor and Director of Women's Programs and Mentoring.

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Okay, well, I actually have just been doing that for about a year, and as my husband's transitioning,

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I will also be transitioning with him, so I'm not sure, you know, exactly what my arrangements will be in the future, but for this past year,

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I have been the Director of Women's Programs and Mentoring there, and basically what

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I'm doing is equipping women, teaching women in the area of mentoring and ministry to women in the church.

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Great, and Charlie Liebert, you are our co -host today, but since you have this book that we actually are going to be,

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God willing, interviewing you on sometime in the near future, with your son -in -law who's on the faculty at the

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Christian School of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I happen to be a member, and also we're trying to get

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Gareth Schuth, who's the principal, the new headmaster of the school, on.

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By the way, did you have you found out when they can be on? No, I haven't gotten an appropriation on it yet. All right, well, can you let us know something about your book,

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My Christian Children's Education, What Should I Do? Yes, I've been involved in Christian education for quite a long time.

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I was involved in founding a classical school in Greensboro, North Carolina, where I used to live, and during that time

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I've seen the decline of public education. I published a short treatise in the 1980s on Reagan's relation at risk, but I've updated that basically and shown the first part of the book deals with the decline of public education, the movement from a

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Judeo -Christian foundation to a humanist foundation, and how that impacts all the teaching. And the second part of the book is what options do

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Christian parents have, and which ones would be the best ones for them to use. So I go through public education, private education, private

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Christian schools, classical schools, all the different options, homeschool, and give them recommendations as to what

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I think the best ones are to maintain a Christian focus in a child's education.

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Great, well, we look forward to having you as our guest at some point soon, and let's try to get that arranged with your son -in -law and with Gareth Schuth over at the

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Christian Academy. Yes, sir, we'll work on that as soon as we can. But now we are going to be focusing our attention on Equipping for Life, a

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Guide for New Aspiring Struggling Parents. Let's start with Andreas this time.

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Andreas, if you could let us know, with all the many, the dozens and dozens and dozens of not only books on parenting, but even

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Christian books on parenting that are available, some better than others, why did you and Margaret feel a need to fill a void that was obviously left there by all these other books that you needed to include something else into print that would be helping parents?

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That's a great question, and you know, I think there's just multiple reasons. One is that we're just at a stage of life now where, you know, we have four children ages 16 to 25, and so, you know, only one left in the house.

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And so, you know, we're at a point where, you know, all the lessons we learned as parents are still fresh in our mind.

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And so we thought it'd be a good thing to write some of those down.

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Hopefully others can avoid some of the mistakes we've made. And of course, we also have a real desire to equip young couples, like our own children, as they're thinking about marriage, as they're planning to have a family.

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So, you know, we've seen that in many cases, young people no longer know what the

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Bible teaches on marriage and the family. And so there's a great need to teach them what the

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Bible has to say. Of course, as you know,

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I've written also some more scholarly books, and this one is still in four -part scholarship, but it is more, how should

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I say, theologically reflective. In other words, we try to reflect on, you know, how does the fatherhood of God affect the way we should conceive of parenting, and what is the plan for parenting according to Scripture.

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So it's biblically based, it's theologically grounded, and it's also missionally oriented, which means that the title suggested equipping for life, that we want young parents to have a parent with perspective and with purpose, and to think of parenting in the long haul as helping their children, coming alongside their children to discern

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God's mission in life for each one of them. And Margaret, you two are involved in previous publications that take a very controversial position.

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In fact, it shouldn't be controversial at all because of the fact that it's a very biblical position.

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I mean, obviously people disagree whether it's biblical, but I think it's hardly debatable that it's biblical, and that is the position of complementarianism with gender roles.

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Perhaps you could even further define that. And then my question in regard to this current book is, does that particular view of gender roles in the

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Scriptures, does that play a role in equipping for life? But first of all, let us know, let our listeners know who may be unfamiliar with the terms,

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I should say, plural complementarian and egalitarian. Right, right, okay. Well, yes, we wrote the book together,

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God's Design for Man and Woman, and in that book that does kind of reflect our view on what the

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Scripture teaches, which we believe is a complementary relationship between the man and the woman.

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We see that God has designed man to be the leader in the relationship, a marriage relationship, and the woman is to be a helper and support in that as well, the primary nurture of the children and, you know, based in the home, you know, centering herself in the home.

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And so that would be different than egalitarianism, the view that the Scripture teaches that there's equal roles, or equal, everything is the same between the man and the woman, so there is equality in role.

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So we would say equal in worth, but different in role. So yes, and that definitely is the ground from which we plant this book on parenting.

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So the parenting book on equipping for life is a narrow focus, which comes out of the base of the complementarian view.

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Now, you just said something interesting in your description of complementarianism in regard to the woman's role.

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Some might say, wait a minute, she's talking about the primary role of women is to be a home, taking care of the home, and to be nurturers of children, and yet she is a seminary professor.

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How does this coincide? Well, that's a good question. I definitely do think that, you know, women may have specific interests, or callings, or, you know, leadings, or created in a certain way with a certain bent by the

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Lord in terms of their skills and abilities. And so these are things that sometimes are developed before marriage to some degree, that women are trained in before marriage, and then they bring them into the home, and into the family, into the marriage, and it's something that could be of benefit to the family, and to the church, and to the mission of God overall.

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And of course, when children grow older, there's a lot more freedom for women to use their gifts even outside of the home to a greater extent.

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Exactly. So like the problem of 31 -11 would be someone, you know, I would look to to see that she is very industrious, and at appropriate times in her life has, you know, exercised, you know, her skills and gifts, and contributed to the home.

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Now, and one more thing about that, and of course,

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Andreas, after Margaret answers, you could chime in. Do you think that one of the most destructive things that is happening, and has been happening for decades, actually, it's not really a new thing, but it's been going on for decades, especially probably starting in the mid to late 60s, but where you have women having babysitters, or if you're more wealthy, nannies, or someone in the home taking care of the younger children while the women are out in the work field.

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And I don't want to be sounding as if I am a Pharisee, or being condemnatory against all women who are working, or even women who use babysitters, or use their own parents to take care of kids, because I know that there are certain circumstances in the home where it is absolutely vital that the woman has to earn a living as well financially to help provide for the family.

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But do you think that this has been a very damaging thing to the makeup of the family?

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So you're addressing me on that first, right? I would say that, yeah, that would be feminism that you're talking about, and its impact on society has definitely been a part of, and central to, the influence on women abandoning their

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God -given design and role in the home, or at least partially compromising, at least in some way.

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And yeah, I would say that that is a problem, and the woman is, you know, if she relegates her role, or delegates her role to another person,

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I believe that that is stepping away from the ideal that God would have for her, and for her children, and for her husband, you know, the role that she would have.

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So I would say that that would be potentially damaging, you know, both for her and her child and her family, and even the church at large, the mission of God in some way.

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But Andreas, do you want to pick up? Well, I think, you know, Margaret has been a great example to me of someone who is very intelligent, and who has a, you know,

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Doctor of Theology. We met in seminary, and so, you know, I remember her taking courses in hermeneutics, and apologetics, and systematic theology, and I love the fact that I could discuss theology with her, and even as parents, we're able to to hammer out our convictions together.

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But when she started having children, as part of that, you know, pursuing her degree, so she could use it later, there was no question that the children and the family had priority.

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And, you know, that's why she had gotten pretty far in her studies, but after four years, our youngest was born, and so as a result, it took her four more years to complete her degree.

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So she completed her degree in eight years, not because she couldn't have done it, you know, much more quickly, but because family came first.

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And I think in our book, you know, we talk about that parenting, in many ways, is a relationship.

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And as a result, parents need to be abundantly present with their children.

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Of course, just like God created us to live in His presence and wants to be present with us, and so parents who are not adequately present with their children are, to that extent,

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I think often neglecting their role as parents to guide their children, to help develop their character, all of which implies that they are committed and consistently involved in engaging their children, especially during the teenage years.

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You know what just struck me? Hollywood obviously tends to be liberal and even ultra liberal.

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And yet, the movies that they themselves produce that involve a nanny raising children, they very often, most often, will depict the situation as the mother being somewhat selfish, and perhaps being overly focused on earning money and neglecting the nurture and care and compassionate end of the raising of children.

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And you have the children developing these attitudes towards their nannies as being their parents or their mother.

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Isn't this kind of an interesting thing where you have liberal Hollywood over and over and again producing this kind of a storyline in movies, and yet many of these actors and actresses in Hollywood would be horrified by what we're talking about?

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Right, right. Yeah, that would be definitely counterculture, for sure. Yeah, you know, parenting often is not very glamorous, as we know, and it involves a lot of sacrifice.

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It's, you know, not only is it very costly financially, it also calls on parents sometimes to put self -interest, you know, behind being there for their children.

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And I know that's not always a popular message. And I think maybe in this generation, we're less willing to sacrifice.

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But it is a wonderful thing. The Bible says that children are a gift from the Lord. They're a reward from Him.

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And so I think we want to just think of it even as a long -term investment.

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There's just so many, you know, it's a lot of work, but there's also so many joys and rewards that come, especially once you've raised your children well, and they are turning out to be, you know, loving the

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Lord, serving the Lord. I can't think of anything else that would, you know, bring as much rewards and joy in life as being a parent of children who love the

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Lord. That's right, yeah. Well, I'd like you to start getting involved in the contents of the book itself, some of the ways that you've structured the book.

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This is one of those rare circumstances where we jumped on this open slot that we had today to get you both on the program before I even had a chance to get the book in my hand.

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So this is one of those rare opportunities that I can't even glance through the book. But, so if you could, tell us how this book is laid out and what you find to be the primary things that you are trying to convey to parents that maybe overlook subjects or at least maybe overlooked explanations the way that you have sought to explain them in other works.

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Okay, yeah, so I'll get started and Andres can probably fill in for me, but the way we have organized the book is in a fashion where there are three sections and we've entitled them

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Relationship and Realism and Responsible.

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Basically, Realistic Parenting, Relational Parenting, and Responsible Parenting. So those are the three R's of parenting which we define.

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And I can tell you a little bit about maybe the first one which would be the Realistic Parenting.

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So why do we think this area is important to discuss? Well, a lot of times we see that parents are maybe unrealistic in their projections of what parenting would look like and we think it would be helpful to pay attention to who they are as a parent, as a person themselves, and realize what strengths and weaknesses they have in terms of their contribution to the parenting task.

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And also to look at the child and realize that the child is not a perfect person, but that you're going to be dealing with a sinful person and what does that mean for beginning to even take care of an infant and on through life.

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And then we also focus on, in the third chapter, the idea of parenting in an imperfect world.

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So we have a world that is filled with negative cultural influences.

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There's the work of spiritual warfare going on around and there is also just a whole host of things to deal with as a parent.

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So that's the beginning of the Realistic Parenting. We wanted to help parents wake up basically to the real world of parenting.

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Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it. The idea that young couples often start out with a lot of idealism, but then when reality sets in, often they get disillusioned and struggle and fatigue sets in and maybe the husband is not as supportive and so forth.

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So I think especially writing to young couples, we wanted to prepare them so that maybe the shock is not as great after the initial enthusiasm.

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Decorating the room and so forth before the birth and then the first few days of the child being born wears out.

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So not to dampen any enthusiasm and the joy of giving birth to a child and that kind of thing, but I think this is something we feel like would be helpful for young couples to just enter into this phase of life with a measure of realism.

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Speaking to the men especially, including myself, I started out thinking of parenting as a little bit more like a task that I needed to accomplish.

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You just try to be successful and you check all the boxes, but I learned a lot from my wife in that regard.

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The idea that parenting is a relationship. I just can't tell you how many times she would spend hours in the evening into the late night talking with maybe one of our teenage children or the idea of asking them probing questions, a whole series of questions when they come home from some event, like where were you and who else was there and who were you sitting besides and what did you talk about and so forth.

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So it's just wonderful to think of this being a relationship that is growing, that sometimes our children need help, they need advice, and so that was the second part, the relationship, and then

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Marnie thirdly, the idea of responsible parenting. So that area real quick would be talking about taking your parenting seriously.

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Now you think, well, when we address this as the importance of being a responsible parent, we think are they irresponsible parents out there?

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We say, well, probably yes. So what does it mean to be a responsible parent? Well, let's take the parenting task seriously is what we're thinking and we're saying one of the first things we want to do is to help our child grow in character.

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That's being a responsible parent. And in order to do that, we think that it's important to be present.

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So in other words, not delegate the parenting responsibility to someone else. That's right, not just a subcontract parenting, you know, to a teacher or a coach or a youth leader, even though they can be allies and partners, but parents need to be engaged and we can't think we are good parents if we simply disengage from our children at a time when they probably need us most.

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Right, so we're thinking of avoiding the approach to parenting that is laissez -faire, kind of just leaving it to the culture or others to bring up your child.

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You mean it doesn't take a village? Well, it definitely does take some help from the community of the body of Christ.

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You just can't replace the parents. Amen. Well, we're going to our first station break and if anybody would like to join us on the air, we already have quite a number of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, so please be patient with us.

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But if anybody would like to get in line and join them with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away,

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God willing we'll be right back after these messages with Andreas and Margaret Kostenberger. Hi, I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the

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Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

31:42

This is Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and we are now returning to our discussion with Dr.

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Andreas and Margaret Kostenberger, who are both seminary professors and who are both authors of the new book

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Equipping for Life, A Guide for New, Aspiring, and Struggling Parents, published by Christian Focus, who is always reliable as one of the most theologically sound, biblically faithful publishing houses out there, along with, of course, one of my biggest sponsors,

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Solid Ground Christian Books, who's Ed, that you just heard. But before I return to our discussion,

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I just have to share with you some very excellent news that I just got while I was during the commercial break.

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We just heard word from Alistair Beggs, a secretary, that he,

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God willing, is going to be returning as our guest. It's almost eight years to the day that we've had

32:45

Alistair on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and Alistair has agreed to come back on on Monday, the 9th of July.

32:55

So I don't know yet what we're going to be talking about, but I am just thrilled that Alistair is finally coming back.

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He has had such a busy schedule for quite a long time and was cutting back on a lot of outside media involvement, but it appears that he enjoyed himself the last time he was with us, so I'm looking forward to his return.

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So mark your calendars for Monday, July 9th, for the return of Alistair Begg on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and we'll keep you updated as to the topic and so on.

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But today we are discussing, as I just mentioned earlier, with our guests Dr. Andreas and Dr.

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Margaret Kostenberger, Equipping for Life, a Guide for New, Aspiring, Struggling Parents.

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And before we go to any of our listener questions, my co -host Charlie Liebert, who is the founder of sixdaycreation .com

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and a former colleague of Ken Ham over at Answers in Genesis, and also author of his own book,

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My Christian Children's Education, What Should I Do? You had a comment that you wanted to share about something that the

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Kostenberger said before the break. Yeah, talking about how parents interact with the children, one of the things

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I have a friend that... Your microphone needs to be put closer to your face. I have a friend that had a habit of watching the news by himself and videotaping it.

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This is the days of videotape. And he would take one particular story and mark the time, and then when the children had dinner after they finished, they'd come into the living room and watch that story and then talk about how that interfaced with Christian worldview.

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The point of this simply is that about 10 years later, one of the adult children came back to him and said, Dad, remember that discussion we had on abortion?

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And he said, Yeah, well now I understand the value of human life, and it really made an impact in one of my friends. So parents interacting with children, to me, is a key issue here.

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Not just on friendliness and parenting, but on the issues of worldview.

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Right. Yeah, that's so true. You know, we subscribe to World Magazine, and our 16 -year -old devours it when he gets it.

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And then we can talk about some of the stories in there. And so I totally agree. It's just so vital to, as part of equipping our children for life, to help them process what's going on in the culture and to be among the first for them to bounce off ideas.

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And they're looking for affirmation or for guidance. Now that my son has a phone, he sometimes would text me and say that this is what a speaker said that I just heard.

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Do you agree? Or how should I think about this? Right. That's great. Well, obviously, one of the reasons that you need to have new work, like yours, contemporary books coming into availability for parenting is because of the radical changes that are taking place in our society so fast, that are mind boggling, that are mind -bogglingly evil, breathtakingly grotesque.

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I mean, when you consider, to me, it's mind -blowing when you consider the fact that Bill and Hillary Clinton were opposed to same -sex marriage.

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Barack Obama, when he first ran for president and was elected, was opposed to same -sex marriage.

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Now, if you were to make your opinion on that public, that you were opposed to same -sex marriage, you could actually lose a job.

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You could lose a career. I mean, all kinds of horrible things could happen to you.

36:43

I mean, it's just, it is mind -boggling to me how fast, it's like a snowball rolling down Mount Everest and it's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and at a rate that we can't even keep up with and it's just, it's just mind -boggling, as I said.

36:58

Right, yeah. Yes, in our book we deal with that quite a bit, you know, because we find for parents today, helping their children to be responsible in their use of cell phones and technology and social media is one of the greatest challenges.

37:18

Yeah, so, yeah, having a cell phone or, you know, being given an iPad at school and other things, other technological devices through school or whatever, this is a real challenge and there's so much out there that is content that we wouldn't want our children to be interacting with, engaging with, so we really do need to decide how you're going to handle that and basically, you know, we have chosen to primarily school at home and in order to do that, we've had to make some decisions how we would handle things and it also has given us some opportunities to figure out timing about and exposing children to these technological devices, so that's been something that we've really appreciated.

38:10

Yeah, it's hard, you know, in just a few moments to summarize that. I mean, you could easily, as you know, have a whole seminar on parenting and teaching our children how to use social media responsibly or you could spend several hours and have a

38:24

Q &A on exactly, you know, how to best do that, but you're exactly right, Chris. It's just such a huge issue that you wouldn't have found that in a parenting book maybe 10 or 15 years ago, but today,

38:36

I couldn't even really imagine writing a parenting book without addressing it fairly extensively.

38:41

Yeah, I mean, you're going to have children, even very young children. In fact,

38:47

I just had the son of one of my closest friends, the son of the woman that led me to Christ back in the 80s, who has also become a good friend of mine.

38:59

He is not a born -again believer. He has three children of his own and his children are starting to ask questions about the cartoons that they're watching that have same -sex couples parenting children in them and the children of today, and I can't even imagine what's going to be going on in a few years, but the children of today, when they are going out there into the world, they very often are going to be mocked or silenced either by their friends or even by their teachers if they're going to a public school.

39:37

If they say anything in objection or even questioning as if they had never even heard of the concept of why does this person have two mommies or daddies, that doesn't seem right to me.

39:51

That's weird or something, and they will be told that they are totally wrong in their thinking and that their parents are wrong.

40:00

I mean, it's just a totally different society. It's just amazing to me. Yeah, to give you one little anecdote from experience, when

40:06

I was helping my son fill in his college application a couple years ago, one of the first questions was about gender, and there were like,

40:15

I think, eight or nine different options, and he looks at me and says, that male, right?

40:21

Because there are all those weird kind of combinations, and I think it is almost inconceivable how just in the last,

40:31

I would say, three to five years, the culture has just taken a nosedive in terms of gender confusion and really a revolution against the biblical teaching on God's design for men and women.

40:49

Something as simple as that God made humanity male and female is now highly debated and disputed and controversial.

40:57

I mean, I think few of us would have predicted that the moral decline would accelerate at such a rapid pace.

41:05

Yeah, before I go to a listener question, have you heard from any feminists who are upset about the fact that these men who,

41:20

I mean, obviously there are lesbians marrying each other now too, but I can't help but think that especially feminists, would, some anyway, would have a serious problem with two men raising children where there is no woman present in that household, no mother present.

41:46

I can't help but think that to have the point of view that it is unimportant, unessential to have a woman's involvement in parenting, it really seems to be backfiring against the feminist movement in some way, because how could they possibly sit still and think that that is appropriate?

42:12

Now, obviously, you're going to have a lot of feminists who have to, in their minds, follow along with everything that's left -wing, including homosexual activism, but I can't help but think that even in their hearts and minds, they must be saying, this is not right that these children are being raised without a mother.

42:31

You know, you may know the publication, U .S. Religion and Society Report, and I was asked a few years ago to actually look at feminist views of the family, and listeners can access that on my website, biblicalfoundations .org,

42:47

but what I found is that feminists, in many ways, are just anti -family, period.

42:53

And so, you know, in many ways, they're actually dead set against family as a human institution in the first place.

43:04

So I think, based on that ideological commitment, probably in many cases, they would really not even care that much that family is dysfunctional and disintegrating, because they think it's simply an outmoded institution that, in many ways, is a patriarchal instrument to keep women down.

43:24

Wow. Yeah, and as long as they're not the ones being kept down by the mothering, by the central role of the woman in the home,

43:34

I don't know what they, they wouldn't necessarily complain about what you're saying. I somewhat, you know, feminism is such a varied...

43:42

Right, it's not a monolithic group, but I understand that feminists don't like the idea of women being enslaved to the role of homemaker.

43:52

But what I was talking about was total absence from the household.

43:58

I mean, feminists know that when they come home from work, that they are an important participant in the involvement with children and so on.

44:10

So they know that they eventually show up at the house and have something to do with the kids.

44:16

So that's what really what I was talking about, not that they would be upset about the loss of a homemaker kind of a thing.

44:23

Yeah, and I think, Chris, you have put your finger on something important that probably will need more research in the future.

44:29

There's a lot of things that, maybe so far, we didn't even think about that much. But now, with the recent revolution in attitudes toward gender,

44:41

I think a whole new set of questions will rear their ugly heads, in the book we touch on it briefly, the scourge of fatherlessness in American society and the absence of fathers abandoning their wives and children, their families.

44:59

But there's much less study done on motherlessness. I tried to research that, and Margaret as well, and we found just a little bit here and there, because often maybe it's not as extreme.

45:11

You don't have mothers abandoning their family. It's more like they might neglect their family. But you're talking about a new form of motherlessness, right?

45:20

In the case of gay homosexual marriages, where literally there's no mother.

45:26

Yeah, right. And the reason why I didn't even bring up the outrage of men over the lack of men in some of the lesbian relationships in the household, nurturing children and so on, is because liberals and leftists put the opinions of men on a far lower rung of importance.

45:47

Right, right. But let's take some of our listener questions. Let's see here, we have

45:55

Mary in Cork, Ireland, the Republic of Ireland. And Mary, let's see,

46:02

I have to enlarge Mary's email. And Mary asks,

46:08

I am conscious of the scripture in Proverbs 25, 17, let your foot be seldom in your neighbor's house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you.

46:21

And so I don't want to include, intrude. Oh, wait a minute. I think this might be something that's completely different than a question for you two.

46:30

Let's see here. It might be a question for me. Okay, yeah, this is,

46:36

I'm sorry, this was not a question for you two. It was just a question about the radio program in general. So I apologize for that.

46:43

Alrighty, let me see here. We have Sicily from Alberta, Canada.

46:51

And Sicily, that's a very unusual name. And I have to enlarge

46:57

Sicily's question as well here. Let's see here.

47:08

Hi, folks, I'm wondering if your book covers anything on discipline and effective ways on it.

47:13

My wife and I have three boys, and the one is six, and it seems as though nothing gets through to him.

47:21

We have tried a lot of things, not to mention my wife is quite discouraged. I help when

47:27

I am home, but it's hard to discipline when I'm not home. Any comments or advice is greatly appreciated.

47:35

God bless, and this is Sicily in Alberta, Canada. Okay, good. Well, I'm Canadian myself, so it's nice to hear from another.

47:42

Oh, really? Yeah, originally. Yeah, so we do talk about discipline in our book, and it's a general, you know, kind of philosophical ideas.

47:54

But let's see. I think with the father wanting to be involved, and I think it's something that the man and the woman together need to have a thought -out way of handling this.

48:08

And even though the father's not there, I mean, Andreas can speak to this more during the day or whatever.

48:14

He can follow up and follow through throughout the day, and at the end of the day. But if you'd like,

48:20

I could go through a couple of ideas we have about discipline in general. So, and because the mother's central in the home, she's going to be there, at least in my view, and she's going to be the one who's going to be primarily there in nurturing and instructing the children.

48:36

She's going to be very much involved with the discipline, and that's okay, as long as the husband and the wife together have this plan, like I said, worked out.

48:46

So, what we're saying, we have some principles, and we're saying that if you, within your approach to discipline, have these principles in mind,

48:56

I think you'll do well. Now, the first thing is that you're consistent and you're predictable. So, in other words, you're not going to be erratic or random in your approach to discipline.

49:05

So, have a plan and stick to it. Now, you might need to change and adapt along the way, but basically, you have a consistent and predictable approach.

49:15

And in that approach, the second thing we suggest is that you be age appropriate.

49:21

So, you know, discipline for a two -year -old is going to be a little bit different for a four -year -old and a six -year -old and a preteen and then a teen.

49:31

So, we've noticed that life cycle changes every, very frequently as a child is growing.

49:37

So, you're going to, that's the one thing that's going to need to be adjusted as you go along, for sure.

49:43

The third thing we're saying is please just try to be fair and to be just.

49:49

So, that the discipline that you're, you know, giving out, the instruction or your response to something that's happened that has not been what you hoped for in your child, that it would be in relation to what is being addressed.

50:03

So, that it would be an appropriate response to what the child did wrong or what he needs or she needs instruction in.

50:10

And also, when you're developing this approach to your child, yes, be consistent and predictable, but also, there's something that you need to be nuanced about and that is that each child has a unique and different personality, different sensitivities, different giftedness, different ways of responding to your discipline.

50:31

So, you will need to be child specific about some of these things. If you're going to remove a privilege from a child for doing something that they knew that you advised them not to do or you asked them not to do, if you remove a privilege for one child that affects them in such a way that they feel like they've received, you know, some sort of correction, it may not do the same thing in another child.

50:57

So, just be child specific. The fifth thing that we want to encourage parents is that they administer discipline, or we all do this, in love rather than in anger.

51:09

So, ultimately, the goal is not to be punitive or in any way be volatile or, you know, angry in the way you approach your discipline.

51:19

To approach this in love so that, safely, overall, the result of discipline is a positive effect in your relationship with the child.

51:34

So, your child is learning and growing in the joy of the Lord, ultimately, and eventually will turn around and thank you for what you are doing with them and will also grow closer to you as you go through these things.

51:49

Yeah, it's interesting, you know, the biblical term discipline, we think of it as a negative thing, usually, the word discipline, but in the

51:56

Bible it's a more positive term. It's more in terms of training, right? So, I think that would be very helpful to think of it as actually something that's good for a child, to help them to develop in their character.

52:11

Yeah, so it's not punitive. And then the last thing, I might have it in a different order in the book, but the last thing is that we're future -oriented about this whole thing.

52:19

It's not just, you know, narrowly addressed to this specific problem, but that it has a result for their future life, for God's mission for them in the world as well.

52:31

So, they will learn and grow, and they will benefit from this for their future.

52:38

Great. By the way, our listener is in Panoca, Alberta, Canada. Do you know where that is? Uh, not exactly.

52:45

No, I'm actually from the east coast area, Toronto. Okay. Yes. Well, thank you,

52:50

Sickly. Keep listening there in Alberta, Canada, and keep spreading the word about Iron Troupe and Zion Radio in that area and beyond.

52:58

I'm sorry, as you know, we cannot ship you a free copy of the book because the overseas costs, we're not overseas in your case, you're on the same continent, but it's still very expensive.

53:10

So, we restrict our winners of the books to those who are

53:15

U .S. residents, but if you know someone in the U .S. who we could ship that to and have them ship it to you, that would be fine.

53:24

There are a couple of people that have those kinds of relationships where, especially if they live far away, like in Australia or in Africa, they have friends in America that ship out books that they win.

53:38

So, you might want to keep that in mind, but we have to get to our break right now. This is our longer break than normal.

53:45

It's 12 minutes, and we need this break because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, 90 .1

53:53

FM, who airs this program on a rerun every day, they need the 12 minutes because they air their own commercials and public service announcements and things.

54:05

So, please be patient with the 12 -minute break and use this time to not only write questions for our guests,

54:10

Dr. Andreas and Dr. Margaret Kostenberger, but also take the time to write down information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them because if our advertisers are happy and they continue to advertise with us, the dollars that keep this program on the air will continue to bring

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio into your lives, and if you don't want us to disappear, then please patronize our advertisers as often as you can.

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Don't go away. Oh, by the way, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

54:43

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54:48

We'll be right back with Dr. Andreas and Dr. Margaret Kostenberger right after these messages from our sponsors.

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That's liyfc .org. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

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Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. And make sure that you mention

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We thank Todd and Patty Jennings, the owners of CVBBS .com for sponsoring and keeping

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Iron Sherp and Zion Radio on the air. And we have a couple more announcements before we return to our discussion with Dr.

01:04:21

Andreas and Dr. Margaret Kostenberger. First of all, I hope that many of you join me in November for the next conference being sponsored by the

01:04:32

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The theme of the

01:04:38

Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology this year is The Glory of the

01:04:44

Cross, and it's being held from November 9th through the 10th at the

01:04:49

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania. Speakers include

01:04:54

David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Nguyen.

01:05:02

If you would like to join me there, register at AllianceNet .org, AllianceNet .org,

01:05:07

click on then click on the Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology, and I will be manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Sherp and Zion Radio there,

01:05:16

God willing, so please look for me in the exhibition area, and I would love to meet many more new listeners of Iron Sherp and Zion Radio and also meet those that have been coming to other events from time to time.

01:05:32

It's always a joy to not only meet new listeners, but to meet ones that I already am familiar with who have been faithful for years, and also sometimes

01:05:40

I meet guests that I've had for the first time face -to -face because I've only interviewed them by phone, but I'm looking forward to it.

01:05:47

Also, another event that I am eagerly looking forward to has become one of my very favorite events of all, and that is the

01:05:56

G3 Conference, which is being held this January from Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th at the

01:06:06

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

01:06:12

They're expecting over 4 ,000 people to come to the G3 Conference. G3 stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory.

01:06:19

The theme this year, or should I say next year in January, is

01:06:24

The Mission of God, a Biblical Understanding of Missions. And if you'd like to find out more about it, well, first of all, let me read some of the names that are going to be on the speaking roster, that are on the speaking roster.

01:06:40

Paul Washer, John Piper, David Platt, Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, who

01:06:47

I think is the most powerful preacher on the planet Earth alive today. He's the pastor of Kabwatha Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and has been my friend since 1995.

01:06:56

I can never get enough hearing him preach. Tim Chalies, Phil Johnson, who's the executive director of John MacArthur's Grace to You ministry.

01:07:05

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio. By the way, Todd Friel just told me today that he is going to be my guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio again on August 2nd.

01:07:18

That's a Thursday, August 2nd. So mark your calendar for Todd Friel's return to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:07:25

And David Miller, and Don Curran, and Cindy Curran, and Owen Strain, and more.

01:07:33

So please go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com, and click on G3 Conference 2019.

01:07:42

Please tell the folks at the G3 Conference that you heard about the conference from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:07:50

Last but not least, once again, it's my least favorite part of the program, or most unliked part of the program, most unliked by me.

01:08:03

That's where I have to plead with you for money. And I really, from the bottom of my heart, thank those of you who have come to the rescue and basically bought me some more time here by helping some of the bills getting paid here.

01:08:22

But we need more donations. It's interesting, we would get a steady stream of donations coming in for months and months when we began making these public appeals.

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Now they've almost dried up with the exception of the last few days. We've gotten some very generous gifts from our listeners, but it's few and far between that we get these gifts.

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If you really do love the show, you don't want it to go away, please go to IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

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If you really do love the show and don't want it to disappear. And if you want to advertise with us, send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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And that is also the email address where you can send in a question to our guests, Andreas and Margaret Kostenberger, and our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:10:21

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. We are discussing their new book, Equipping for Life, A Guide for New Aspiring and Struggling Parents.

01:10:31

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

01:10:43

We have Joe in Slovenia who has a question for you.

01:10:50

And I have to enlarge Joe's question again. The fonts are coming in very tiny today.

01:10:59

And Joe in Slovenia says, Dear Brother Chris, you've done it again. Another great guest topic and two wonderful guests.

01:11:10

Please ask the Kostenbergers to speak out about advice they would give us to a young Christian couple with three children under the age of three years old, moving to a new city, working hard in a new business startup, house hunting, looking for a good church, looking for a good church home, looking for, let's see, committed to homeschooling, and all on a tight budget.

01:11:40

What are some pitfalls to watch out for and guard against? That's a great question.

01:11:49

It makes me think of our book that we wrote together a few years back, God's Design for Man and Woman, where we have a final chapter there called

01:11:59

God's Design Lived Out. And there we do talk about the fact that sometimes people are tempted to compromise on living out the roles that my wife talked about earlier with the wife being centered in the home and for the husband taking a lead in providing for his family, in part because of lifestyle issues.

01:12:23

You know, in this country in particular, people are used to a certain standard of living. And as a result, then, that tends to drive important decisions people are making.

01:12:35

So I think my number one advice would be to be committed to live out the biblical teaching in this area as much as possible and to not compromise that, even if it means making some tough choices in terms of, you know, cutting back on lifestyle issues, you know, that might be wants but not really needs, and just trusting the

01:13:01

Lord to honor that commitment and to provide, because we've seen

01:13:06

God do that in our lives, and we know that God honors obedience to His word.

01:13:16

Well, thank you very much, Joe. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Margaret. Yeah, I think that what

01:13:23

Andrea said is very good, too. It's obviously hard to answer a question like this when you don't know the actual situation, the city, the person, and all the personal details, and how stressful, you know, what's going on.

01:13:37

So in general, I believe what Andrea is saying is a solid way to go.

01:13:44

I just would encourage the husband and the wife to consult together, to talk about their needs and desires, and to prayerfully seek the

01:13:55

Lord on all these matters. I think a commitment to homeschooling can be very helpful in that regard, but I think one thing that strikes me about that situation is that certainly a young family with three small children needs support.

01:14:07

They need support from their church. We've often seen that churches sometimes maybe are not quite as supportive as they might be of young families such as these.

01:14:18

So hopefully this particular couple, Joe and his wife and family, they can find a church that really can come alongside them, maybe some older, mature couples and families that can be a support, even both in terms of advice, but even in decision making, but also in practical matters as well.

01:14:41

So as the Lord leads making, finding a church, home, and community, priority would probably be one of the top things to do.

01:14:49

Great. Well, thank you, Joe, in Slovenia, and thank you also for providing us with an American address where your daughter lives in Georgia.

01:14:57

So we will have a free copy of this book shipped out to you, the book that we are addressing today by Dr.

01:15:04

Andreas and Dr. Margaret Kostenberger, Equipping for Life, a Guide for New, Aspiring, and Struggling Parents.

01:15:12

And many thanks to Christian Focus Publications for providing us with these books. And also many thanks again to CVBBS .com,

01:15:20

who will actually be shipping the book out to you at no charge to you or to R &S

01:15:26

Radio. Thanks a lot, Joe. We have

01:15:31

Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says, as a father of seven children, ranging in age from five to 17, electronic media is always a concern.

01:15:46

Aside from filtering content, what other practical advice would you give in this area?

01:15:53

All right. We have several thoughts on this, and we deal with it in different chapters in our book.

01:16:01

So you might want to look at the book after just a little bit of detail here, very little.

01:16:09

Basically, if you are homeschooling, if you're school at home, you have a little more choice and control over your children's use of technology.

01:16:20

And if you don't, it's a totally different matter. So how you handle technology differs with the school choices that you make.

01:16:28

So the answer to your question would partially depend on that, and I think that's one large factor of your educational choice.

01:16:34

So we advocate that you delay the use of technology or your children's use of technology as long as you can.

01:16:47

Reasonably so, like just for instance, our youngest son got a phone at age 16.

01:16:54

And so we delayed that. He shared our phone for a little while. So he wasn't totally absent of it.

01:17:01

And we were able to even involve the use of passwords on computers and other things.

01:17:08

So be in charge. Be large and in charge in terms of the control of the devices and computers and phones and stuff in your home.

01:17:18

I think it's both and. Parents need to be engaged. They need to be knowledgeable about downloading of apps or about how to use restrictions effectively on a phone and parental controls and so forth.

01:17:35

But I think the other important thing that needs to be said is that sometimes young people can be very creative about circumventing some of those controls.

01:17:43

So there's really a substitute for character and for develop self -control and so forth.

01:17:51

So I think really in the end, if a young person, like think of my sons, for example, lack self -control, then

01:18:00

I would be irresponsible if I armed them with a device that they would not be able to responsibly handle at that point.

01:18:09

Right. So we think of like, you know, the teen years, the preteen years as the state of life, maybe where you might consider them a proverbial, simple type of person.

01:18:21

And so they need the accountability. They need the input, the feedback. And so we still want to be involved in their lives at that point, developing wisdom.

01:18:30

Sometimes you can be very innocent. They have every intention to be responsible. But as you know, often there's bad ads.

01:18:37

You know, they might download or watch a YouTube video. And so it's the kind of thing that they may just come across things that tempt them and they're not able to handle that.

01:18:49

So the Bible says, as you know, to not make provision for the flesh. And so we have to be radical and we have to remove anything that could be a potential stumbling block as much as possible.

01:19:00

So you've heard us advocate delay, but there are other people who advocate just get involved as soon as they start asking questions, but get involved with them.

01:19:10

We don't necessarily encourage that, but I know that that's a possibility too, that some people consider that as plausible.

01:19:19

Well, thanks a lot, Gordie. You have also won a free copy of the book that we are discussing,

01:19:25

Equipping for Life, A Guide for New, Aspiring, and Struggling Parents. And since you live so close to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVVBS .com,

01:19:35

right there on North Hanover Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, you probably live about 10 minutes away or not much more than that.

01:19:41

Why don't you pick it up next week? We don't have the books in hand yet because Christian Focus just shipped them out to us today, meaning they just left

01:19:50

Christian Focus's warehouse today. So we will get them to CVVBS .com

01:19:57

sometime next week. And that way you could spare them for the shipping cost or from the shipping cost.

01:20:03

Thanks a lot, Gordie. Keep listening to Iron Trumpet's Iron Radio and spreading the word about the program. We have a pastor who has written in a question.

01:20:14

I typically only give the full name of a listener when it's a pastor, so I could give a plug to the church, unless of course the pastor is writing in anonymously for some reason.

01:20:25

But this pastor is Pastor Jerry Schumann of Ludlow Baptist Church in Ludlow, Vermont.

01:20:34

And Pastor Jerry Schumann says, one alarm pattern in America regarding parenting is that so few couples are wanting to become parents or at least parents to more than one or two children.

01:20:50

Fertility rates have been below replacement level in America for the majority of the last 30 or 40 years.

01:20:59

In fact, according to a recent study by the Center for Disease Control a few weeks ago, the fertility rate in America is at a 30 -year low.

01:21:10

The birth rate in the Evangelical Church is a little bit higher than the national average, but it is still quite low.

01:21:16

In seeking to equip the next generation for life, it seems we need encouragement to actually raise up another generation.

01:21:28

Is the mandate to be fruitful and multiply still in effect for today?

01:21:34

And how can having an eye toward raising up another generation for the sake of the kingdom encourage couples to embrace fruitfulness?

01:21:46

That's Pastor Jerry Schumann, Ludlow Baptist Church. The website there is ludlowbaptist .org

01:21:52

and Ludlow is spelled L -U -D -L -O -W. Ludlowbaptist .org. Thank you very much,

01:21:58

Jerry. And by the way, you've also won a free copy of the book. Thanks for giving us your address. If you could, to comment.

01:22:05

Yeah, well, I think many Christian couples that we know really don't have a problem with believing that God's call for, you know, a man and a woman who are married to each other to be fruitful and multiply is still in effect.

01:22:24

And it's important, you know, we know numerous families that have, you know, two, three, four more children.

01:22:31

I think in part, you know, when you averaged it out statistically, it's the world that we were talking about in the first hour that obviously should not be expected to live by what the

01:22:42

Bible teaches. And as I mentioned earlier, it takes sacrifice and, you know, willingness to sometimes not act in self -interest to be a parent.

01:22:56

And so often I think the reason why couples choose not to have children is because of self -performance or career or lifestyle issues.

01:23:09

So I think that's the burden of certainly my wife and I and Biblical Foundations to restore the

01:23:18

Biblical teaching on marriage and the family. And so I couldn't agree more with the pastor that to the extent that we're able, we should represent that the

01:23:33

Bible calls on us to embrace children as a wonderful part in God's plan and to trust

01:23:43

God that He will provide. And so as a result in our book, we try to be very positive and winsome and helpful and do everything we can to lift up just how beautiful and how good and how wise

01:24:01

God's plan is of marriage and the family. Yeah, so obviously it's not something that you can force upon people.

01:24:08

This has got to be something that comes from the heart. So I would say let's pray for change in the hearts of our church people, of Christians in America, that they would grow to love

01:24:23

God more in God's word and His plan for us. By the way, I'm very happy that the audio quality quickly restored because for some reason for about 15 to 20 seconds,

01:24:38

Andreas, your voice was garbled like you were underwater. I have no idea how that happened or why that happened, but it seems to have corrected itself.

01:24:49

And I pretty much understood everything you were saying, even though it was distorted.

01:24:56

One of the things that Pastor Jerry brings up in his question, which involves a lot commentary, is the radical reduction in fertility rates.

01:25:10

So obviously, the small families aren't necessarily voluntarily small if the fertility rate is dropping.

01:25:18

Have you heard anything more about these studies that would indicate why this is happening?

01:25:28

Well, you know, we're primarily looking at it in terms of the biblical teaching. We did certainly try to consult some research, especially as I mentioned before, in terms of fatherlessness and motherlessness and so forth, but I'm not really that much into medical research in that area to comment.

01:25:51

Well, Jerry, perhaps you can let us know where we can find out more about that information because this is kind of an alarming thing.

01:26:01

And thank you very much again, and you're a book we are addressing by the Kostenbergers, Equipping for Life, A Guide for New, Aspiring, and Struggling Parents.

01:26:11

Thanks for providing your address there in Vermont. We're going to our final break right now. This will be briefer than the others, and please take this time to write in a question if you do want to ask one because we're running out of time rapidly.

01:26:26

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:26:32

Please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:26:39

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

01:26:45

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

01:26:51

We will be right back, God willing, with Andreas and Margaret Kostenberger and more of our discussion on New, Aspiring, and Struggling Parents right after these messages from our sponsors.

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01:33:33

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guests today for the last 90 minutes and the next about 25 minutes to come have been and will continue to be

01:33:43

Dr. Andreas and Dr. Margaret Kostenberger, and they are seminary professors, and they are authors of Equipping for Life, A Guide for New, Aspiring, and Struggling Parents.

01:33:55

If you'd like to join us on the air, we're running out of time rapidly, so do so now or forever hold your peace.

01:34:01

Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com, and we have a listener in Clifton, New Jersey, Joey in Clifton, New Jersey, and Joey, I have to enlarge his font too on his email here, and Joey says,

01:34:24

Dear Andreas and Margaret, I wholeheartedly agree with and support your views on the family and education and encourage you to continue your ministry.

01:34:35

I am wondering if you have either encountered or observed a subset of the

01:34:42

Christian community that has taken such good principles too far, even to the point of idolizing the place of the family or Christian education.

01:34:53

Could you please comment on this? Any thoughts you may have on this problem and its associated dangers would be appreciated.

01:35:02

Oh yes, I've seen extremes, and I've actually been grieved over that because it sometimes is given, you know, those of us who work very hard in espousing a biblical view of marriage and family, you know, some grief and made it more difficult.

01:35:23

I deal with some of that in the chapter in God, Marriage, and Family, an earlier book that I've written,

01:35:29

I think chapter 9 in Equipping for Life is especially relevant there where we deal with, actually the whole chapter is called

01:35:35

Equipping for Life, and there we deal with God's mission, and we talked about the fact that the family is not an end in itself, but it's in many ways a witnessing tool where God allows us to raise godly children to bring glory to Him and to be a mission for God.

01:36:03

And so we ought not to idolize marriage and family.

01:36:10

I love what Paul writes in Ephesians 1, 10, where he says that it's

01:36:16

God's purpose for the ages to bring all things back together under one head, the

01:36:21

Lord Jesus Christ, and that of course includes the family as well, which then

01:36:27

Paul addresses in Ephesians chapter 5. So I could be more specific, but I don't want to be unduly critical.

01:36:36

I think I know maybe some of what Joey is talking about, but certainly in our book,

01:36:44

Equipping for Life, we feel like young families in particular, like our own children, they need a lot of encouragement and support, and so we wrote the book to try to provide that encouragement and support, especially for young families.

01:37:00

Chris, you've talked about all the challenges in our culture that young people are facing today, and if we think it was hard to raise our children in the cultural environment that we had to do that, you know,

01:37:12

I sometimes just shudder to think what other challenges will be that they will be facing as they try to live out the biblical teaching.

01:37:21

Do you have anything to add, Margaret? I'm not sure. I think that the question is somewhat general.

01:37:28

I think maybe people do idolize family. Maybe there are some homeschool movements that idolize homeschooling, so maybe we need to be careful with that, too.

01:37:40

Just, yeah, so just to balance with all those things, I don't think I have anything specific to add. Okay, and I think, and I could be wrong if I'm guessing, that some of it, because of the formed circles especially, there have been controversies over abuses in a certain movement, and even members of this movement know that there have been abuses, and have been, some of them have been very open about the abuses and have sought to have correction, but the family integrated movement is what

01:38:12

I'm thinking of, and you do have some people that have almost become, or not even almost, who have become cultic in regard to their specific ideas of how families should function in regard to the church and worship.

01:38:27

You will have, you will have some of them who would even say that you are an apostate, and I'm not broad -brushing,

01:38:33

I'm not saying that would all do this, but some would say you are an apostate if you have a nursery in your church building.

01:38:40

You know, things like that that are, if you have any kind of separation of children from the parents in the worship service, even when they are infants, that you are considered to be a dangerous heretic and so on, and of course that,

01:38:57

I don't mean to broad -brush, there are good people involved in that movement. In fact, I believe one of my modern -day heroes,

01:39:04

Votie Balcombe, is to some extent a part of the family -integrated movement.

01:39:11

But do you have any comment on that? Did I overstep the case? Well, I would say that what I have concluded is that a robust ecclesiology is very important in this regard.

01:39:23

That we have to have a very strong understanding of the biblical teaching on the importance of the local church, and that we ought not to collapse the distinction between the family unit and the local church.

01:39:39

The local church has its own leadership structure, which I think is a plurality of elders, and individual families need to be prepared to submit to the leaders of the local church, as opposed to basically replacing the church in a way, and not recognizing that it's the church that is ultimately where the ordinances are administered, the

01:40:10

Lord's Supper, baptism, and so forth, and families are to be the building blocks of the church, but still subordinated to it rather than a substitute for it.

01:40:24

So it's taking a good thing a little too far. I've observed that family is not valued in the feminism and other influences, but it's taking a good thing way too far.

01:40:35

I agree. It's a reaction, I think, against some of that, and often those reactionary movements take a good thing, and as Margaret was saying, just moving it a bit too far to the other extreme.

01:40:47

Well, thank you, Joey, in Clifton, New Jersey. Make sure we have your full mailing address, because you have also won a free copy of the book that we are discussing today,

01:40:56

Equipping for Life, a Guide for New, Aspiring, and Struggling Parents. We have

01:41:02

Charlie in Taberg, New York, and I hope I'm pronouncing

01:41:07

Taberg correctly, T -A -B -E -R -G. It's either Taberg or Taberg, I'm assuming.

01:41:14

Do you have any advice on how we as Christian parents can create boundaries around our children when they are being cared for by our unbelieving family members without said boundaries seeming offensive?

01:41:29

That's kind of interesting. I can see that coming up a lot during all kinds of occasions and so on.

01:41:38

In fact, I know of a situation in reverse that's quite sad, it's quite tragic.

01:41:46

I know a Christian woman whose adult son, who was a professing Christian, even went to a

01:41:52

Christian college, left the Christian college an atheist, and he has,

01:41:58

I believe, at least two children that are very young, perhaps three now, of his own, and he forbids his

01:42:06

Christian mother to say anything about Jesus or the Bible to these little children when she's taking care of them.

01:42:12

That's heartbreaking. That's obviously like a reverse situation, I think, than what Charlie is asking.

01:42:18

But if you could. Well, I'm not sure if I have the specific answer for that specific situation, or we do, so each person has to discern what kind of involvement their family will, impact their extended family will have on their children if they're unbelievers.

01:42:37

I advocate caution, and I just think that the boundary could be as strong or as hard as not spending any time alone with them at all.

01:42:53

It could be less, depending on the situation. Each situation would be different, so I can't really answer that.

01:43:00

Well, it's true. In our book, we do have a section on in -laws as one of the three major issues often that young couples have to navigate.

01:43:10

I think Scripture does teach that a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, so they build a new family unit, and so the result,

01:43:19

I think, especially the man is the leader, is responsible to protect that new family unit spiritually as well as provide physically for it, and that will also entail the drawing of boundaries, as Margaret mentioned, as appropriate in a specific situation.

01:43:40

And also it might be appropriate to say that those boundaries may change over time according to the children's development, their own maturity, their age, their ability to handle and interact with whatever the situation is in the non -Christian or unbelieving atmosphere.

01:43:56

Right, but I'm assuming it's okay. Some of the basic things in life like mom and dad or brother

01:44:05

Bill and sister Mary, if you want to watch my kids while we're away, we would love to have you watch them, but the movies that you're watching on your

01:44:14

TV set, I am asking you, you can't put those things on if you want to watch my kids.

01:44:20

I know that you're doing me a favor, but I have to set some guidelines about some of these things, and basic things like that,

01:44:28

I mean, that are corrupting the minds of children. Yes, absolutely, just recognizing that the values will be different.

01:44:36

Yeah, well, it really depends on the family, of course. If you trust the parents, if the parents are, at least have morals, if they're put in an environment where there is blatant immorality or blatant, you know, oppression because of spiritual things, you know, or worship of the occult, for instance, or something terrible in that home, we would draw that line very sharp.

01:45:00

So every situation is different. Well, thank you, Charlie.

01:45:06

You have won the last copy of the book that we are offering today, so thank you very much for participating.

01:45:14

Please give us your full mailing address in Tayburg, New York, so that can be shipped out to you by cvbbs .com,

01:45:22

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, and we hope that you are richly blessed by the book.

01:45:29

Let's see here, we have another questioner.

01:45:36

We have BB in Cumberland County says,

01:45:43

How old should your children be when you stop forcing them against their will to attend worship services with you, even if they are living under your roof?

01:46:00

Well, I think there is a sense in which a young person gradually should be given more of a say in their schooling, in their church attendance.

01:46:23

In our case, we have allowed our children to have a lot more input, you know, when they turn, say, 16 or 17.

01:46:36

Our daughter, for example, said she would like to go to a public school in the area for grades 11 and 12, and we talked about it with her, and we eventually agreed that that would be a good preparation for college.

01:46:51

We felt she'd be ready for that, and it ended up being a challenging experience, and I don't know if she would make the same decision again, but it's one of those things.

01:47:01

In the end, we told her, it was ultimately, we allowed her significant input.

01:47:07

I think we didn't really have to make that kind of decision with our children in terms of, you know, that they would have chosen not to join us for worship, but I think the principles would still apply.

01:47:22

I think the point of a person asking the question that there comes a point when it might actually do more harm than good.

01:47:32

You may foster resentment in the child if they really, you know, are very strongly resistant, but then again,

01:47:40

I think if you keep engaging them during the teenage years, like my wife is really good at doing, and we're advocating in the book as part of the relational approach, then hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.

01:47:52

You know, what is it that they're struggling with? Is it doubt? Is it maybe some harmful or hurtful experiences, intellectual questions, and so forth, and we can reason it out with them, so it never gets to this point where they are just adamantly, you know, dead set against God and against the

01:48:12

Church. Right, so discovering what it is that is keeping that child from the love of being with the body of Christ.

01:48:20

So it may be, I think we've seen on occasion through the growing up years of our children that the actual youth group or the atmosphere in the

01:48:33

Church for them was not welcoming. It really was not a biblically based or oriented type of situation, and so, you know, we just had to encourage them to deal with it.

01:48:46

It's a matter of growing up, you know, that a child asserts their independence. They don't want to just take over the beliefs of their parents, and in many ways that's an actual and a normal thing.

01:48:59

It can be a good thing, and so we also want to convey a certain amount of respect as part of that relationship, that we do respect that the child is a person of their own, and they have a right to their own opinions, and we don't want to force religion down their throat, for sure.

01:49:19

Excuse me. We have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who wants to know if there was one thing that you believe is in your book that is not contained within other

01:49:31

Christian books on parenting, what would that be? Thank you so much for asking that question.

01:49:41

I think what's unique about our book is the three R's of parenting, that parenting be realistic, relational, and responsible.

01:49:50

I think that's a framework for parenting, especially for young couples, that can help them to be more successful as parents, that they don't have those idealistic expectations that later are not met, that they don't look at parenting just as more of a task when really it's a relationship, and that they stay responsible all the way through, especially when the going might get rough during the teenage years, and that they also understand, you know, we talked about the fact that our book is biblically based, theologically grounded, and missionally oriented, that ultimately the goal of parenting is to prepare a child for their mission in life, to help them discern what

01:50:38

God's will is for them within the scope of what the Bible says God's mission is in this world, which is to make worshipers of Christ, to make disciples, and so the other thing

01:50:52

I would add is that we're not biblical counselors, we're not marriage experts or parenting experts, we are a couple who are also scholars and who are committed to the authority of Scripture, and so perhaps we can speak to this issue as, you know, both a male voice and a female voice of a couple who together have wrestled with those issues for over 20 years now, and who've raised four children, so we don't look at this as the only book on parenting, of course there's many others, but as a book that hopefully contributes, especially for young people, a framework on the big picture of parenting that helps them to not get caught up in the moment, you know, just like in the toddler stage perhaps, but to look at parenting from the biblical perspective.

01:51:46

I actually think it's kind of a fresh perspective. I don't think that I've really read a parenting book that has this bigger picture that Andreas is talking about.

01:51:57

I think it's helpful for a parent to orient themselves, a couple to orient themselves, in terms of the biblical idea of what it means to be a parent.

01:52:08

Andreas has developed areas in this book in terms of that presence is the essence of parenting, and so based on God's presence with us, so he could elaborate on that if you want, and some other...

01:52:23

Oh yeah, maybe the one helpful thing would be that the Gospel Coalition next Tuesday is about to unveil an entire course that's for free that is based on our book,

01:52:35

Equipping for Life, and so I think this would be a great way for people to go to the Gospel Coalition website and to just click on courses and then to go to parenting, and so this is an ancillary resource

01:52:48

I think that that fleshes out our book even further. There's, you know, various other resources that are associated with our book.

01:52:56

Great, well what I want you each to do now is to spend about three minutes each to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners, and perhaps we could start with you,

01:53:11

Andreas, and then Margaret, you could close the program. Okay, that's great. Well, one thing is, you know, we really love to keep in touch with people, and so we don't want this program to be the only opportunity to interact, so we certainly would love to learn from one another, and biblicalfoundations .org

01:53:35

would be a great place for that, because not only do we have resources there, biblicalfoundations .org

01:53:42

forward slash marriage dash family, there's also a comment feature, and so people could write in questions.

01:53:49

Actually, this month we have free book giveaways every week, so if anybody didn't win a book on your show,

01:53:57

Chris, this afternoon, they could go to Biblical Foundations and then hopefully they could be entered into a drawing there.

01:54:08

Also, there's a Facebook page for Biblical Foundations, and Twitter as well, at Biblical Foundations, as well as Margaret's and my

01:54:17

Twitter handle at A. Kossenberger and at M. Kossenberger, so we would just love to connect with young couples and with young families, because as Margaret was mentioning, every situation is different, and there's limits to how much we can discuss things on some sort of abstract level, and we just have a real heart for young families, in part because we have four children of our own, as I mentioned, 16 to 25, that are planning to have a family, and so we love

01:54:52

God's design for marriage and the family. Like I mentioned, both Margaret and I have written previous books,

01:54:59

God's Design for Man and Woman, and God, Marriage, and Family, with the other great resources, and so this is a long -standing passion of ours, and we feel that this is a great way for us to live out the

01:55:17

Gospel and to live out the Christian faith in our culture and to witness to God's plan for marriage and the family, so even to rediscover marriage and family as a witnessing tool, as a way of bringing glory to God and on teaching our children to serve

01:55:34

Him, to love Him, and to be on a mission for God. And Margaret?

01:55:41

Yes, well, my hope is that we will be able to make a contribution.

01:55:47

This radio show and the book and the TGC Learn course will be of use and support for parents.

01:55:57

I do really think that we live in a culture that is strongly challenging the views that we're espousing and the lifestyle we're encouraging, and I just think we all need the support that we can get, and I just think that this might be one way in which people would really be strengthened and encouraged to live out

01:56:22

God's design for them, for the family, for parenting, and to be able to not only just live it out for the sake of living it out, but to benefit, to enjoy their family to the greatest extent possible, and to participate in what

01:56:38

God has planned for them. I just think it's a wonderful thing, and I'd like to see many, many people really live it out.

01:56:46

So that's my heart. You know, rather than just lamenting the decline of the culture around us, it's within our grasp to be part of a solution and to live out

01:57:02

God's work positively, and many of us, I mean, we're all men or women, many of us are fathers and mothers, and so the question is, how can we glorify

01:57:11

God in this vital area of our lives? Praise God. Well, I want to make sure, obviously, that our listeners have all of your contact information.

01:57:21

First of all, the Biblical Foundations website is biblicalfoundations .org.

01:57:28

Biblicalfoundations .org, that's easy enough. Don't confuse that with a Roman Catholic organization of the same name that has been run by Jerry Matitix for a number of years.

01:57:40

I know Jerry, and as much as I love him as a person, I don't want to scare anybody to his website, because he, in fact, most

01:57:51

Roman Catholics don't want you to go to Jerry's website these days, because he's a sativacantist, but anyway, that's a totally different subject for a different time.

01:58:00

But that's biblicalfoundations .org, and also, if you want to find out more about Christian Focus publications, go to christianfocus .com,

01:58:12

christianfocus .com, and if you want to order anything from Christian Focus, I strongly urge you to go to their

01:58:20

American resource for ordering books, if indeed you live in the

01:58:25

United States. Of course, if you live in the UK, you can order directly, affordably, from christianfocus .com,

01:58:33

christianfocus .com, but cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who you've heard me announce frequently in the show, they are the primary resource in the

01:58:46

United States for Christian Focus publications, including the book we're discussing, Equipping for Life. Thank you so much,

01:58:52

Dr. Andreas and Dr. Margaret Kostenberger, for being my guest today. Thank you,

01:58:58

Charlie Liebert, for being in studio today, and you got to learn how to let other people have a word in edgewise once in a while.

01:59:05

Yes, sir. You keep butting in through the whole show. I've been fairly quiet once I made my big contribution.

01:59:11

But thank you so much for being in the studio with me, and I want you all to have a blessed and safe and joyful weekend and Lord's Day, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater