Dale Johnson: Today on the podcast I welcome back Dr. Stuart Scott. He’s ACBC’s director of member care and professor of biblical counseling at Bob Jones University and Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina. He’s also the executive director of 180 counseling and education in Louisville, Kentucky. He teaches in the area biblical counseling as an adjunct instructor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. He serves currently as a fellow with ACBC and Dr. Scott is the author of The Exemplary Husband, Communication and Conflict Resolution, The Faithful Parent, Killing Sin Habits, and most recently, which Wayward Children: Finding Peace, Keeping Hope. Brother, I’m so grateful that you’re willing to write things like this and visit us today on the podcast to talk about it.
Stuart Scott: Well, thank you Dale. It’s a blessing and an honor to come alongside of the listeners and try to encourage them on this topic.
Dale Johnson: And as always I mean, Stuart, not just this topic, but so many others, you’re such an encouragement to me, you’re a wonderful sounding board as I think through issues here at ACBC and how we can approach those and diligently work through those and just appreciate your measured voice always, and looking forward to our topic today and you providing much the same. It’s always curious, you know to hear the background of a book and where the idea come from and how you approach these things. Just give a little bit of idea on what led to you writing on this particular topic.
Stuart Scott: A couple of things in my own life. I mean growing up in a home with real godly parents, my mom and dad really exact examples of the christian life, christian walk, and yet four boys and there wasn’t conversion in our lives until we were outside the home. So you have my oldest brother at age 40, God graces them was saving faith, my other brother at age 27. I was 18 out of the home, and a boarding school that was my choice, I was rebelling and wanted to get away. So I wanted to a Christian boarding school where I heard the Bible even more. You know, I got and God graced me, it was always perplexed me. I thought what did my parents do wrong that we didn’t come to faith earlier? And then we had children of our own and of course they make often, they make early professions of faith, which most kids do in the homes with Christian parents, they early professions of faith. And so I did and my kids did but I was not truly converted till I was 18 and but I watched our children and finally our daughter, you know says I’m not a Christian at age 15. So teen years are really tough years. You kind of find out where they’re really at and their walk their relationship with the Lord. So just in my on our own parenting, growing up with my parents, and then counseling and ministry in the church. I’m looking at faithful, godly people, I mean no one’s perfect. But I’m watching one or more children want nothing to do with Christ in their homes and trying to encourage them. So all of that together, I thought man they need encouragement, but oftentimes, it’s your way down with shame, thinking that you caused their lack of faith, something you could have done differently they would be saved and walking with the Lord and way too much attention and credit to a parent when only God can change the heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, that’s right. I think some of those expectations as you mentioned really a heap on that guilt and that shame and you know, one of the and this is very basic but one of the assumptions is godly parenting is sort of like a vending machine what we don’t really articulate it that way, but we sort of have that feeling, well if I just do these things, you know, particularly at these particular ages, and if we do these things well and you know, we can press our little button and out will come this exactly what I’ve chosen or what I’ve selected and you know what that sounds really wonderful, but now that’s not exactly how God presents himself in the Scripture nor is it, you know a picture of parenting that he describes either. So talk a little bit about what some of those assumptions are, what I just described was certainly one of those false assumptions, but some of the false assumptions that Christian parents make that I think add to the guilt and the shame. Now, we certainly do things wrong. No question. We have to deal with those but we add to that a lot of times by false assumption. So just speak about what some of those are, Stuart.
Stuart Scott: Yeah. I mean, I think you nailed it on this paint-by-numbers approach, you know product, product-oriented parenting, you know, I do all these things, I homeschool, I catechize, we have family devotions every night, they’re at every activity at church. Surely, this will produce a solid Christian youth, and we’ll try to do with what we can do as parents. It’s not that those things are bad in and of themselves that are very wise to do as parents. But thinking I can do more than plant and water that will get us in trouble and I can plant with the gospel, the seeds of the Gospel, I can water those seeds. So every Christian parent is an evangelist for sure, but God has to give the increase if he so chooses, right? He has mercy on whom he has mercy and compassion on whom he has compassion. His timing may not be our timing and we may or may not be a discipler of our children. It all depends on if they’re converted, but we can teach them, we can instruct their heart, we can have disciplined training. And so, one of the things that gets us in trouble is when we have a goal of trying to save our children rather than just trying to be a faithful parent.
Dale Johnson: Now, I want to dive in on that goal because I think that’s helpful for us, we have certain sights that we want to see certain things. We want to accomplish as parents help. Give us some insight on what is the parents goal for their children? How should we think about those goals that we set as parents for our children?
Stuart Scott: Goals, by definition can be achievable and that’s what gets us into trouble is desires, we give those to the Lord the greatest desire a Christian parent has, I mean by far the greatest desire you have for your children that they come to know Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior greatest desire can’t be your goal. Recently, I say recently few years ago. I heard a lady giving a testimony. She just come to faith in Christ later and life and she said, you know, I always thought that the goal of my goal in parenting was to get my my children into Harvard and after what we just have been hearing about Harvard who probably wouldn’t want to keep a distance from Harvard. Anyway, it was like get my kids into Harvard and she says now that I have faith in Christ my goal is to get my children saved and I remember, I remember sitting there and I looked over at my wife I said it’s easier to get him into Harvard. Yeah, it’s impossible to save them. So goals are achievable and that is what we have to really be careful of, we can by God’s grace be faithful by his Spirit, by instructing not provoking (Ephesians 6). Not provoking our children as a habit, trying to instruct them in the ways of the Lord and the ways of living, wise living and disciplined training, try to just be faithful. It’s like the same goal in every other area of the Christians life to be faithful and every area of your life. That’s what the Lord is looking for, but we can’t, if I could produce salvation and my children guess what I could probably do in a local church, you just, you can’t do that, you can plant and water and that is that’s probably one of the biggest assumptions as if I can just do everything right or correct everything wrong my parents did, right, somehow they messed up and that’s why we didn’t come to faith while we were in the home. So I’m going to I’m going to do everything I can that I know in Scripture and I’m going to try wrecked everything that I thought was a problem with my parents’ parenting and that for sure will produce salvation. It’s just it it’s gets us into into trouble and most of a lot of the I say most a lot of the parenting material that I’ve seen curriculums are fear-based. It’s parents afraid of what’s going to happen with their children at different stages rather than encouraging them to trust God with their children. He gave them to the parents. He will help them, be careful of assuming something bad is always going to be happening to your children, just fear-based rather than trusting God based.
Dale Johnson: One of the things through that comes up with parenting and trying to live as godly parents is when our child does make an early profession of faith and there are thousands of opinions on how do we handle this you even mention, you know, we see this maybe often where a child will make some profession of faith and was it genuine maybe we see later that the child becomes wayward to some degree. How do we process these early professions of faith with our children and then you know all kinds of questions that arise with this but we want to foster those things faithfully. So how do we how do we process that with our children?
Stuart Scott: Yeah, and it’s every concern. You know, I mean I is a concern of every parent was are they truly a believer? Not every profession equals conversion. I mean in Titus 1 there are false teachers making professions and they deny their profession by their disobedience deeds and Titus 1:16. So not every profession equals conversion, but you don’t want to discourage your children, you want to have them tell you what they believe the gospel is and what they’re responding to is sort of adult like content that solicits a childlike response so they can understand the gospel, and God does say I think most of when we hear professions of faith in conversions it tends to be in the teen years or early 20s. It just seems to be that way. But in those early years we made a mistake. I think at first of checking off the box of evangelism and now we’re just going to go to discipling, when I think wisdom would say no keep evangelism 101 and bring in discipleship 101 and keep them both on the front burners. You’re constantly as you’re helping them with the basics of growing as a Christian, you’re still rehearsing the truths of faith in Christ, and we know even we have to keep rehearsing those even in adult life in our sanctification, but parents who check it off like they are now saved can get themselves into trouble and I think just keep evangelism to say I don’t know for sure when they reach the teen years their habitual walk in the teens years will be very telling of do they have any love for Jesus? Do they want to know him and love him and follow him? Or is it all about themselves and their living really habitually for themselves, which is an unbeliever.
Dale Johnson: This is really helpful in any keeping an eye toward that and paying attention to fruit that is produced in the child’s life. I think is something helpful, you know Stuart, one time. This is when I was much younger. I was learning so much about parenting and godly ways of thinking, it was challenging my own heart. My wife and I were trying to put into practice so many different things even some of the things that you mentioned family worship and catechizing and those types of things and I remember teaching through a series at church and it’s very helpful, very well-received. I think by so many of the young people who were at the same stage of life as I was, but an unforeseeable outcome was in the direction of those whose children were out of the home and I did not intend this nor did I foresee this happening, but I think it heaped guilt on their shoulders if their children were wayward and that was never my intention at all. I’m in fact, I would say I probably wasn’t wise enough to even think about that at that point. I was just trying to encourage young parents here at the same stage of life, as I was, we can find ourselves sometimes, you know, and I don’t think we should shy back from speaking the truth, right but there are times where we do have to pay attention to people at different stages of life. And you know, are they feeling more guilt and more shame because maybe they didn’t do those things or they did those things and it didn’t work out as you mentioned the way that they thought it should, so how are we to encourage parents in the church who have wayward children?
Stuart Scott: Yeah, and I’ve been in the same kind of scenarios whether I’m teaching or I’m on the receiving end, you know, people say boy you don’t do this you do this instead and why we didn’t do that. Yeah, we blew it there and Zondra and I have both on multiple occasions when things come up that we have remembered we talked about or our children have brought up. You know adult children will bring up things too, that you all just did this or you didn’t do this and wherever we have sinned or was just very unwise, it was foolish what we did, we just humble yourselves and ask for forgiveness. We do it vertically with God and we do it with our kids. We blew it, now they may not be forgiving that’s if they’re not saved. They may not be forgiving and they keep bringing it up, but you know as much as possible we try to live at peace with all men and rather than argue. That’s what they remember and so just ask for forgiveness for it. And that’s the most and what God requires of us to do and that may be something that God will use in their life where they see parents that will admit their imperfect parenting and will often what happens is those wayward children start having children of their own and they go oh wow, this is not so easy. This is and they may turn and be a little bit more appreciative of things rather than their selective memory of your faults that I would just say, that’s one of the biggest things and most important things before God to clear our conscience before God and them is to confess sin and ask for forgiveness.
Dale Johnson: I think even some of the things you mentioned earlier is that reorientation to what can we accomplish as parents. Our goal is to be faithful. We can’t turn a switch in our children come to faith. We you know, we have to trust the Lord with the results of what’s happening. Now, this is a hard subject. I want to bring up but this is one that I heard often as a huge wrestling match. We don’t want to enable our kids, let’s they say they’re getting to the later part of their teenage years. We don’t want to enable their rebellion consistently, the question then remains will do I just put them out on the street. What do I do with them? Do I allow them to live in my own house when they’re acting these ways? And it may not be upper teens or you know, young adults what do parents do in situations like this where you know, they’re allowing the child to live in their house. Do they help them find another place or do they habitually allow them to disobey? Like how do we wrestle with those types of very tense situations? Because you love your child. You don’t want to give up. This is the place you want to keep them close, but then you also wrestle with am I contributing to this? So help us think through that Stuart?
Stuart Scott: It’s interesting the analogy that the Spirit of God uses and First Timothy 3 about an elder and how he shepherds his home is how he’s going to shepherd the flock and in churches we have the same thing. We love everyone in the church and someone starts acting up. They don’t listen to someone come and talk to them. Then you bring someone else with you. You tell the church. I mean the whole whole church is trying to help them to restore them, to keep them follow the Lord and at times we have to say well we’re putting them out. Actually, they’re choosing not to be there and I think that’s more we’re not kicking anyone out. We want them. We love them. They’re choosing to have to leave because they refuse to abide by some basic guidelines structure in the home and this I’m thinking primarily as usually for the older. I mean, you’re usually in the teen years, upper teens where they are, they want their independence and it’s not a snapshot of their life. They are continuing to rebel against parental authority. And if you have siblings if I mean if they have siblings younger ones, they’re watching and you’re saying, you know, we can’t allow this and you just say if you can’t make the turn here if you can’t and not 100 rules and the house, there’s just like three four major things than your choosing to have to leave now. We’ll look for a place if they’re underage age. We’ll find a place. We don’t want to turn him over to the state but there are places. There are ranches. There are other places where they can go and it’ll be tough, but I don’t want to turn him over to the world necessarily. So in that stage, there are transition kind of places, ministry places and they’re around the country and so I would say to parents let’s do everything can, let help other people to try to talk to the rebellious child. Maybe they’ll open up and be more free to open up to someone else. So let’s do everything we can to help them to turn but if they refuse and they’re stuck, no way then they are choosing to leave, and with a change of heart and life they could come back, but that you can’t keep them there just like in a church. You can’t keep a constant sinning unrepentant Christian in the church either. Is that going to help?
Dale Johnson: Yeah, that’s helpful for sure. I want to close out today because I’m thinking particularly about parents who find themselves in a situation that you’re trying to describe with wayward children. They’re discouraged. They don’t see a way up. They see themselves maybe as just distinct failures in so many ways. I want you to describe maybe a passage or two that you found most helpful, you know, when you’ve been discouraged personally and that you found helpful to other parents who have been discouraged as well.
Stuart Scott: The Isaiah chapter one passage and I address some of these in the book on the devotionals because it says the Lord says many children have I reared and they’ve rebelled against me and I’m going but that wasn’t a parenting problem, you know, it was perfect parenting that we see it with Israel. We see it with his people he came to his own and his own received him not, perfect parenting and so He understands. You know Christ is our sympathetic high priest so that passage in Isaiah 1 and Isaiah 59. Well you go to Isaiah 53 all we like sheep have gone astray. So there’s a passage right there, as a parent as the Creator he sees this turning away from his kindness and his goodness, but Isaiah 59:1 that his arm is not too short it cannot save, his ear is not too heavy, it cannot hear is that God still saves. He loves to save nothing’s too hard for him. And then first Corinthians 3. I brought that up earlier about we plant and we water that’s all the Lord has asked for all of us for our children to love them, to plant water, right? Try not to be provoking try to be instructing them and the right way the wise way, you have disciplined training, and the results are up to the Lord. He is the one who can give the increase in his time and in his way, and I think those are some of the key passages, and obviously the sympathetic high priest that we can go to who does understanding care.
Dale Johnson: Stuart, this is so helpful in many ways the encouragement that you’re giving from the scriptures, but but also the honesty where you know, we fail in so many ways and how to be humble when we approach our wayward children, admitting areas where we’ve not done? Well, it is the Lord who saves despite us, and even despite our good parenting at times and so, man, praise be to the Lord for that and just a reminder that his arm is not short that there’s still hope and that we can pray in that direction. Stuart, first of all, thanks for being vulnerable in this, but thanks for being very balanced in your biblical approach to how we handle these things. I appreciate your wisdom here. Listen, if you’re if you’re hearing this and you’ve been encouraged. I want to remind you about Stuart’s recent book “Wayward Children: Finding Peace, Keeping Hope (31-Day Devotionals for Life)”. Brother, thanks for being with us today.
Stuart Scott: Thank you so much, Dale.
Helpful Resources:
Click here to see our High School Curriculum.
