A question for apostolic parents.
 

I was thinking about something today. We all know the Bible teaches children are to obey their parents; honor your mother and father sort of stuff.
Well, I got to thinking about what God does when we make rules for our children. Do you y'all believe that God creates situations to expose our children's disobediance towards us parents?

Let me give you an example. Let's say a parent sets a certain radius of miles his child is allowed drive away from home. Let's say it's because the parent knows there is a larger city close by, and also knows it takes a bit more skill to drive in that town than what his child has. So, Dad tells Jr. he is not allowed to go into City "A."

At first the child obeys his father's wishes and stays out of City "A." Eventually temptation takes over, the child disobeys his dad, and goes into the forbidden city. He gets away with it a few times and going into City "A" becomes a regular habit.

One day the child goes into the city, just like he has done several times before. This time, however, the car breaks down, he has to call Dad, and Dad finds out his son has been disobeying him by going into City "A."

Do you believe that God created the situation of the car breaking down because He honors the Dad's authority over his children and the disobedience needed to be exposed because of His honoring that authority?

Or, do you believe that God had nothing to do with the car breaking down, wasn't honoring the father's authority in any way, and the whole thing happened just because it did?

I am going somewhere with this, but I want to see what the responses from our members are before I reveal why this has all been on my mind. Thank you for offering your opinion.

I think things just happen! Sometimes we try to read waaaaay too much into some events! :)

So, in the example I gave, you don't believe it was God exposing the child's disobediance to his parents? A situation like this hasn't happened in my life because my son does not have his driver's license yet.

Maybe I should switch this to some sort of poll. Can someone explain to me how to do that? I have only done it once and that was a long time ago. I have forgotten how.

I think God will always tell praying parents when something is not kosher with their kids. He has for my wife and I anyway. What is the saying "Be sure your sins will find you out".

I tend to agree with PM - things just happen. The car would have broken down at some point in the area that the son could drive in - - God wouldn't case the car to break down to "catch" the son.

Of course, parents like to use that threat trying to scare kids to behave.

Brother, how can I do a poll?

I think you can edit the initial post and add it. If not, send me the choices and I will add it.

I don't know...I think He can do that...I'm sure that in the past He has or perhaps He just allowed things to happen rather than particularly orchestrating them...

On the other hand, it sounds almost like the same line of logic that says if a church member disobeys the pastor, and then has some sort of ill event occur that it was God showing the pastor what the person did or punishing that person...I'm not sure He works exactly like that or if those conclusions can be drawn.

As for my own children...I certainly think God speaks to parents, and sometimes I think God allows things to happen in a child's life to teach the child a lesson, and not necessarily to apprise the parent of what is going on.

So I guess...I don't know. I think He can, but I don't know that He does or that He will....I also don't think that if He doesn't reveal a child's disobedience that it necessarily translates into God not honouring the authority of the parent.....

I don't know that God punishes children in order to honour the authority of a parent....

The Bible says:

Psalm 37:23
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

Proverbs 15:19
The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain.

Proverbs 28:1
The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.


..........In other words, according to Numbers:

Numbers 32:23
But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.


......I think we have free will to do as we choose. I'm not sure that what you speak of was predestined. God knows what will happen. Does He intervene? At times. Do we believe prayer works?...If so, we believe that God does intervene but we must ask, seek and knock, then He opens the door.

This might not be making much sense to you right now. I've had a loooong day at work.

My husband could always walk in our house and KNOW when the kids were doing something they weren't supposed to be doing, even before he saw them. But he has prophetic gifts, so he has a lot of discernment. Me? I just listen to him. LOL! I tend to think the best about everyone unless proven wrong.

Chance and circumstance happen to every man.

God gives spirit-filled parents insights about all sorts of aspects of parenting, not just criminal justice.

Criminal justice? How did you get that out of the first post? I said nothing about breaking criminal law. It was about children disobeying parents.

Well, I need to call it a night. I have work in the morning. If I think there are enough responses I will expound on why I started this thread then.

This is how I feel as well.

Late-night dud attempt at TIC humor.

- The investigation of wrongdoing, i.e., who took little Timmy's sucker, who pulled the hair out of Molly's dolly, who disobeyed (again :rolleyes2 ) and splashed all this water out of the tub . . .

But seriously, there have been a few times I have felt that a lie about something important was revealed to me. I hope and pray it's true, because they will only get better at lying as they get older!

So you understand the point I am trying to make about God revealing disobedience because of Him honoring the authority a parent has over a child?

that s right we just find out things sometimes when they happen or we spy on them and find out, it works good either way, lol,dt:killinme:killinme

I'm with you on this one. I read the two choices and I think that too many people on this forum are bored to think about such a thing. Kids are kids and they usually tell on themselves or the parents can just remember back...and just know what trouble the kiddos are getting into:killinme

I agree with Pianoman here completely..

amen sista, preach it, lol, dt:choir

While I don't think the topic or question is a "bad" one per say it does bring to light the fascination that the apostolic culture has with "authority" and who has what over who.

I dont know how to answer this poll. but I know for a fact that God talked to my mom and told her exactly what, where, when, who and how, of the stuff we were doing wrong.

Do you not think parents should have authority over their children?

The Bible has a lot to say about authority.

What you call fascination some call doctrine.

Oh, I think they do. So much so that I don't feel it is an issue. But so many threads on these boards have the theme of "authority" and why so-and-so has authority over so-and-so. Granted, this is one of the rare ones dealing with parents and children -usually it is the MAN having authority over the woman or the pastor having all exclusive say.....

I agree with this completely. I am not sure if it is supernatural or not, but I think there is an intuition that most parents have that helps them see into the lives of their kids. I can tell when my kid is lying even when they tell a very very compelling story. My kid can pull the wool over my lovely's eyes but not mine, and my honey is astounded how I can tell the difference between what is the truth. It gives me a little more credibility in the kid's eyes and makes them think twice before contemplating telling a lie.

Perhaps the Apostolic culture appears to have a fascination with authority because it is viewed against the backdrop of a culture that is consumed with the idea of personal autonomy, which is not a Scriptural concept at all.

I know the Catholic Church has embraced it for years...

I used to think my dad had a direct link to God and although he was one of the most loving men… I had a great reverential fear of him… he seemed to know everything. :) He also was used in the gifts…I always felt it was his close walk with God… he had the gift of discernment.

My girls now think that I have an uncanny way of knowing things… I think it is more that I try to stay close in fellowship with them and it is just very easy to detect changes in relationship. Withdrawal or being preoccupied is always a signal to me something is up.. I have radar feelers up all the time and I can usually tell when something is being hid from me or bothering my kids. The claims that I have eyes in the back of my head is just because I know how they think and usually have suspicion of what they are doing… lol I was a kid once. :D

As far as to Rico’s question… I feel that God’s eyes are on his children. I do believe that circumstances can happen at times to wake up a kid heading down a wrong path. I trust that God can allow parents to be aware of problems if parents are prayerfully raising their children in fear and admonition of the Lord.

I don’t think that is it purposely done by God… life happens… but timing can absolutely be of God…. God can use any circumstance to speak to those he cares about.

Embraced what?

Amos.. for the sake of the thread I will leave this alone and may revisit later..

Why would answering the question ruin the thread?

This isn't a high-volume thread anyway.

I wonder why you brought up the Catholic church.

Wait until you guys read about what was waiting for me when I got home.


My desk is an area that is completely off limits to my children. They aren't allowed to touch anything whatsoever that is sitting there. Well, I have a collection of lighters, one of which happened to still be on my desk upstairs. Unbeknownst to me, my youngest daughter had been secretly playing with that lighter lately. She'd go into the room, get the lighter, play with it, and then put it back so I wouldn't know someone had taken it. Today it all caught up with her.

She was in her room playing with the lighter and set a piece of paper on fire. When she couldn't blow the fire out and the paper got too hot, she dropped the paper on the floor. The corner of her blanket on fire, which in turn caught some cots under the bed on fire, which in turn caught the mattress on fire, all on one corner of the bed. My son was able to put the fire out and, other than the aforementioned items, nothing else was burned. No one was hurt, thankfully.

Given the fact that I have had this sort of thing on my mind this week, I believe God is showing me I am on the right track with my thinking. A situation that perfectly fits what I have been wondering about has happened in my life. One of my children has been disobeying me and I believe God exposed her disobedience.

I have all the confirmation I need. What are the chances that a hypothetical situation that I started a thread on this very week would come to life right before my eyes, especially with me knowing the other part of what I have had on my mind that y'all don't know about yet? Slim to none.

I have been asking God if this is one of His ways that doesn't make sense to us as humans and I believe He has given me His answer.

You see, I have had pastors on my mind quite a bit lately. Contrary to what some have accused me of being, namely a preacher hater, I have never hated preachers. The people I have shared some of my closest guarded secrets with have been the pastors in my life. When I began to see the ways in which pastors go beyond what the Bible teaches I started questioning how much authority God gives them in our lives. Exactly how much authority they have isn't really spelled out in the Bible, with the exception of things God has said to those who have gone to the extreme of actually hurting the people they are supposed to be serving.

It is something I have struggled with over the years. What I have struggled with isn't so much the idea that pastors have authority in their congregants lives. It is with how much authority God gives them and whether or not he honors some of the decisions they make that go outside of what is spelled out in black and white in His Word.

I've gone from one extreme to the other in my thinking. I started out thinking I was obligated to obey everything they say, regardless of what it was. If the preacher said, "You can't go see your mother this weekend" I would not go. If the preacher said to put our children in the church school I went along with it. If the preacher said not to buy this car, or not to move to this house, etc. etc., I obeyed, thinking they had the authority to make those kinds of decisions for me.

I have walked in the other extreme that says, "If it isn't spelled out word for word in the Bible then he has no right to tell me what I should or shouldn't be doing." Any little thing the preacher said that was even a little bit out of the Word I felt no obligation to obey and was not afraid of making it known. This is where I have been most recently in my thinking.

Then, the other day the Lord and I had some alone time. I was on my way to my new job, thinking about church, the Lord, His Word, etc. This scenario I gave you in the opening thread is the scenario I presented to God. I basically asked God, "Do you honor some of the things pastors say that maybe aren't spelled out completely in your Word? God, do you honor the authority you have placed in their lives to the extent of honoring some things they want from people, even if it isn't really something you necessarily expect from us?"

This is when the story about the son disobeying his dad came to mind. When it happened I felt that God was answering my question by asking me if I believed He ever reveals a child's disobedience to his parents.

When it happened it seemed to make sense to me. "Yes," I thought, "I believe it's possible that You reveal disobedience to a child's parent." Maybe not all the time, but, yes, I believe it happens. "Why wouldn't it be the same way with you and your pastor?" is what I felt like God was saying to me.

See, pastors are a sort of father in our lives. The role they play in the life of a saint shares some characteristics with the role my natural father plays in my life. They are there to provide guidance, advice, direction, nurturing, an example of what it means to be Christlike, and yes, even some boundries. They are not there to be our father, although I know the Bible talks about us not having many spiritual fathers, but some of the things they do for us spiritually run parallel with the types of things our natural fathers do in our lives.

It may not be a big deal to God that the son in my story was going into the city. But because it was important to the father that his son not go into the city, and because God honors the authority He has placed in the life of that son, God exposed the disobedience. I can now see how this same principle would apply in the relationship between pastor and saint.

I think I am going to make a change in how I see pastors. I think from now on I am going to make an effort to do some obeying even if what the pastor is asking from me isn't spelled out word for word in the Bible. Am I going to go back to "whatever the preacher says goes" kind of thinking? No. But I am not going to stay in the "it has to be explicitly spelled out before I believe it's for me" category either.

I am going to start giving the pastor the benefit of my doubts from today forward. I am going to be more willing to go along with some things, regardless of how I feel about them personally. Before you ask, no, I am not planning on shaving my beard! :D (I had to head that one off at the pass!)

By the way, I know how some of you around here like to take the ball and run with it. While I am saying that God is changing the way I see some things, I am not saying I now believe in every dress standard, rule, mandate, edict, (whatever you want to call it,) that will come forth from the pulpit of whichever pastor I end up submitting to. "Submitting" There's a word I haven't used in a long time.

Perhaps.. but I will testify that my Dad had a vision one evening in 1975 that sobered me up and turned my life around. I stumbled in one September evening prior to the Fort Worth General Conference, drunk, high and reeking of both pot and cigarettes. There, to my chagrin, sat my dad in his well worn recliner.

He growled "sit down and shut up! I am going to tell you two things.. the first is what God told me and the second is what I am telling you!"

I immediately began to sober up and was instantly able to hear the wails of a travailing mother from the back bedroom of the parsonage.

Dad then began to tell me everywhere I had been, who I had been with, where I went, what I did while there, what I purchased, what I drank, where I bought what I drank all complete with times! I asked him who had followed me and his one word response was, "Jesus!"

He then told me that when he knelt to pray for me that night it was like he had gone to a moving picture show and God revealed to him everything he had told me and he was spot on in every detail!

He then gave me God's message. He told me that God had told him that HE was through messing with me. I had played games with my salvation and my calling to ministry long enough. If I didn't get it together God was finished with me!

By this time I was almost completely sober. Adrenalin has an amazing effect on sobriety. :)

Realizing that I had now sobered up, my dad then shared the second part of the revelation with me.

Using that short finger, part of which he lost to a mill saw, he pointed at me and with his piercing gray eyes boring into my tear filled brown ones he said, "Phil, if you ever come into this house in this condition again I am going to beat you like the man you think you are and then throw you and your clothes into the front yard. I will tell God and man that I never had a son named Phil."

Finally he broke and began to weep and came over and laid his hands on me and began to pray for mercy for my soul.

I had not planned to go to the Fort Worth GC with my parents but after this event it was either go with them or have them stay home with me. I went and it was there that I received a life changing experience and stepped into my call. Within months of that event I was preaching revivals with souls being saved.

So, all that said to say this: God is concerned with the salvation of your children and disobedience can and will result in your kid's souls being lost. If it is important to you and important to their salvation, Jesus will definitely bring those things done in darkness by your children to light for you parents.

you can argue with theory but it is hard to argue with experience. :)

I believe that God both reveals and conceals.

He has told me things my children were doing, such as, my daughter was cheating on her math. She would get the Teacher's Manuel when I went to check the mail. I was washing dishes and the Lord brought it to my mind. I asked her about it. Big round eyes and then the confession. LOL!

Once we had a dent in the car door and the Lord showed me that my daughter had pulled the car out of the driveway, backed in and hit the door on the gate. I asked her about it - big round eyes and confession.

Lesson: Don't mess with Mama - she has an avenue! :D

BUT, there have been much more serious events that He did not tell me about in detail. Sometimes He laid it on my heart to pray and other times He didn't speak to me at all.

I conclude that there are some things our children, in their mistakes, have to go through that God doesn't think it's necessary for us to go through it too. JMHO.

I didn't mind hearing about it later, but I wouldn't have wanted to bear it at the time. :D

Sister, do you think I am misapplying the lesson by transferring it from something that happens in our parental relationships to something that happens in pastoral relationships? The point for me really isn't God exposing disobedience, although I will say I have heard pastors talk about God showing them that Brother So and So was secretly watching tv in his home. The point is in God honoring the authority He's established over us.

No, I don't because God doesn't just show parents. He also shows pastors, but don't forget that He also shows the saints.

When we have His Spirit we are simply anointed to do the work He has called us to do. Sometimes He must reveal things to us for better understanding. In that I mean that you can have a brick wall in front of you in the church and if God is desirous He will reveal what that wall is.

It doesn't matter who is causing it - ministry or saint - He will reveal it. He will cause things to manifest in order to reveal it.

I could give some prime examples, but I won't. :D Dreams are one way - believe that!

So the bottom line is - If God is desirous to do it. Like I said, even in our childrearing He doesn't reveal everything. There are some things He will take care of that we don't really need to know. It is for that child's sake and through that they see that God was personal to their lives. That is my opinion and I don't believe I'm wrong on that.

I agree with you that God doesn't do it with everything. There have been instances in which He has revealed things to me without Him having to create a situation that exposed disobedience.

What is your opinion on God honoring a pastor's authority, even on some things maybe He doesn't require of us?

My mind is full of things when you say, "pastor's authority", so could you reword that question another way?

We all agree that pastors carry a certain amount of authority in the lives of saints God has entrusted them to lead, right? If you agree that God has done this, do you also believe that God will honor that authority if he instructs you to do something that may not be completely spelled out in the Bible?

I hate to drag standards into this question, but let's say your pastor believes in long sleeves, and asks the church to adopt that standard. You don't see anywhere in the Bible that God requires long sleeves. If you do not adopt that standard is it possible that God will see you as being disobedient, even though He never explicitly said He requires long sleeves from His people?