At my baby shower, just before welcoming my first child, women from church made a book of recipes and advice. I still have it and it’s precious, though spattered with culinary stains. One of the most mystifying contributions noted the cautionary example of Eli the priest,

“his sons made themselves contemptible and he failed to restrain them”.

The ESV says it this way,

”his sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them.” (1 Samuel 3:13). 

No explanation attended the verse (what masterly restraint that friend showed!). If there was a way to sober me up in the euphoria of anticipating new motherhood, this verse was it. A hint that there was a weighty trust and great danger. I wasn’t merely welcoming a baby, but a person who would grow into an adult who would either fear the Lord or despise him. It’s worth reading those early chapters of 1 Samuel, to see the story around the verse.

At the time, I struggled to imagine how Eli could restrain his adult sons when they blasphemed God. They were grown men! Eighteen years ago I couldn’t even imagine how it was possible to restrain a wilful toddler or a determined teenager.

It’s doubly sobering to consider that Eli wasn’t a terrible character. He was significant in Samuel’s training as a priest, judge and prophet. Eli himself feared the LORD. As a priest, Eli’s home life was immersed in the sacred rhythms of worship. You could not have found a family in Israel at the time with closer proximity to the things of God, or at least the physical paraphernalia of the sacrificial system. Eli’s family served around the ark of the covenant, the very symbol of God’s presence dwelling among his people. Eli’s sons grew up more familiar than most with God’s word and ways (even on the tail end of the era of the judges when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25). These sons grew to be priests of the Lord (1 Samuel 1:3), but they did not know the Lord (1 Samuel 2). Their familiarity bred irreverent contempt.

Eli allowed his sons to continue in priestly office when he should have removed them (which was his responsibility to do since he was not only their father, but their boss). Instead of limiting the authority and opportunities with which they could sin against God and others, Eli continued to provide for their debauchery. Eli’s fault in this was that he neglected God’s law and honoured his sons above the LORD (1 Sam 2:29). Eli reprimanded his sons about their predatory behaviour, but never did anything to limit it. He failed to act in his region of responsibility, both as a father and as a priest. The sons blasphemed God, and the Bible lays responsibility on Eli for failing to restrain them in this. 

Because of his circumstances, Eli still held enough authority over his adult sons to be held accountable by God when they scorned him. It’s tempting to get stuck on theoretical questions, but our best effort should go into noticing God’s opinion about the situation: God considered Eli’s sons despicable when they defiled the people through their defiled practice of their priestly role. God saw fit to judge Eli by putting an end to his family line because his limp response to his sons showed he honoured them more than God. In all our talk of God’s love, grace and mercy, we don’t linger long to consider that, when people don’t live obediently within the provisions of grace God has given (in Eli’s case, the Old Testament law), then they make themselves contemptible to him. This challenges our child-raising cliches about all ways of doing things being equally valid. God doesn’t think so. He has definite ideas. The idea that it doesn’t matter how you raise your children, as long as they are hearing the gospel, is wrong. There’s more to the work than just relaying a message.

What We Permit Matters

We all start in that place of contemptibility. Our natural bent is toward blaspheming God. When God takes hold of us and brings us to faith in Jesus, his Spirit teaches us to walk in newness of life; free from sin, but slaves to righteousness (Romans 6-7). In this newness of life, a Christian is no longer under the law, but we’re still to be instructed by the law as to all that is holy and righteous and good (Romans 7:12). This standard of Holy, Righteous and Good is the opposite of unrestrained blasphemy. Are we bringing our kids along in our enjoyment of all that is holy, righteous and good; the holiness, righteousness and goodness that Jesus has secured for us? Or do we have something more vague and unrestrained, led along by the impulses of our children?

Proximity to holiness and God’s words are not enough to grow children who fear and love the Lord. Immersing them in church activities, but not following through with correction when they disobey, is an early verse in Eli’s tragic ballad. That’s not meant to be our song. A family culture where children aren’t learning to be under the benevolent restraints of a father and mother doesn’t make sense for Christians. It teaches our kids to despise all that is holy, righteous and good.

While our circumstances are different from Eli and his sons, there is a principle embedded in the story. One function of parental authority is to restrain our children from pursuing a course that God finds contemptible. The time of using authority to restrain evil is when our authority is most obvious, when our children are most dependent on us. Restraining evil and widening the gates into the pastures of all that’s holy, righteous and good isn’t something we can suddenly start doing when our children are older. The key is not to keep our kids trapped in a state of dependence for as long as possible, so that we can cage them in restraint. The key is to restrain them from the paths of godlessness when they are little, with increasing free space for them to exercise their own power of choosing godliness as they grow.

Baby Blasphemies

The seasons when my husband and I hummed the tune of blasphemy was when trendy parenting ideas had our ear. The idea that every feeling is sacrosanct and ought to be given room for unrestrained expression; the idea that our child knows best and we ought not interrupt their path of unrestrained, self-regulated natural learning; the idea that it is an offense to train children into Someone else’s idea of good, because there is no absolute; the idea that there is no such thing as sin; the idea that education should be built exclusively upon the child’s interests; the idea that we must not draw definite lines, defining good and evil and restraining the latter. Current ideas play on parental anxiety. We’re told that training our kids to a standard beyond what comes naturally to them is harmful. These ideas are all shards of Eli’s sin. In this cultural norm, if we don’t proactively pursue God’s standards when we’re raising our kids, then we are bearing Eli’s likeness.

In the early years, we confuse ourselves–and our children–by justifying, or even enjoying, the disobedience of our children. A two year old’s contrariness can be a spectacular comedic display, but it does not change the fact that he disobeyed. Most disobediences are so little that we feel like correcting them is an overreaction. I don’t really care much about the curtain, but if I told my toddler not to pull on it, and she did, then it is a disobedience I must address. At the heart of that interaction is despising of rightful authority–even if she doesn’t know it yet. It’s not about the scrap of fabric, but about learning that she is not God. It takes more energy to stop and correct than it does to let it passively slide by. I have a duty to correct this disobedience because God tells children to obey their parents and expects that parents are teaching their children to obey. The little unrestrained disobedience grows. By the end of the ballad, it’s blasphemy and death. We may not leave our children unrestrained to despise God. We may not despise God by failing to restrain our children.

Restraint Does Not Eliminate Sin

Note, “restrain” does not mean “eliminate”. Restraint is just a boundary that limits expansion. Restraint does not deal with the sin problem, but it is meant to expose it and fence off its colonising effect in our children’s lives. We don’t hold off on restraining our children until we think they have come to faith in Jesus (read this and this). The restraint itself can be the Holy Spirit’s means of bringing the very gift of conviction that prepares them to receive the merciful provisions of God in Christ Jesus. Why would kids come to Jesus for forgiveness when they don’t think they’ve ever done anything wrong, when the parenting methodologies we adopt have coached them to do only what is right in their own eyes? We restrain them so that they can learn their need for Jesus.

As I’ve written before, one of the most risky testimonies to Jesus’ lordship that we might bear is teaching our children to obey Jesus. To believe in God-honouring restraint, to believe that there is such a thing as holy, righteous and good and that Scripture trains us to recognise it, is a conspicuous way to live. To give time to the work of raising children in the ways of Jesus is costly and contrary to what has become the normal features of early childhood. This is definitely the harder way of doing things, but only for a short time. An unrestrained grown child is harder in the long run.

Restrain Evil, Not Everything Else

Let’s be clear. Restraint is not a cage. The restraint is not a general opposition to anything our child wants to do–just so they know who’s in charge. Restraint is not refusing our children freedom to do anything. Our authority is to restrain evil and promote good, in the same way that government of a country is meant to. A government can’t make people good, but it can do a lot to create conditions where goodness can either flourish or be suffocated (thanks for the conversations about these things Tim Adeney). Evil governmental authority makes conditions that are hostile to what’s good. Parental authority is given so that we can build and protect conditions where children can freely grow into more good things than they could enjoy if they were unrestrained. Restraining evil has freedom and joy as its goal. When our children are little, the evil we are dealing with is in seedling form. It is small, cute and often clever enough to quote on social media. Restraining evil buys more free space for goodness, and all the fullness and freedom that follow goodness down the track.

To prepare grown children who can restrain themselves under the good rule of Jesus, we need to give time and attention to understanding (and doing) our restraining job in the season when their dependence on us is greatest. Our problem isn’t so much that children grow out of our ability to restrain them, but that we forfeit the opportunities that come with the little years.