The Bible Speaks to You May 2, 1970 Issue

[The above is an abbreviated, postproduction text of the program released for broadcast the week of April 24-30 in the radio series, "The Bible Speaks to You."Heard internationally over more than 1,000 stations, the weekly programs are prepared and produced by the Christian Science Committee on Publication, Christian Science Center, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. 02115.]

RADIO PROGRAM NO. 421 - "Provoke not your children"

with contributions from Parker Thomas, George Richards

[The participants are Parker Thomas, a Christian Scientist, and George Richards, who is not a Christian Scientist.]

Richards: Parents want to do right by their children and establish and maintain warm, happy relationships with them that will continue throughout the school years and beyond. But many parents do not find this easy to do, especially when their youngsters get to be of high school age. They can provoke their children without even being aware of it, and teen-agers can provoke their parents. Perhaps generations pull apart at times.
Thomas: But I don't think the generation gap has to exist. Mutual respect and understanding, warm and happy relationships, can be established and maintained.
Richards: What would you say about this definition of a good parent: one who more than half the time does the right thing instead of the wrong? Would you say that a parent who does not provoke his teen-agers more than half the time does a pretty good job?
Thomas: It's a challenge for all of us to do a really good job. But when a parent really wants to do what is right with his children and works at it, accepting the challenge, he can. There is much support for parents in Bible insights, which not only raise a standard of love and respect but provide a basis for action. We read, for example (Eph. 6:4): "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

Richards: But if a parent starts preaching about God to his independent-thinking, long-haired, protesting teen-ager, I can't see that there would be any better communication between him and his child.
Thomas: I was not referring to preaching about God but to expressing more of the nature of God ourselves, exemplifying His nature as much as possible in our actions. As we begin as Christ Jesus did with "Our Father," God, everyone's real Parent, then we have a basis to express the God-derived patience and understanding that will help our young people become more responsible. We will begin to see them as possessing God-given qualities of discernment, alertness, good judgment, wisdom—qualities they inherently have in their true nature as sons and daughters of God.
Richards: Well, that sounds a little like abdicating our role as parent and saying, "He's got all these God-given qualities, so I don't have to worry."
Thomas: What I'm referring to is learning more of God and our relationship to Him and our children's relationship to Him. As we become more aware of God and His qualities as actually expressed through man, these qualities will be expressed more in our individual lives. God, divine Love, never shuts anyone off from His love, care, intelligence, and stability. Christ Jesus hinted at this when he asked (Matt. 7:9), "What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?" And then he commented (verse 11), "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"