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What the Bible says
What Does the Bible Say About Parenting?
The Bible offers parents not a formula but a foundation: raise your children in the love and knowledge of God, with grace, patience, and prayer.
Scripture calls parents to weave faith into everyday life, teaching God's ways as they go about the day. The goal is not merely well-behaved children but children whose hearts are turned toward God.
The Bible ties discipline to love, not anger, and calls parents to nurture rather than exasperate. No parent is perfect; modeling repentance and grace often teaches more than any lecture, and in the end we entrust our children to the God who loves them even more than we do.
Key Bible verses
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6 · King James Version (public domain)
“And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house.”
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 · King James Version (public domain)
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
Ephesians 6:4 · King James Version (public domain)
“Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.”
Proverbs 29:17 · King James Version (public domain)
How this points to Jesus
Jesus shows us the heart of the perfect Father, patient, tender, and quick to forgive. Parenting stretches us and reveals our need for grace, driving us to the God who parents us. As we lean on Him, He gives wisdom for the task and holds our children in hands more capable than ours.