I've been reading a really neat booklet on Biblical parenting. Included in the book was a great sermon by the Puritan Bishop, J.C. Ryle. After reading it, I thought I would post sections of the sermon throughout the week for you to read. If you're a believing parent, it will hit you right in the heart.

Primary Obligations of Parents
J.C. Ryle (1816 - 1900)

"Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." - Proverbs 22:6

I suppose that most professing Christians are acquainted with the text at the head of this page. The sound of it is probably familiar to your ears, like an old tune. It is likely you have heard it, read it, talked of it, or quoted it many a time. Is it not so? But after all, how little is the substance of this text regarded! The doctrine it contains appears scarcely known, the duty it puts before us seems fearfully seldom practiced. Reader do I not speak the truth?

It cannot be said that the subject is a new one. The world is old, and we have the experience of nearly six thousand years to help us. We live in days when there is a mighty zeal for education in every quarter. We hear of new schools rising on all sides. We are told of new systems and new books for the young of every sort and description. Still for all this, the vast majority of children are manifestly not trained in the way they should go; for when they grow up to man's estate, they do not walk with God.

Now how shall we account for this state of things? The plain truth is the Lord's commandment in our text is not regarded. Therefore, the Lord's promise in our text is not fulfilled.

Reader, these things may well give rise to great searching of heart. Suffer then a word of exhortation from a minister about the right training of children. Believe me, the subject is one that should come home to every conscience and make every one ask himself the question, "Am I in this matter doing what I can?"

It is a subject that concerns almost all. There is hardly a household that it does not touch. Parents, nurses, teachers, godfathers, godmothers, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters - all have an interest in it. Few can be found, I think, who might not influence some parent in the management of his family or affect the training of some child by suggestion or advice. All of us, I suspect, can do something here, either directly or indirectly; and I wish to stir up all to bear this in remembrance....

First, then, if you would train your children rightly, train them in the way they should go, and not in the way that they would. (to be continued....)