The Bible Study Podcast, episode 174. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of fruitful parenting.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. When I started thinking about doing this particular study,

one of the things that encouraged me to do a study on parenting in general, even knowing that a number

of you weren't parents, is that I think that there's a lot of applicability in this topic to everyone.

And we talked about that a little last week. This week, I'd like to talk about why I chose the title

Fruitful Parenting. If you ask a number of people what the Bible says about

parenting, it's my opinion that the verse that gets used a lot in terms of

parenting and the Bible is a verse from Proverbs 13, and you may have heard this.

He who spares the rod hates his son, or he who spares the rod spoils the child.

Now, that is obviously a verse that talks about parenting, and it's a verse by Solomon, who the Bible tells us is one of the wisest people ever.

So I think it's definitely something we should talk about, but we're going to talk about it later.

And next week, actually, we're going to talk a little more depth about Solomon and his parenting style, but also his parenting success or failure.

And we're going to look at a lot of parents from the Bible, especially a lot of parents who may not have done such a good job in what they did wrong.

But the verse that I think that should most inform are relationships with one another, and especially in this case, the parenting relationship, is this verse instead from Galatians, Galatians 5, 20 through 23.

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things,

there is no law. Now, you may not have looked at this verse and thought, oh, look, here's a verse about parenting,

because it doesn't say anything about parenting in there.

It doesn't say anything about kids, mothers or fathers.

But let me put it to you this way.

If this is a verse that describes the way that we should behave as mature Christians,

which it is, which it does, shouldn't this, in fact, be a verse that describes how we behave in our most important relationships, including, obviously, parenting.

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