DR. JOEL BEEKE - Family Leadership for Men: The Three Offices Every Christian Father Must Master - The Will Spencer Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:21):
Foreign.
Hello and welcome to the WillSpencer Podcast.

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This is a weekly interviewshow where I sit down and talk with
authors, thought leaders andinfluencers who help us understand
our changing world.
New episodes release every Friday.
My guest this week is Dr. Joel Beeke.
Dr. Beeke is a pastor of theHeritage Reform Congregation in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, editor ofPuritan Reform Journal and Banner
of Sovereign Grace Truth,editorial director of Reformation

(01:05):
Heritage Books, President ofInheritance Publishers, and vice
President of the Dutch ReformTranslation Society.
Dr. Beeke has written and coauthored over 100 books and edited
another 100 books andcontributed 2500 articles to reform
books, journals, periodicalsand encyclopedias.
He is frequently called uponto lecture at seminaries and to speak

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at Reformed conferences aroundthe world.
He and his wife Mary have beenblessed with three children and nine
grandchildren.
Dr. Beekie, welcome to theWill Spencer Podcast.
It is an honor to have youhere, sir.
Welcome to be with you, will.
We got two more grandchildchildren, so we got 11.
11 grandchildren.
Praise God.
Racking up the big numbers,description of me was, well, wherever

(01:50):
you took it from.
But actually, the one thingmissing, Will, is that my main work
is as chancellor.
Now I'm no longer president ofPure to Reform Seminary, but that's
my main work.
That's my full time employmenthere at the seminary.
So I'm teaching full time atPure Training Form Seminary in Grand
Rapids.
Wonderful, wonderful.

(02:12):
Thank you for that update.
I'm sure that people who knowyou and are familiar with your work,
you've blessed them andblessed me in so many ways.
So congratulations on that new appointment.
Now, it's not a new appointment.
I was the founder of theseminary since 1993, so I was president
of it until 20.

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And yeah, I said, when I turn70, I will relinquish the presidency
and take up the chancellorship.
But in effect, I'm stillteaching here full time.
It's just that the buckdoesn't stop with me.
We started with four studentsand we now have 530 students.
So we've been reallyencouraged by this work.

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So this work is consumed mylife more than anything else in the
last 30 years.
Well, let's talk about that,actually, because I'm very curious
what it's been like to seethat much growth, to grow from 4
to 500 students, to see thefruitfulness of that work and to
see the fruitfulness of the seminary.

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What has that experience beenlike during a time when I think the
reform world and seminaries ingeneral, there's been so many challenges
they faced.
Yeah, well, just a God thing,I, I, you know, it's, you know, Luther,
Luther said about theReformation, the Protestant Reformation,

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I did nothing and the word ofGod did everything.
And that's, that's how I feelin a small, I'm no Luther of course,
but that's how I feel in asmall way about the seminary here.
It's just been a wonderfulthing to work for the seminary for
all these years and just tosee step by step growth and yeah,

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now we have degrees, MAdegree, the M. Div.
The THM the DMin and the PhDall accredited.
And in our own denomination wehave seven students out of the 530.
So it's really aninterdenominational international

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seminary.
So the students come from,half of them are from overseas.
So 44 countries and our alumniare in 42 countries.
So it's just been a joyous,joyous work.
And our emphasis is solidreformed teaching, but also experiential,

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that is to say, not only toreach the head, but also to reach
the heart and to teach men howto preach in such a way that they
reach the whole man headhearted and hands and feet.
Well, that actually ties inreally well to the conversations
that I wanted to have todaybecause I actually have four of your
books in front of me and I'veread three of them.

(05:06):
So the first one, just to sortof set the stage is your new book
how to Lead.
You'd A Guide for Men wantingto be more.
And I definitely want to startwith this one.
But I also have your bookFamily Worship, a booklet here which
is wonderful.
And then I have How Can ICultivate Private Prayer and, and
the Family Worship Bible Guide.
And so obviously I haven'tread the entire Family Worship Bible

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Guide just yet.
But in, in terms of educatingmen, being able to educate the whole
man, how much that translatesinto not just pastors, but husbands
and fathers doing that intheir household.
And I was very struck by thethemes in these books.
So maybe we can, we can talk about.
Let's start with how to Lead.

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You'd family.
What inspired this book?
Yeah, so.
Well, first of all, you see onthe outside cover it says short and
to the point, busy, busy menwho are rearing children often aren't
in a position to read athousand page tome.
So I thought if I couldcondense it down so every sentence

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really counts and focus on themain biblical paradigm of how to
treat your wife and the mainbiblical paradigm, how to treat your
children, that could behelpful for men.
And then as I studied I cameto the conviction Even though the

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two relationships aredifferent, the main biblical paradigm
is that we as men are to beoffice bearers.
And an office bearer issomeone who bears office on behalf
of another.
So Jesus is prophet, priest,and king on behalf of his father

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to his people.
So we have our children loanedto us by God to rear for him.
So really, we are God's officebearers through Christ, by the Spirit,
to be prophets, priests andkings to our wives, to our wife and

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to our children.
And, well, that's basicallyhow the book is structured.
First, being a prophet, ateaching, admonishing, loving, admonishing
prophet in our home, guidingour wife, and then guiding our children,
teaching them.
And then we're to be a priestto sacrifice ourselves for their

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welfare, not meritoriously,like Christ did for us, but gratuitously.
And we're to show thatsacrifice to our children through
the way we sacrifice for our wife.
And our children should feelthat they are very high on our priority
and that we sacrifice a lot ofthings in life to really nurture

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them.
So that priestly sacrificeelement comes out.
But then the main element is prayer.
Christ's intercessor ispriest, and so he blesses his people
through his sacrifice and his intercession.
So we are to be prayerwarriors in front of our children,
priestly prayer warriors sothat they may understand.

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My dad loves my soul, and he'spraying for me all the time.
And he prays earnestly.
He prays even sometimes with tears.
He cares about my soul.
He's like what J.C. ryle said.
Soul love is the soul of all love.
And then I need to be a king,not an authoritarian king that looks

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down on my wife, but give herkingly leadership out of love and
as a leader in love.
The children see that as anexample and protecting her, defending
her as a king, and thenprotecting and defending and guiding

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the children also as a king,giving them real manly biblical leadership
without becoming a dictator ora tyrant or falling into authoritarianism
or excessive legalism, butjust showing that kingly leadership
that's grounded in the Word.

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Of course, all three officesare grounded totally in the Word.
The Word is sufficient.
So those are the six parts ofthe book.
Prophet to wife to children,priest to wife to children, king
to wife to children.
This is also very relevant forme because I'm actually getting married
in about two and a half weeks and.

(09:52):
Yes, exactly.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And so I think I'm going toset up this podcast, actually, perhaps
to come out on my wedding day.
So.
So as.
As I'm As I'm reading throughall of this, I think what struck
me, the three books, lead yourfamily cultivating private prayer,
and then the family worshipbooks, the three of them, they struck
me as being profoundly lovingand profoundly firm.

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Like, it would be very easy totalk about these subjects in such
a.
In a very airy kind of way.
It would also be easy to landin them too heavily.
But I think what came across,particularly in the how to lead you'd
family book was like a lovingsense of graciousness.
Like, this is serious business.
This is meaningful stuff.
But not to land on.

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On men, but instead to inspirethem and hold them to account for
how significant these threeroles are.
So I was very moved by readingthe books.
I felt you struck the righttone that way.
Oh, great.
That's encouraging to hear.
Well, thank you.
I do think the whole.
The whole goal of ourmanliness, the whole goal of our

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husbandliness, the whole goalof our fatherliness has got to all
be marinated in genuine love,doesn't it?
I mean, Jesus gave us theexample Ephesians 5, Husbands, love
your wives as Christ loved the church.
And how did Christ love the church?
Well, he gave himselfabsolutely for her.

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He didn't get 50%.
He gave 100%.
And then 10 verses later orso, fathers, provoke not your children
to wrath, but bring them up inthe nurture and admonition of the
Lord.
So there's a kind of love thatpervades everything.
Even when we discipline ourchildren as kings.

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It should be done in love, not anger.
I say to men in my seminaryhere as a pastor, when you lead your
flock, when you lead yourfamily, never, never respond in anger.
If you feel anger rising, youtell your kids, well, Daddy will.

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Daddy needs to think about howto administer discipline to you for
this sin that you've committed.
But give Daddy a little bit of time.
I'll come back and tell youhow it's going to go, and you cool
down.
And it's only when you cancome back, speak with a loving voice,
a loving but firm voice, thatyou're ready to really discipline
your kids.

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And how crucial is that in a.
In an age where discipline isnot considered.
It's not even consideredhealthy anymore.
It's the gentle parenting andthe idea that kids should just be
allowed to kind of do theirthing and creatively explore and
that there are no boundariesfor them, but instead the essential
role of king and household is.

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Discipline is a big part of that.
I found that to be a very.
A very powerful section of the book.
Yeah, well, discipline is crucial.
And I learned a lot fromactually Ted Tripp's book on that
when our kids were like four,three and one.

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And I kind of followed thatparadigm that he sets out where you
discipline.
And I found it to be veryhelpful, although I do find, and
I think most of your listenerswould agree with me who have children
that what often works for onechild doesn't work quite so well
with another.
So to spank a child who's beenrecalcitrant, who's offended against

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one of the Ten Commandments,and after instruction is still rebellious.
You want to spank him to bringhim to repentance, but you also want
to embrace him afterward andpray with him and show that love
and walk out of the room, theprivate room where you are disciplining
him, showing him dignity andhonor as a human being, not in front

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of his brothers and sisters.
You walk out of the room handin hand, and the matter is closed.
Now, that worked very well forus with one of our children, another
child not quite so well.
Another child.
Oh, to put her in a room byherself to just meditate on what

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she had done was far moreeffective, but it was also far more
discipline.
So what you have got to becareful when you write a book to
husbands and to fathers is notto be hard nose on.
Here's exactly what you haveto do in every situation and allow

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no room for the personality ofthe child.
We need wisdom to rear eachchild with his own personality, her
own personality in the fear ofthe Lord.
I think that's the placeprobably where you would say prayer
comes in.
I read the how to CultivatePrivate Prayer and I was really struck

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by the weight ofresponsibility for prayer, particularly
for fathers.
In fact, it's woven throughouthow to lead your family, the family
worship, and the cultivatingprivate prayer books.
Just how significant the roleof a father is for his wife and for
his kids, and how powerfulprayer can be, both as a support

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for attaining wisdom and alsofor finding strength through challenging
times.
And I found that prayer is notsomething that I've heard spoken
about often in Reformed circles.
I've heard a lot of other topics.
But prayer, I feel, is kind of under.
Is underdeveloped, at leastmaybe in.
Maybe in just the areas thatI've been in.

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Yeah, absolutely.
But prayer is foundational.
It's the foundation of thefoundation in terms of rearing children
in the fear of God.
And let me explain why.
So in the Bible, we're toldmore than once that we need to take
hold of God in prayer.

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My dad used to always say tous as boys, our relationship with
God is a two way communication street.
Just like everyone else inlife, God comes to us through his
word.
We go back through him,through him, through prayer.
And therefore prayer is critical.
Prayer is the foundationallink in family worship.
Prayer is foundational inchurch, in worship services.

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John Bunyan, the Puritan said,you can do more than pray after you
pray, but you can't do morethan pray until you pray.
So I've tried to make that apattern of my whole life.
When I was 25 years old, well,two days after I was ordained into
the ministry, a minister who'sin my position now who had been pastoring

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for almost 50 years came tovisit me.
And I was all, I was all ears.
I mean, I took out a, a pad ofpaper and I'm ready to write down
everything he said.
I just said, tell meeverything, everything I can learn
from you about the ministry.
And he goes, I can say it allin one word.
One word.
Yeah, pray.

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I said, pray, yeah.
He said, never, never, neverundertake one thing in the ministry,
even if you've done it ahundred times, a thousand times without
getting on your knees andcrying out to God in prayer.
And that so profoundlyimpacted me.
But because I had suchprayerful parents, I mean, my mother

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was on her knees about twohours a day.
And I'm not exaggerating, andmy dad was always praying for us.
Oh, with tears he'd bepraying, lord, let us, let us not
be an undivided family, butlet us be divided.
Let us be an undivided familyreserved for the heavenly mansions
above.
Lord, we can't miss anyone atthe right hand of the side of Christ.

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Save our children, Lord, saveour children.
And then when we all gotsaved, he'd say, my oldest brother
and sister had grandchildrenby that time from my parents.
And he'd say, lord, now weneed all the grandchildren saved.
And we tell it.
So I grew up in thisatmosphere where everything was prayed
about.
And when we prayed at thetable, my dad didn't do a 30 second

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prayer or blessing for the food.
He did like a five minute,earnest, heartfelt prayer and then
at the end, again, earnestprayer of the meal and family worship,
especially on Sunday night,family worship.
And so when this minister saidthis to me, I mean, it wasn't a stretch

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for me to realize the value ofthis because I'd seen it in my own
parents and I've tried tofollow that my whole ministry, realizing
that the most important Thingof all is prayer.
Anything I don't marinate inprayer, even fundraising for the
seminary here.
Sometimes I come over inNovember and start fundraising for

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the year end gifts.
And every once in a while I'mbusy and I come over and I pick up
the phone, I start calling.
And I'll tell you, Will, thisis not superstition.
But if I don't pray first, Icould go through 15 phone calls and
nobody's home.
But if I pray first and reallycommit it to God, I've experienced

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over and over again in my lifethat God takes ownership of that.
And so taking hold of myselfand disciplining myself to pray and
putting prayer up front ratherthan the backseat and doing that
as a husband with my wife anddoing it as a father with my children

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is critical for being a realman and what I find today.
I think most people in mychurch do pray earnestly.
Most men do pray earnestlywith their children on family worship
times every day.
I think the majority would,but there's a lot of men, a lot of

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men who are not prayingpassionately with their wives, just
alone with their wife every day.
That's a huge mistake.
You know, we say the familythat prays together stays together.
I like to put it this way.
And the couple that staystogether or prays together stays
together.

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So my wife and I, we just madethis, what the puritans would call
one of your holy habits, oneof your habitual uses of the means
of grace.
We've just made it a point inour marriage.
No matter where I am in theworld now, my wife always travels
with me.
But it wasn't that way whenour kids were young.
We will pray together every night.

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So every night we get down onour knees beside our bed, hand in
hand, she storms the mercy seat.
One night I stormed the mercyseat the next night.
That time is the sweetest timeof my whole day.
I love to hear my wife pray.
I love to hear the feminineside of prayer.

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And if I'm gone, if I'm inZambia, Africa, I'll call my wife.
There's been one day in thelast 37 years I couldn't get a hold
of my wife.
No matter where I am, Icouldn't sleep at night because I
couldn't pray with her beforeI went to bed.
So if you develop it as a holyhabit and you do it daily, like Deuteronomy

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6, 6, 7 say you should do withyour kids, but it also applies to
your wife, passionatelybringing her before the throne of
grace that's critical tofulfilling your role as a.
As an interceding priest.
You know, job, job 1 5.
He says he brought hischildren every morning in prayer

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to God and sacrifice andkilled a bullock or whatever it was
for them.
And Spurgeon says about thathe hurried to the cross early every
morning to commit his childrenfor that day to the Lord.
What a godly example.
What a beautiful way to live.

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Thank you for that, sir.
I can.
I can validate the power ofprayer, even though my fiance and
I are long distance.
Over the past several months,I've been cultivating a habit of
recording, like, a voice notefor her and a very.
And a messaging app andreading a prayer.
Like I read a prayer now I'min the Valley of Vision, so I'll
just flip to a random prayerin the Valley of Vision, read it

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to her, and then do a bit ofmy own prayers at the end.
And how nice it is when she'srecorded prayers for me.
It's just a really specialthing to hear.
And we're not even marriedyet, and it's still something we're
cultivating.
I have a number of spiritual bonds.
Are actually even moreimportant than the physical bonds.
And they will give thephysical in your marriage a dimension

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that if you don't have thespiritual, you can never reach by
just having the physical.
Well, talk a little bit about those.
About those spiritual bonds.
Talk about, you know, this isnot just your wife.
I think I've heard VodiBauckham say, she's not mine, she's
me.
And I just said that.
What a striking phrase that is.

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So talk a little bit aboutbuilding those spiritual bonds, because
I imagine there are probably alot of listeners who they have stuff
going on during the day.
The kids are going this wayand the work is going this way, and
just sleep.
Seem sleep and time and money.
Like, talk about making timeto cultivate these spiritual bonds
and how essential that is.
Yeah, there's different waysof doing that, of course.

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One is to have these holyhabits, these rituals that you do
every day.
That's important.
In the Dutch background I'mfrom, we say if the form is gone,
all will soon be gone.
But in the reformers andPuritans, they had the stated times
of discipline, and thediscipline to engage in the means

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of grace in the family andpersonally and with your wife.
And then you have thespontaneous times.
And so when it comes to thedeliberate times, I'll just tell
you what we do.
Obviously, we cry out to Godin the morning, get out of bed, want
to begin your day with God.
Then at breakfast, we followthe Dutch tradition where you pray

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before the meal, you read theBible after every meal and maybe
talk one or two minutes about it.
That's three meals a day.
And then you close with prayer.
So there you've got twoprayers and you've got a Bible reading
and a little tiny nugget offamily worship.
Noon, you do the same thing.

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Supper, you do the same thing.
But what we would do as afamily, we still do it just as husband
and wife, because all the kidsare married now.
After supper, we then moveinto the living room as we always
have done.
And then we actually gothrough a more formal family worship
which consists of four parts.
First of all, we pray and I pray.

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And then we read scripture andthen we talk about what we read.
We go through the familyworship Bible guide you held up.
That is a godsend.
That's our best selling book.
That's a godsend for fathersall over the world because it gives
you the two major takeaways,basically two or three from each

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chapter and the ending questions.
And so we've been using thatfor years, ever since it came out.
Took us five years to write itwith a bunch of other men because
we felt there was a real lack there.
And when you use that familyworship Bible guide, it takes all
the fear out of leading familyworship because it's written right

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there for you.
Then you just answer thequestions, your wife jumps in, your
kids jump in.
Sometimes you ask a questionspecifically to one child.
It's more at their age range.
And then after you talk toyour kids for three, five, seven
minutes as they get older,maybe nine, 12, because they love

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to talk when they get older.
And then what you do is youclose with prayer.
And I would always have mywife or one of the children close
with prayer.
Take turns.
And then we always sing Psalm18, Psalm 118, 15.
They heard the noise of musiccoming from the tents of the righteous,

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which was not the synagogue,it was the daily home.
So the Puritans said, you'vegot to end your family worship with
singing praises to God,because singing lasts longest on
the memory bank and you shouldgo into the day with it or into the
evening with it and so on.
So those are some formal waysto build these bonds, both in marriage

(30:05):
and in your family.
But then the spontaneous ways.
There's so many situations.
We developed a habit when ourkids were still home.
We're driving down thehighway, we see somebody got into
an accident.
I wouldn't Even say to thekids, children, we got to stop and
pray.
Now.

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I would just start praying andthey would all hold their hands,
close their eyes because theyknew we were going to pray for their
family because we can't stopand help them interfere with the
police or the analysts.
But obviously whoever got intoaccident is in need.
So of course we're going topray for them.
That's what I wanted toinstill in my children.
Or I come home from work andmy wife says, you know, Calvin has

(30:51):
a bad stomachache and he's inhis bedroom and Esther's kind of
worried about a big test tomorrow.
So I go walk over to eachchild, say, I hear you're feeling
pretty sick.
Or I hear you've got a bigtest that dad wants to pray.
I want to pray with you.
You just automatically pray.
So prayer becomes a way oflife that it doesn't surprise your

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kids as soon as they hearabout a need in their lives that
you as a dad say, son,daughter, let's go to prayer.
Or you just heard sermon preached.
What a fool a dad would be todrive home, a 10 minute drive home
and not talk about the sermon.
On the way home.
You just heard the words ofthe living God to you.

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Of course you're going to askyour wife, what did you get out of
the sermon tonight?
What did you learn?
And you're going to share whatyou learned and you're going to ask
your kids a couple questionsabout what they heard and take advantage.
Golden opportunity.
Golden opportunity, but alsoin daily life.

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My wife, who's written a fewbooks as well and talks to women
often at the conferences I do,she has a talk that she often gives
to women.
It's called meaningfulconversation around the dinner table.
I wasn't so great at that bynature because I'd come home from
working 10 hours and I wouldbe exhausted and sit at the table

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and just hard for me to putall the ministry out of my mind right
away.
My wife would often gentlygive me a little, a little nudge
with her toes, very light onmy legs, just so enough I could feel
it.
And I know what she was saying.
She's saying with that,remember, meaningful conversation.
Meaningful conversation, she'dalways said to me.

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So you know, because I mean,casual conversation is fine too for
part of the time, but this isa golden opportunity to talk about
real things.
When all your kids are aroundthe table, they'll never forget those
conversations.
Or we've got woods behind our house.
It's wonderful.
Take your kids walking throughthe woods, show them God's creation.

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Just develop these spiritual,spiritual bonds as a way of life.
Spontaneous, but also deliberate.
What would you say to men whodidn't grow up in Christian households
or who grew up in sort of morenominal Christian households who
look at all this and say,well, wow, that is a, that is a big

(33:34):
shift from the way that I grew up.
Like, for example, I, me,myself, I, I did not grow up in a
Christian home.
And so, so what would you sayto men who don't come from that background,
who look at suddenly taking onwhat can feel like an enormous responsibility
for bringing God so much intothe home when that's not something
they grew up having experienced?

(33:55):
Yeah, yeah.
That's a question I get a lot of.
And I usually begin this way.
How long did it take you tolearn how to swim?
A bit.
A bit.
Okay, same thing here.
Do you learn to swim byavoiding the water?
Definitely not.

(34:16):
Okay, so I'm asking yourhetorical questions because the
point I'm driving at is itdoesn't take all that much to conduct
a decent family worship.
And God is not looking forsmoothness of language.
He's not looking for thelength of the service.
He's looking for genuineness,sincerity of heart.

(34:37):
And so you're not a real theologian.
You probably are more than yourealize, but you're not a gifted
theologian in terms ofexpressing it.
But you can.
Even though you've never justtaken my family worship book, giving
you practical guidelines howto do it simply, then using the family
Worship Bible Guide, you canpray for half a minute.

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You can read the Bible withyour children for a minute.
You can talk to them after youread the family Worship Bible Guide
question for one minute.
And you can sing from a bookfor a minute or two.
You can start simple.
Start with a five minutefamily worship.
Just do those four parts andjust say to your children, daddy's

(35:26):
going to do this.
We haven't done it before, butI read this book by Joel Beekee or
somebody else and I'm convicted.
I need to do this.
We need to have a spiritualfoundation home.
Please help me.
Please help me.
And you explain to yourchildren, you can do these four parts.

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You're going to start out witha little prayer.
Usually probably right aftersupper is the best time before everybody
goes their own way.
But you pick out the time ofthe day where most people can be
there.
And then you read maybe fiveverses and then you do one family
worship Bible question, maybejust one.

(36:08):
Then you have another.
Ask one member of your familyto have another short prayer.
And then you sing one stanza.
And what you'll find is as youstart doing this, it'll come so natural
to you.
You'll want to sing twostanzas, you'll want to have a little
more in your prayer, andyou'll want to read 10 verses instead
of five.

(36:28):
It will naturally settle inbetween 10 to 15 minutes somewhere
in there that you'll find most edifying.
What you don't want to do isdo a long family worship for 45 minutes
one day and do nothing for twomore days.
You've got to get in the holy habit.
You don't say to your wife,I'm too tired to do family worship
tonight.
Are you kidding me?

(36:49):
Christ went to the crosscarrying his cross.
He was so weary about cavedin, and he still carried it all the
way.
You can do a decent 5 to 10minute family worship and he'll help
you.
So don't make excuses.
Just start doing it today.
That's the point.
And he'll help you and it willgrow on you just like you learn to

(37:12):
swim better when you swim, themore you do it, the easier it will
come and the more fruitful itwill be.
What would you say to wiveswho would like to bring more of this
into their home but want toperhaps inspire their husbands to
take that step?
How can they do that in anappropriate way?

(37:33):
Yeah, it's a tough one.
There's so many differentindividual scenarios here that not
one size fits all.
But I've also had this question.
I've answered this question.
I've spoken on family worshipin about 50 countries, maybe 400
times in my life.
And this is one of thequestions that pops up all the time.

(37:56):
And I'm sympathetic to itbecause there's no easy answer.
But I would say there'sseveral different cases.
Number one is the husband whojust goes to church every week, just
feels no gifts at doing this,but knows it needs to be done and
is feeling guilty.
So the wife just could say,honey, I'll help you.

(38:17):
I'll take one of the prayers.
But even if you read a formprayer, even if you do a few sentences,
the children need to hear you pray.
Would you please, please pray?
And if he says, I can't do it,say, well, can I just write out a
little prayer for you?
Will you at least read it sothe children can hear you?
Just encourage him and justtry to encourage him to lead the

(38:40):
four parts.
All he has to do is open thebook and read the family worship
question and You've got it.
And then as a wife, you canhelp maybe facilitate the conversation
a little bit if your husband'svery shy in these things.
But do not take over from him.
If he can do it half as wellas you can, let him do it.

(39:04):
And you just jump in where itis appropriate because children need
to see his leadership.
But you can be there tosupport him right at his side to
answer a question where no oneis talking, that type of thing.
But if you have a husbandwho's very hostile to it and is not
a Christian at all in any way,shape or form, not even outwardly,

(39:28):
it's a whole different ballgame.
I think then the wisest thingto do is to say, I realize, honey,
that you can't join us forthis because you don't believe it,
but it's very important to me.
Are you okay if I just leadthe children in a five minute family
worship?
I promise to keep it shortright after supper.

(39:51):
Some husbands will go alongwith that and that's a substitute.
But that's better than nofamily worship at all.
And years and years ago, whenour kids were not married, they were
at home and I would have totravel a lot by myself.
My wife would do familyworship with them every day, taking

(40:12):
my place.
That's another possibilitywhen the husband's gone on a business
trip or whatever.
But then there are thoseextreme cases where the husband says,
no, absolutely no.
What in the world do you do then?
Oh, man, that's a tough one.
And even there, there's variety.

(40:34):
But I would still say you haveto obey God above man and it's a
sin not to do it.
So the authority of Christ ismore than the authority of your husband.
Maybe you have to come to apoint where even if it's one minute,

(40:55):
when your husband's notaround, you just have a little prayer
with the kids and do the bestyou can.
And as Peter says, of courseyou've got to walk godly in front
of your husband.
That by your godlyconversation it may please the Lord
to convict your husband and tobring him to repentance if that happens.

(41:18):
Wow, what a difference in thehome that would make.
Amen.
Can you talk a little bitabout some homes that you may have
seen that have instituted, youknow, that didn't do family worship,
that didn't do family prayer.
And then they instituted, theylearned to swim, so to speak, and
the trans.
Maybe some of thetransformations you've seen from

(41:39):
families that have done that, thousands.
Upon thousands upon thousandsof families have had their family
worship time transformed bythis book?
Family Worship Bible Guide.
And why?
Why is that book so, so critical?

(41:59):
Well, because the hardest partfor men isn't just uttering three
or four sentences in prayer,and it's not reading five, ten verses
in the Bible.
The hardest part for men iswhat do I say after I read it?
I read Ezekiel 44 tonight, andI have no clue what to say to my

(42:20):
kids.
Right.
But here is a book that fouror five people, maybe even a little
bit more, we had spent fiveyears writing wrestling with each
chapter.
How can we condense it down toa few comments that you can read
in 40 seconds with a questionat the end to facilitate your family

(42:43):
worship.
Why in the world wouldn't youget this book and just read it to
your kids for 40 seconds anight, ask them a question, and immediately
the conversation starts andthe burden of it is taken away.
It really doesn't take allthat much to lead a family worship
in a decent way when you havean aid like this one.

(43:05):
But this is why so many men fail.
They know they should betalking to their kids about real
things, but they don't knowhow to do it.
This book helps you.
And, and what you'll find isif you use it, sometimes you'll start
adding a few sentences on yourown as you learn to swim better,
and then you might add aquestion on your own.
Fantastic.

(43:26):
That's great.
So this book is actuallytraining you as a dad at the same
time how to communicate withyour children.
I love this.
When I got this book andflipped it open, the Family Worship
Bible Guide, and I just took alook at what was in it, I was like,
oh, this is going to be suchan incredible help.
Because I want to make surethat if I'm responsible for stewarding

(43:50):
shepherding the souls of mywife and kids, that I'm teaching
them well.
And I wouldn't just naturallyassume that whatever I happen to
say is true or accurate, evenif I try my hardest.
So this was an invaluableresource in terms of like, oh, okay,
here's how we can start the conversation.
Maybe so men can take a littlebit of the pressure off themselves
as having to have all the answers.

(44:12):
That's right.
That's right.
Yep.
And then if you don't have allthe answers, you admit it to your
kids, then you get a tool.
If I could humbly suggestthat, like reformed systematic theology,
and you have an index in theback and every single doctrine in
the entire Bible is covered inthose four volumes, which represents

(44:37):
my life work in biblical teaching.
And you just look up a fewpages and you learn and you grow
as you look up questions thatyou can't answer.
Can you talk also?
A little bit.
And you get into this, intothe how to lead your family book,
which is very popular in mymen's group, by the way, which has

(45:00):
been great.
And particularly the short andto the point, like, here's what you
need to know in order to takeon this role in a godly way.
Can you talk a little bitabout the roles of prophet, priest,
and king and how those applyto a father's responsibility to lead
his home?
Yeah.
So as a prophet, you have toremember you are God's authorized

(45:21):
steward.
And on the day of judgment,God will ask you the question.
Give me an account of your stewardship.
How?
Have you talked to the children?
Have you trained them?
Have you given them, have youraised them for a holistic maturity?
Have you talked to them about the.

(45:41):
About Jesus Christ, about sin,about hell, about heaven?
Have they heard every majordoctrine coming from your lips?
But also, have you talked tothem about all the practical things
of the Bible, the practicalthings of daily life, the things
you read about in the book of Proverbs?
See, if you do family worshipdaily and you go through the whole

(46:04):
Bible, say it takes you threeyears, you will have talked to your
children about every subjectunder the sun.
Because the Bible talks aboutevery subject under the sun.
So being a prophet isparticularly a teaching ministry.
It's also a bit of anadmonishing ministry because human
nature tends to go astray.
Sometimes you need to warnyour children about worldliness.

(46:26):
You need to warn them aboutwatching ungodly entertainment, things
like that.
But primarily it's a positiveteaching emphasis.
And then you're to do it with passion.
Moses says in Deuteronomy 6,6, 7, diligently, and not just in

(46:48):
family worship, but when youlie down, when you rise up, when
you walk.
By the way, that's a Hebraicidiom that simply means every day,
every day you get up, everyday you lay down, every day you walk,
every day, teach your children passionately.
So if I get more excited aboutthe score of a Super bowl ballgame,

(47:10):
then I get excited talking tomy kids about Jesus Christ.
What does that say to my kids?
So the problem is, so manydads today just lack that freedom
to talk to their kids aboutreal things.
And that has got to change.
And that's where the familyworship Bible guy can get you going

(47:32):
on the right road in terms ofthe priestly office.
As I said, it's this elementof sacrifice.
Kids need to see mesacrificing for my wife, loving her
like Christ loves the church.
They need to see me hear meinterceding for them and blessing

(47:53):
them with my conversation,godly conversation and as king.
They need to see me protecting them.
I want to give you a coolexample that really is very dear
to my heart.
My oldest daughter is a bitshyer than other kids were.
And he made it through highschool without any boy being interested

(48:19):
in her in the whole church orseemingly interested in her.
And even though she'sattractive and she's virtuous, just
a sweet, sweet girl, but justkind of shy talking to boys.
So she's going off to collegeand I said to her, honey, I'm just

(48:40):
kind of worried about you.
I know you're going to aChristian college, but I'm kind of
worried that you're going tomeet a Christian young man there
who's going to see yourvirtues, going to get interested
in you and maybe fall in lovewith you.
But his background inChristianity might be very different
from yours.

(49:02):
You know, we believe in free grace.
Maybe he's going to be inArminian and maybe be sincere, but
I'm just kind of worried aboutwho you're going to meet.
And she was driving at thetime we were coming home from church
and I was sitting in the frontseat, just the two of us, because
she had gone with me to aneighboring church on a Sunday afternoon

(49:22):
in between our own regular services.
And as she's driving, I cannever forget her luck.
She turned and she looked atme and she said, but dad, why are
you worried?
You know I never go out withanyone you didn't fully approve of.
And I go, yes, that was great.

(49:44):
But you see, what that told meby her example was she really wanted
me to protect her, to protecther from men who would not be good
for her.
And she trusted my wisdom.
That's the way it should be.
Now, don't get me wrong, Ihave a lot of faults as a parent

(50:04):
and I'm sure my kids couldtell you a number of them.
So we're all works in progress.
But when we're kings in ourhome, our children should feel that
we're protecting them from theworld, protecting them from evil.
Tell you one way my dad didthat was really effective, really
effective.

(50:25):
I thought all dads did this.
Found out later it was prettyunique to my dad.
So he realized, even though heonly had an eighth grade education,
he realized that when you getto be in about eighth grade or so,
you're going to start makingdecisions for yourself.
The world is not black and white.
And so when we would ask him13, 14, 15 years old, dad, can we

(50:50):
go and do A, B or C?
He'd often say to us, whydon't you go up into your bedroom,
get down on your knees and askGod if you can glorify him by doing
this activity.
And if you can't, don't do it.

(51:10):
If you can, you have mypermission to do it.
And I think we were stricteron ourselves than he was because
we go up there and pray.
So I think, wow, how can Iglorify God?
By watching that movie.
Movie in my neighbor'sbasement with my buddy.
And I know there's going to besin on that movie, and if I'm participating
in it by watching it, no, Ican't do that.

(51:35):
And you know, that type of thing.
So I'm not talking aboutlegalistic things here.
I'm talking about cultivatingthe hearts of your children.
A principal conviction that Ineed to avoid the very appearance
of evil.
I need to not desensitize myconscience toward the horrendousness,

(52:00):
the dastardliness, theabominableness of this thing we call
sin that comes.
And then the other part of thekingly office, of course, is guiding
in the right directions andpassing on wisdom to your kids and
that they learn to grow andbecome much more mature in making

(52:21):
decisions and teaching them inall areas of life, giving them authoritative
guidance about how to meetpeople, how to interact with people,
guidance on how should I viewsports compared to life itself, how
should I view theentertainment world, how should I
use my cell phone, all thatkind of stuff.

(52:47):
One of the things that struckme in your examples of, of your childhood
growing up and of yourdaughter as well was that the, the
choice to do or not dosomething wasn't, well, if I do it
or if I don't do, a dad willbe mad.
It was, it was with you.
You know, you went up and youwere harder on yourself.
You said stricter on yourselfthan your own father would have been.

(53:09):
But, but you genuinely wantedto please God and your daughter genuinely
wanted to please God in herown way.
And it sounds like justmarinating in this environment of
faith produces obedient,faithful children that are kept safe
from the world in a way thatlegalism or like a tyrannical father
would create the image, theappearance of that, but not the genuine,

(53:32):
not the genuine article in the heart.
Yeah, Yat.
And let me nuance, if I may,just a tad bit more what you're just
saying because you're ontosomething quite big.
So my dad would do that with me.
I was converted when I was 14,but he'd do it with me even when
I was 13 or 12 maybe.
And as a child, that's unsaved.

(53:55):
Not in open rebellion againstGod, but having deep, deep convictions
of reverence and respect formy father and mother.
When I saw their godlyexample, I knew they had something
I didn't.
When I got down on my kneeswhen I was 12 and 13, it wasn't motivated
preeminently by loving God andloving his glory.

(54:19):
It was motivated by havingjust a kind of outward respect for
my father and my mother and atraining of the conscience.
My dad used to often say,don't ever overstep your conscience
unless your conscience is notaligned with the word of God.

(54:40):
Well, my dad was always makingstatements like that and he was training
our conscience.
And so even as unconvertedchildren, we often didn't dare do
things.
I remember very vividly right now.
I had a friend when I was 13months saved, he wanted to take me

(55:04):
to a movie.
Well, honestly, I grew upwithout television.
My parents just didn't feel itwas good for us.
And also they didn't think thetheater was good for us.
So that was built into my conscience.
But the movie, I don't thinkit was an R rated one.
But I knew there'd be sin in it.

(55:26):
And at first I thought, well,maybe I kind of wanted to see it
too.
So I said yes, I would go with him.
So we were just about ready towalk into the theater.
We went downtown, we got bythe theater, got out of the car and
I mean, this is going to soundstrangely mystical to some people,

(55:48):
but I just tell you what happened.
It's really a result of myconscience training of my dad.
Before I went in those doors,I suddenly saw in front of me, in
my mind, my dear, dear,loving, loving, loving mother on
her knees as I saw her everymorning, knowing that every morning

(56:12):
she's praying for usindividually that we'd be kept from
sin, that we'd be converted,that we'd serve the living God.
And just out of respect for mymother, I turned to my friend and
said, you know what?
Let's do something else.
I just couldn't do it now.
All of that changeddramatically when I was 14.

(56:34):
I wanted to do the will of Godand I wanted to serve God from all
My heart.
And I didn't need to bemotivated just by what my dad and
mom.
My love for my dad and mom, mywife and my mother are the two kindest
people I've ever met on planet Earth.
I am so blessed.

(56:55):
My dad was kind as well, buthe was more a lover of my soul.
Only I don't think he cared asmuch about my daily life.
But my mother had that lovefor every detail of my life.
And so I got the best of both worlds.
In a way, my mother loved mysoul, too, but she couldn't express
herself as freely as my dadabout spiritual things.
But, boy, did she pray for me.

(57:17):
Boy, did my dad pray for me.
And so when you're that kindof man, where your children grow
up and you're gently lovinglymolding their conscience, and as
they grow up, if somebody asksthem about you and they can say something

(57:37):
like this, well, my dad isn'tperfect, but I want to tell you one
thing.
My dad loves my soul and heloves Jesus Christ.
You've largely succeeded at Paradigm.
What a beautiful thought.
And what strikes me about thestories you tell is that the level

(58:00):
of loyalty that your fatherinspired, your mother and your father
inspired, and the level ofloyalty that you inspired in your
daughter during an age when somany kids, by media, by their own
friends, by culture, arediscipled in disloyalty to their
parents.
Distrust.
Disloyalty.

(58:22):
Yeah.
That's why we're working hardnow at the seminary right now, the
last four years.
We really want to establish.
We're doing a presidentialsearch right now.
We really want to establish asubsidiary of the seminary called
Puritan Reformed College.
We want a really positivecollege where every single professor,

(58:42):
no matter what program isestablished, teaches from a solid
biblical reform perspective.
Accredited liberal artscollege where teenagers don't have
all this poison poured intotheir minds that so impact them that
so many, so many teenagerstoday walk into college pretty decent

(59:05):
even if they're not saved.
They're outwardly decent, gotmoral convictions, they got a conscience
that speaks.
And they come out of collegehating the country and embracing
WOKE stuff and all kinds ofnonsense and different genders.
Oh, it's just awful.
And parents are actuallypaying for this, right?
Yeah.
Unbelievable.

(59:25):
No, no, no.
We have to see to it that ourchildren have a good education and
not send them to places thatare going to poison their minds and
unravel everything we've beentrying to do.
How can.
How can adults be moreforgiving to their parents?
Because we live in a traumaand quote, unquote trauma, informed

(59:48):
culture, psychotherapy,informed culture that sort of holds
up bitterness towards motherand father, particularly father,
as sort of a, a cultural thingthat everyone does.
You blame your parents foreverything that goes wrong in your
life.
And.
But I found in myself thatforgiving, forgiving my parents has
been one of the most powerfulthings I've ever done.
How can, how, how can adultslearn, particularly Christian adults,

(01:00:10):
learn to forgive their parentsin an environment that celebrates
like childhood trauma andthings like that?
Yeah, there's again, not onesize fits all here, I think.
But there are some things Ican say that I think could be helpful.
There is trauma that can beoverwhelmingly serious.

(01:00:34):
That definitely takes a periodof time with good biblical counseling.
Like say if I got physicallyabused or I was, yeah, constantly
verbally abused for years.
And I mean that you, you needto really get help for that.
I, I think.
But the normal, I should saynormal slash, somewhat abnormal disappointment

(01:01:02):
in parents who weren't godly,never took you to church, never talked
to you about the Lord.
You become a Christian, yourealize when you see other godly
parents, what you missed thenI would remember.
I would remember two things.
Number one, I would thinkalong these lines.
If I grew up exactly like myparents and with the exact experiences,

(01:01:27):
the exact same set ofbackground, the exact things in every
area of life, I probably wouldturn out exactly like them because
I too have a deceitful heart.
Remember that.
Secondly, you want to rememberthat the Bible says I will restore,
saith the Lord, the years thelocusts have eaten and sometimes

(01:01:53):
will.
There are people that becomeChristians, say in their 20s, they're
reading a book or reading thescriptures or happening to go to
church.
And they become very bitterthat their parents kept them from
all these riches all those years.
But they need to understandthat they found what life is all

(01:02:13):
about when they found that tolive for the glory of God.
And once you discover that,you can be so grateful that God extracts
you from that non Godbackground you have that instead
of not forgiving your parents,the reverse will happen.
You'll want to go evangelizeyour parents and you want to pray

(01:02:36):
and pray that God will save them.
And once you can have thatreversal, I believe and actually
feel, instead of anger, feel asense of pity for your parents because
they've never seen thisglorious truth that Jesus Christ
died for sinners and they toocan be saved because there's no impossible
cases with him.

(01:02:56):
And this is the third thing.
If God can save me, he cansave anyone in the world.
He can save my mom and dad too.
And so I think things likethat are really helpful.
And the thing that I don'thave it with my parents, but I've
had people really, really hurtme badly in life.
I've gone through some verydeep ways and what I found to be

(01:03:20):
the most helpful for me.
And I think this applies to achild with a parent that hasn't brought
him up right or well, is.
I look at it this way, no onehas ever treated me, even though
I was treated very badly bysome people, as badly as I've treated
my Lord Jesus Christ.

(01:03:41):
And he still loved me and heforgave me, so I should be able to
forgive anybody.
I think that's an important principle.
I wrote a book called topastors called Coping with Criticism.
And I have like 10 or 11solutions in the book, I think.
But I say this is the main solution.

(01:04:01):
Main solution for me in theministry was just to consider what
Christ suffered on my behalfand how unworthy I was of him loving
me and forgiving me.
And if he can do that for asinner like me, why in the world
shouldn't I be able to forgiveanyone who's damaged me?

(01:04:27):
Praise God.
That's beautiful.
As you've become agrandfather, how have these lessons
taken on added or increased gravity?
Yeah, yeah, I'm everythinganybody tells you about being a grandfather.
It's, it's better than all of it.

(01:04:48):
It's just.
Oh, it's amazing.
It's so sweet.
I, I'm actually cutting downconsciously my work next year or
this year and already.
But next year in a much moremajor way just so I can spend more
time with the grandchildren.
But I have this little classI'm teaching some of the grandchildren
here in my study.

(01:05:09):
I'm walking them through right now.
It's an eight year old and asix year old, but I'm getting six
of them later this month andstarting the class.
Walking them through fromProlegomena all the way to Eschatology
and Reformed Theology, but notusing those words at a six year old

(01:05:30):
level.
It is so much fun and it's so,so meaningful.
If I could just tell you onequick story.
So I'm teaching them.
This was maybe two months agoand so far we've walked through theology
proper and we're intoChristology right now.
We've gone throughanthropology and so we're like no,

(01:05:51):
no, we're actually intosociology so we're like 60% of the
way.
But I'm talking about theimmensity of God, how Big God is.
And I'm saying to the kids,ones 8, 1 6, God is so big, so big.
You could never, never imaginehow big God is.

(01:06:13):
Dear children, do youunderstand how big God is?
And the six year old looks atme and goes, should you do?
No, you don't understand.
You don't understand.
He said, I think I do.
I think I know he's big, but Ithink I can understand it.
I said, selah, that's impossible.

(01:06:35):
I said, just imagine, justimagine that a little ant is walking
up your leg right now and hegets back on his hind legs and he
looks up at you and says,selah, I understand everything about
you.
Even though I'm very littleand you're so big, I can understand
what your mind thinks.
I understand everything about you.

(01:06:58):
And she shouts at me, no,Grandpa, no.
That aunt can't possibly know me.
And I said, selah, as muchbigger as you are to that aunt, God
is even more bigger to youthan you are to the aunt.
And she just stopped and shelooked out the window.

(01:07:20):
I could just see those littlewheels turning, you know.
And then she looked at me andshe goes, just a little nod of the
head like, okay, I get was so precious.
And then the next lesson shebrought it back up again.
I was, we were talking aboutsome other attribute of God.
She said, well, that's becauseGod is so big we can't understand

(01:07:41):
him.
I go, yes, yes, Taylor, youknow, so this is precious.
This is precious.
So my wife right now is withmy daughter out in Alberta for a
week because her husband's a minister.
He's out at a, at camp and I'mbatching it.
That's it.
I'm so used to my wife beingaround me all the time.
So I'm a little lonely thisweek, but I'm going over to the two

(01:08:06):
children that are around us still.
I'm going over to one tomorrownight and then one on Friday night.
Not just for supper, but sitdown and read the books to the grandchildren
and wrestle with them and playtrains with them and talk to them
about the Lord and oh my, what fun.
Would you say that yourgrandchildren are your favorite students

(01:08:27):
or among your favorite students?
Yeah, I've said to people,this is the favorite class I've ever
taught in my life.
Of all the classes I've taughtall around the world, this.
There's something specialabout teaching your own grandchildren
well.
So this has been a wonderful,wonderful conversation.
I'm so deeply appreciative ofyour time and your generosity of

(01:08:49):
spirit and Telling all ofthese stories.
One of the things I wanted tosay is I was very blessed in reading
the books that you had written.
Just these short books as Iprepare to be a husband and a father,
Lord willing, and agrandfather as well.
So thank you for passing allof that along.
My pleasure.

(01:09:09):
So sir, where would you liketo send people to find out more about
you and what you do, but alsowhere to start, Perhaps with your
massive library of works,books that you've written, books
that you've edited.
Where should people start inthe Dr. Beaky universe?
Well that's a very kind question.

(01:09:30):
RHB stands for ReformationHeritage Books which is non profit
sells everything discount.
RHB.org will carry pretty muchall the books I've done, also the
ones from other publishers andyou'll get it cheaper from RHB than
anywhere else.
I would start if you have a family.
I would start definitely withthe family worship Bible Guide and

(01:09:54):
the little company book I havewith it which you also held up.
Family worship, Paul saysFamily worship.
That's a one hour, one and ahalf hour read of how to do each
part of family worship andsome practical guidelines for it.
If you're not a Christian, Iwould begin with my portraits of

(01:10:15):
faith, what it means to reallybelieve in Christ.
A simple 100 page book,portraits of faith.
If your father, you know, doget the how to lead your family book
that was just published.
If you're into theology atall, get the Reformed systematic
theology.
That's a four volume volume one.

(01:10:37):
But if you want to get in thePuritans, I've done two books both
with co authors.
That one is called Meet thePuritans which looks at the life
story.
You can read it as a dailydevotional of all 160 Puritans that
have been reprinted in thelast 60 years.
And then it gives you asummary of each book as well.
All 750 books.

(01:10:58):
And then there's a companionvolume that I wrote with Mark Jones
that looks at the major 50doctrines of the Puritans and then
gives you eight chapters ofhow they interwove those doctrines
into their family life, intotheir prayers, into their conscience,

(01:11:19):
into their meditation.
And that book will really helpyou understand by far, by far the
greatest writers ever inchurch history which are the Puritans
taking all the reformed truthsand bringing them home to every area
of life.
And what we're doing right nowwill for the next 10 years is we're

(01:11:41):
taking 200 puritan books thatare small books and we're Editing
them so that every difficultantiquated word is removed and replaced
with its contemporary equivalent.
So a 14 year old can read anyone of these 200 books without any
trouble.
So gone are the days whenpeople have struggled reading the
Puritans.
And these books are sopractical, they're so rich, they're

(01:12:03):
so biblical, they're so fullof content.
Yeah.
So we got 16 of them done.
And one of them, for example,the Boundless God by George Swinnock.
What a book that is.
And I edited one calledAnthony Burgess.
Faith and assurance triumphingover sinful fear by John Flavel.

(01:12:28):
What a book that is for peoplewho have different fears of different
kinds.
So they're called PTT Puritantreasures for today.
Go to ReformationHeritageBooks, which is rhb.org and you'll
find, you'll find all my booksthere and co authored books and things
like that.

(01:12:49):
I mean there.
I don't know if you can see itfrom your perspective, but maybe
when you watch the video later.
I actually have the PuritanTreasures for today series on my
bookshelf behind me right nowin the frame of the shot.
So they're up there.
Quickly, do you have anyresources for wives and for mothers
as well?
In the how to lead you'dfamily book you reference a couple

(01:13:10):
books that you've writtenwith, co authored with your wife.
Maybe some resources for women also.
Yeah, yeah.
My wife and I wrote a littlebook called how to have a God glorifying
marriage and that's just likea 30 page book.

(01:13:32):
We're rewriting it in a longerform now.
It's going to be about an 80page book.
It's going to actually matchthis one.
How to lead your family.
The same type of principle incover design and, and then my wife
in the next year is going towrite one all by herself.

(01:13:54):
80 pages, same style, shortedto the point to women.
How to be a biblical mummy.
And yeah, that's going to bereally good.
My wife is such a.
She thinks everything through endlessly.
She's a very slow writer butshe lets things marinate in her mind.

(01:14:14):
She always says, I don't knowwhy it takes me so long.
I say honey, it's perfectbecause when it comes out at the
end it's really you and it's,it's the Bible and her writing is
her.
And she doesn't use otherbooks, she just speaks from the heart.
And I'm sure it's going to bea great book for a moment, but that's
not out yet, but yeah, thereare good books out on being my wife.

(01:14:41):
Likes the one by Kent Hughes,Barbara Hughes, how to be a Godly
Woman.
That's a really good book.
And we have a book coming outby the way, how to Live as a Redeemed
man that's coming out inOctober, maybe early November.

(01:15:07):
And Paul Smalley and RickPhillips and myself have edited it
and we've got like 22 chaptersin it on every aspect, nearly every
aspect of a man's life, aredeemed man's life.
And it's authored by like 15,17 different authors.

(01:15:27):
Think of Ferguson's in there.
Derek Thomas, Jeff Thomas,just a bunch of really, really good
writers.
And I can't tell you howpleased I am with this book.
I was amazing, amazed at allthe contributions we got.
They're really well done.
They're short chapters, just4,000 words, 10 pages.

(01:15:47):
And it's how to Live as aRedeemed Husband, how to Live as
Redeemed Father, how to, howto Live as a Redeemed man in senior
Years, how to Live as aRedeemed man with regard to my young
children, how to Live as aRedeemed man in my work.
And on and on it goes.
But it's going to be a great book.

(01:16:08):
I'm sure you found a lot ofinterest in redeeming the family.
These, these, these familyportraits for husband, father, wife,
mother, children.
Yeah, yeah.
My, my daughter Esther, who Iwas talking about before in this
broadcast, she, or podcastrather, she, she wrote a really good

(01:16:30):
little book in our, in ourCultivating Biblical Godliness series
that's just 30 some pages, howto Feel Productive as a Mom.
And basically her thesis isthat you look at every duty you have
to do as a mom as God's will,that you do that duty and so you

(01:16:51):
glorify God in every duty you do.
Even if you're changing thatdiaper for the sixth time that day,
this is your calling at thatmoment to change this diaper.
And so my daughter is very,very much of a, like a straight A
student kind of a perfectionist.
So when she had all thesebabies, four babies in a row, she,

(01:17:13):
she had to wrestle with thislike, I just feel like I'm wasting
my time doing the same thingall over again.
She wanted to be producingthings and so she, she actually thought
through it very deeply.
And then she actually wroteanother book for women that's 150
page paperback called Transformed.
And that's to help women betransformed in their thinking so

(01:17:38):
that the Mundane tasks ofmotherhood become tasks which I'm
doing to the glory of God.
Because this is my calling atthis moment.
This is my calling at that moment.
So the idea of the book thathas really helped a lot of women
is that you learn to live lifefor the glory of God every moment

(01:17:59):
through doing your calling,whatever your calling is to do at
that moment.
Well, actually, I've got abunch more questions if you have
another moment for that.
Because we've talked about so many.
I know that you have a thousand.
You should be winding down infive, ten minutes.
Okay, perfect.
Because I think what youbrought up there is something so
important because we've talkedabout how many different countercultural

(01:18:20):
things.
We're talking about loyalty toparents, fathers disciplining their
kids, you know, family worshipand taking an active role in stewarding
your kids souls away fromcultural sin and towards righteousness.
But being content in the homefor women, particularly today, to,
to, to find glory to God inbeing a wife and mother and not feeling

(01:18:43):
that fulfillment has to comeout there in the world being productive
in the way the world thinksabout things.
I wonder if you can speakabout that for a moment because that
is such a powerful part of ourculture today.
Yeah.
So I'll go right for thejugular, please.

(01:19:05):
When I speak to women and Ihear a woman say.
And I say, well, you know, sowhat's life look like for you?
What are you doing?
Well, I'm just a mother.
Wait a minute.
What do you mean by that word?
Just.
And well, you know, I, youknow, they try to talk, to walk their

(01:19:27):
way back from it, but they'retaking on the world's language.
Yeah.
And so I say to them, do yourealize you have the second most
important job in all the world?
Because I really believe theministry is the first.
Because you're dealing withpeople's souls all the time.
But I say you are the hub thatmakes the wheel go round of the home.
Mothers are the central figurereally for their children because

(01:19:50):
the dad has gone so much.
You have the second mostimportant job in all the world.
And so you need to stop buyinginto this false dichotomy, this false
theory that somehow a woman inthe home is not as valuable as a
woman outside the home.
As a matter of fact, generallyspeaking, it's the opposite.

(01:20:14):
Because when you're in thehome, and I'm not saying that women
can't work outside the homepart of the time, but when you're
in the home and the kids comehome at the end of the school day
after going to a Christian school.
I mean, what a precious thingit is to have the mother there.
And so by all means, have yourown pursuits, have your own hobbies,

(01:20:38):
do some work outside the home, okay?
But make sure that you do notshortchange the upbringing of your
children and just farm themout to babysitters or to daycare
centers every day, five days a week.
I mean, that is a disaster, Ithink, for children.

(01:20:59):
I think it runs counter to Scripture.
So we have to liveantithetically to this world.
And when this world takes onprecepts that are directly contrary
to scriptural teaching, Ithink we ought to sit up and say,
wait a minute, we're not goingdown this road.
This is not the biblical wayto live.

(01:21:21):
And will.
I've seen this all my life.
I've had three churches.
They've all been between 700,800 people a piece, generally.
So I've ministered tothousands of people.
I've been around the block.
I've been in differentcountries, different cultures.
And over and over and over,I've seen that women who are content

(01:21:44):
at home, who love theirhusband, who love their children,
who give them a godlyupbringing, who are praying for them,
who dote over them, they canbe very, very happy, fulfilled women.
And what an impact they haveon the world, just as fathers who

(01:22:06):
do daily family worship.
I look over those threecongregations I've served, and the
third one I'm still servingafter 39 years.
I look over them and I say,what families here are the backbone
families of the church thatare happy in the Lord and that continue
in the church from generationto generation are steadfast.

(01:22:27):
You can count on them.
You can see the image ofChrist in them.
What families are they most ofthe time?
That's not all the time.
Most of the time, they'refamilies where the mothers at home
nurturing their children.
But the father is alsoinvolved in doing family worship
every day with his kids.

(01:22:49):
It makes a difference.
What an incredible way to putall the pieces together is to talk
about the.
The centrality of fatherhood,the obedience and faithfulness of
children raised in the nurtureand admonition of the Lord, and just
how critical the role of awife and mother is to all of that,
making it all possible.
Yeah.

(01:23:09):
Well, sir, thank you so muchfor the blessing of this conversation,
the blessing of your work.
I'm sure it's going to do.
It's definitely been such a.
Such an encouragement to me,and I'm sure it'll be to many of
my listeners as well.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me on.
God bless you.
Well, God bless you, sir.

(01:23:40):
Sam.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}DR. JOEL BEEKE - Family Leadership for Men: The Three Offices Every Christian Father Must Master