Colossians 3:21 — Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
Ephesians 6:4 — And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Suppose we turn this round? Children, provoke not your parents … Why, you ask, would I have such an odd idea? Well, I’ve been struck recently by the thought that for a lot of people the relationship is reversing. More and more parents are dependent on children for support — financial, moral or just emotional.
Maybe I’m being silly about that one … but one of the wonders of the Bible is the way it provides foundational advice for critical family relationships — parents and children, husbands and wives, mothers and daughters-in-law,brothers and sisters …
Sometimes, of course, you have to work a little harder to see the lesson. What, for instance, can we tell from the relationship between Mary and Martha? As a simple man, I can see something about “sisters are different, but they need to get along, and unlike brothers they can do it without having to live in separate countries!”
Some of the lessons are not so hard to spot — but one generation doesn’t always seem to pick it up from another. For instance Isaac and Rebekah did a good job of proving that favoring one child over another wasn’t a good idea — but Jacob and Rachel didn’t get the lesson, and see what that did to Joseph and his brothers!
It’s sad to me that we don’t hear as much about the family lessons of the Bible as we might. We hear a fair bit about man and woman, husband and wife … but parents and children, brothers and sisters … they only seem to come out on special occasions.
Weddings, funerals (well burials anyway!), baptisms … You can find them all in the Bible. In fact I doubt if there’s an important family event that you couldn’t find insight into — even if you might have to look closely sometimes!
The family is God’s university for relationships. It’s where we learn to treat each other right. The Bible is the course book … It covers the basics … And the advanced topics … Like widows and orphans. It majors in parenting!
Probably the starting point for parenting education is the Book of Proverbs. The instructions aren’t so complicated: get your kids started right, make sure they know what they should be doing, and make sure they do it …
And so it goes all through the Bible. Any relationship, and any relationship issue. If you will look, you can find the guiding principle. So how come our children don’t know everything they need to know? You know the answer to that one. The Family Instruction Book is no longer welcome in our schools. Driven out of our schools, it is becoming less popular in our homes … And so our families fall apart. We need to get back to the Book and relearn relationships.