Minimum level of qualifications part 2

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Anton Bruckner

Puritan Board Professor
concerning parents.

What should be the minimum level of biblical qualifications (education wise) that a father should have or a man pursuing the role of a husband and father should attain to.

I say this in light of the Biblical command for fathers to train up their children in the ways of the Lord, and also the command to elders to rule their households well. The role of the elder and the father seems to be synonymous. If a man obeys the Lord by training up his children properly he will naturally qualify for the role of elder.

Now children are not static, they grow therefore a father or mother must have at every stage of the child's maturity and development, knowledge to apply to that situation. The small children's catechism will not work on a 15 year old, nor would the father's exposition of the Psalms that he did in the 3rd year of marriage be of much significance for the 10th year.

Because of this I believe that the education of the father should or has to be ongoing to meet the spiritual needs of his family if the commandment, "Train up your child", is to be met.

Now what is the minimum point that a father should start off from, and how should a father go about the process of constant learning that he must disseminate to his family? I know that listening to sermons will not suffice entirely, and some sort of formal self study or classroom work must must come to bare but I am not entirely sure of how this all fits together.

I know that back during the reformation and the post reformation period, the word of God was preached in soundly, therefore even the most unlearned and common person had a proper grasp of it (eg Jonathan Edwards sermons to the Indians, and Spurgeon's sermons to the common folk of England), but today it just simply isn't that way. A so called Evangelical or a typical sincere Christian of today would be considered wholly illiterate if they lived in the time of Spurgeon, Edwards, Owen etc. So I have to ask again, what is the minimum point that a father or a wannabe father and husband should start off from, and how should he go about gathering and retaining knowledge in a systematic manner for his own growth and for the teaching of his family.
 
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