Provoke Not Your Children to Wrath

At the end of the book The Brothers Karamazov there was a great trial scene in which a son Dmitri was tried for the murder of his father.  Dmitri was innocent, but the evidence was strongly against him and his relationship with his father had been very strained.  His father had not been much of a father during Dmitri’s lifetime and had given no care or nourishment or love to his son. The attorney for the defense, in his final speech, used this fact to speak about what it means to be a father.  He questioned, “Gentlemen of the jury, what is a father—a real father? What is the meaning of that great word?”  After discussing how Dmitri’s father had not really been a father to his son in the true sense, he said, “‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,’ the apostle writes, from a heart glowing with love…. I am not speaking only for the fathers here present, I cry aloud to all fathers: ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.’ Yes, let us first fulfill Christ's injunction ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwise we are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not our children, but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves. ‘What measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again’—it's not I who say that, it's the Gospel precept, measure to others according as they measure to you. How can we blame children if they measure us according to our measure?” 

The first scriptural passage the attorney quoted from Paul is actually in two of his epistles, underlining its importance in Paul’s eyes.  The apostle wrote to the Colossians, “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Colossians 3:21).  Then to the Ephesians he said, “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).  This is not to say that our children may not in some cases be angry with parents when appropriate discipline is applied that is not desired by them, but I see Paul’s question dealing more with the intent and purpose of that discipline from the parents’ perspective.  When children may warrant correction, do we in anger “get back” at them and punish them in ways we know will purposely make them angry—i.e. provoking them to wrath—or do we seek to offer both nurture and admonition in the manner of the Lord?  We should never seek to anger our children just because their actions have disturbed us.

The attorney said later in the same speech in the book, “Let the son stand before his father and ask him, ‘Father, tell me, why must I love you? Father, show me that I must love you.’”  That I believe is a powerful question to consider from a father’s perspective: have I given my children reason to love me?  In the way that I treat them and speak to them and interact with them, am I giving them good motivation to love me?  Is there a connection stronger than simple genetics I have created that will impel them to love me?  John the Beloved taught us about the love of our perfect Father: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”  God showed his love for all mankind in sending forth his Son to save us, and so much love does He give us that He is the personification of love itself: “God is love” (1 John 4:8-11).  God’s love then should impel us to love Him and those around us: he first loved us and so we too can love.  As fathers we should then follow that perfect example: we can encourage our children to truly love us as we first show them in word and deed what it means to love.