Marla had a grandmother who was born in 1887, just a few years after the invention of the electric light and the telephone, and a few years before the automobile and airplane. Industrialization, urbanization, and modern technology have vastly changed the world we live in. There are a number of powerful cultural factors that affect us who live at the end of the twentieth century, and these factors spawn a number of worldly concepts that we must stand against if we want godly families. As God chided Israel through the prophet Hosea, “Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it gray hairs also are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it” (Hos. I fear that the American church is blissfully drifting downstream with many evil currents in our day.
That’s not news, but unless we recognize the specific ways evil is manifested in our times, we cannot combat and resist it. Today I’d like to apply Paul’s words to offer some ways we can experience God’s wisdom in our family lives in 1995. In Ephesians 5:15-16, just prior to giving instructions to families, the Apostle Paul writes (my translation), “Therefore look carefully how you walk, not as foolish people, but as wise, buying back every opportunity, because the days are evil.” God’s Word, of course, is the only source of wisdom concerning how we live. When you throw in the statistics on divorce, sexual promiscuity, the AIDS epidemic, and general breakdown of morality and family values in our culture, we who are Christian parents have a formidable task in seeking to rear Christian families.īecause we live in evil times, we need God’s wisdom for our families. The estimated number of child abuse victims increased 40% between 19. There has been a 200% growth in single-parent households since 1970, from 4 million to 8 million homes. An estimated 70% of juvenile offenders come from single-parent families. Children under 18 are 244% more likely to be killed by guns than they were in 1986.
One in six youths between the ages of 10 and 17 has seen or knows someone who has been shot. The average child has watched 8,000 televised murders and 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school. The article reported many frightening stories and statistics, such as: 10, 1994), Newsweek published a cover story, “Kids Growing Up Scared.” It reported on the wave of fear engulfing parents and children in our society, on the surface in response to the frightening abduction and murder of Polly Klaas, but more deeply related to the breakdown of the family and the proliferation of violence in our society.
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