“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4, ESV)
Parenting has always required patience, wisdom, and perseverance. It also requires discernment, presence, and a deep commitment to spiritual formation in the digital age. Today’s parents are not just raising children in a world shaped by screens. They are raising children whose values, emotions, and imaginations are being formed inside those screens.
The internet is not a neutral space. It is a culture. It carries assumptions about what matters, what is good, what is beautiful, and what is worth pursuing. When children spend more hours online than at the dinner table, the voices that shape them are no longer just parents or preachers. They are influencers, content creators, and algorithms that respond to every click, search, and scroll.1
Paul’s command in Ephesians remains vital. “Do not provoke your children to anger.” This is not a casual suggestion. It is a warning against parenting that wounds the heart. Children are provoked by harshness, manipulation, inconsistency, and hypocrisy. They become discouraged when corrected without compassion or led by parents who say one thing and live another.
However, Paul does not stop with what to avoid. He calls parents to do something better. He says to “bring them up” in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. That phrase is rich with meaning. To bring up a child is to nurture them. It means to patiently build, form, guide, and invest. Discipline is not just punishment. It is the intentional shaping of character. Instruction is not just about knowledge. It is about revealing the heart of God and helping children walk with Him. Proverbs 20:7 lays it out, “The righteous who walks in his integrity—blessed are his children after him.” Children do not simply need information. They need an example. They need parents whose integrity builds a foundation they can stand on when the world begins to shake.
Children often receive more theological training from TikTok than from church. They learn about love, identity, and purpose from memes and messages curated for maximum engagement but often empty of truth. Many children do not reject faith because of theological confusion. They walk away because the faith they saw was thin, angry, or absent when it mattered most.
We need presence. Digital life often replaces connection with performance. A boy sits at dinner with his grandmother but never looks up from his phone. He is near in body but far in spirit. Multiply that moment, and you see the danger of a generation trained to avoid silence, resist reflection, and fear vulnerability.
Technology is not evil, but it is never neutral. All technology is built on a worldview. The digital world often values speed over reflection, content over the conversation, and reaction over the relationship. These values shape how children think, feel, and relate to others. If parents do not actively counter these messages, they will be carried along by them.
As Psalm 90:12 says, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Parents who understand the weight of the moment will not waste it. The digital world counts clicks. Disciples count days. Wisdom begins when we remember what lasts.
This moment calls for clarity. Discipleship cannot be delegated. The church can support and encourage, but it cannot replace the role of the parent. Children need to see the gospel lived at home. They need to hear Scripture not just in sermons but in conversation. They need to witness repentance, experience forgiveness, and know what it looks like when faith becomes real under pressure.
Paul’s vision for parenting is not a call to perfection. It is a call to presence. Children do not need parents who have all the answers. They need parents who walk with God and invite them to walk. They need a home where grace meets failure, and correction is grounded in love.
Isaiah 33:6 declares, “He will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure.” That stability does not come from locking down devices. It comes from anchoring the home in reverence and trust.
If we want our children to follow Jesus in a digital world, we must first be willing to follow Him there ourselves. That means putting down the phone, asking hard questions, creating space for prayer, silence, hard conversations, and not-rushed worship, and living so that our children learn to say, “I want to know the God my parents trust.”
Nehemiah said to the people building a wall in troubled times: “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes” (Nehemiah 4:14). That is the work of parenting in an online world.
What kind of disciples are we raising?
The digital world disciples by default. It trains through repetition, emotion, and exposure. It rewards speed, curates comfort, and invites distraction. However, behind the glass, it rarely trains anyone for love, truth, or perseverance. The kind of disciple our children become will depend on who teaches them how to see, think, and respond to their feelings.
That scene is more than a social concern. It is a spiritual one. Formation happens in small moments when someone chooses presence or distraction, connection or escape. And children are watching. They are forming expectations about what love looks like, what attention requires, and what matters enough to be noticed.
James Bell identifies a dangerous pattern.2 In trying to raise good kids, many Christian parents settle for raising well-behaved ones. However, behavior without belief will not hold. Obedience without a heart for God leads either to pride or rebellion. We end up with two results: Pharisees performing or prodigals running.
Pharisees know how to act. They know how to sit still in church, recite the right answers, and look the part. But they may not know how to follow Jesus in silence, struggle, or suffering. They were trained to look right, not to walk humbly. Over time, performance becomes exhausting, and faith becomes fragile. This is why Micah 6:8 still matters. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Training in humility cannot be outsourced.
Others raise prodigals, not necessarily because they were too strict, but because their lives at home did not match the message they shared in public. Children who grow up in homes where the gospel is preached but not practiced often learn to distrust what they hear. They see the gap between Sunday morning and Monday evening. They hear about grace but feel only guilt. They learn to associate God with shame, not love.
Both outcomes are avoidable, but only through intentional, grace-driven discipleship. Children need to see faith lived consistently, not just confessed. They need to hear apologies. They need to be included in prayer, not just corrected for mistakes. They need to see parents reading Scripture, not just quoting rules. They need examples of repentance and restoration, not just warnings about sin. 1 Samuel 16:7 reminds us, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” If we only shape appearances, we risk raising children who learn to perform but never learn to love. God is not interested in how polished they look. He is interested in whether His grace has formed their hearts.
Emotionally healthy kids come from emotionally honest homes, not perfect homes, just honest ones, homes where peace is pursued, failure is acknowledged, and grace is more than a word. In this way, the home becomes the most potent classroom for discipleship.
Paul told Timothy that he had known the sacred writings from childhood. That knowing does not come through random exposure. It comes through intentional, relational, Spirit-led formation. It comes through meals, car rides, bedtime prayers, and patient conversations. It grows in families where the Word of God is read and lived.
Psalm 34:11 says, “Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” That posture, one of shared listening, guidance, and reverence, is where discipleship begins. Children will listen to someone. They need to be taught by those who know the fear of the Lord and who walk in it daily.
In the digital age, many children are disciplined by repetition, emotion, and escapism.3 Christian parents must respond with clarity, consistency, and compassion. That means more than protecting children from harm. It means forming them in the image of Christ. That is the goal, not obedience that looks good, but faith that lasts.
Jesus said in Luke 6:40, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” That means our children will become like the ones who train them. If the digital world is doing the teaching, we should not be surprised by the outcomes. If we want our children to look like Jesus, we must lead them to Him daily, consistently, and with love.
~PW 🌮🛶
- Ma, S., Bi, X., Cui, H., & Ma, Y. (2024). Parental phubbing and mobile phone addiction among Chinese adolescents: A moderated mediation model. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, Article 1379388. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1379388 This study found that parental phubbing (parents prioritizing smartphones over their children) is a key factor contributing to adolescent mobile phone addiction. It highlights how this behavior leads to increased affiliation with deviant peers, especially among high sensation-seeking youth. The research emphasizes the spiritual and relational costs of parental distraction. ↩︎
- Bell, J. (n.d.). There’s a dangerous pattern that many Christian parents fall into… First Baptist Church of Fenton. James Bell describes how Christian parenting often defaults to behavior modification, producing either outwardly obedient Pharisees or disillusioned prodigals. His insight calls for emotionally honest, grace-filled parenting that models repentance and love instead of performance. ↩︎
- The Times. (2024, April 23). Toddlers using tablets more likely to develop behavioral issues, study finds.https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/children-tablet-use-ipad-tantrums-study-rlf688t5x This article reports on research showing that regular tablet use by toddlers is linked to increased behavioral issues in preschool-aged children. It supports the need for parents to foster emotional regulation through presence rather than distraction. ↩︎
Phillip W. Martin 
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