📖 Biblical Definition
Raising children, in Scripture, is the task of forming them into mature, faithful adults under God. Deuteronomy 6's great pattern: words of God in the parent's heart, taught diligently, talked of in walking and sitting and lying and rising, written on doorposts. Ephesians 6:4 condenses: bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Raising is not minding; it is forming.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
(Composite.) The biblical task of forming children into mature, faithful adults.
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Deuteronomy 6:6-9 is the paradigmatic instruction: parents' own hearts soaked in the Word; teaching woven into daily life; visible in the household's architecture; constant rather than scheduled.
Proverbs 22:6's train up a child in the way he should go uses an inceptive verb: start the child on the right path. The early formation matters disproportionately.
📖 Key Scripture
Deuteronomy 6:7 — "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."
Proverbs 22:6 — "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Ephesians 6:4 — "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Psalm 78:5 — "He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern parenting often outsources formation to schools, screens, and peers; Scripture commands the parent to do it.
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Deuteronomy 6:7 is constant, not scheduled. When thou sittest, when thou walkest, when thou liest down, when thou risest up — the four Hebrew merisms cover all of waking life. The Word of God is taught everywhere, all the time, by example as much as by word.
Modern outsourcing has costs. Schools educate; they do not catechize. Peers socialize; they do not disciple. Screens entertain; they do not form. Recovery is fathers and mothers reclaiming the formative task. Deuteronomy 6 was not addressed to professionals.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew shanan (to teach diligently, sharpen) and Greek paideia (training, discipline).
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Hebrew shanan — literally ‘sharpen’; to teach diligently, repeatedly.
Greek paideia — child-training, discipline, formation; behind nurture in Eph 6:4.
Usage
"Schools educate; they do not catechize."
"Deuteronomy 6 was not addressed to professionals."
"Constant, not scheduled."