Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 07:1 (Spring 2025)
Article: Biblical Roles In Parenting: Help From The Puritans
Author: Joel R. Beeke

Eikon 7.1 (Spring 2025) p. 80

Biblical Roles In Parenting: Help From The Puritans

Joel R. Beeke

Dr. Joel R. Beeke (Ph.D., Westminster Seminary) is chancellor and professor of homiletics and systematic and practical theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, a pastor of the Heritage Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, editor of Puritan Reformed Journal and Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, board chairman of Reformation Heritage Books, a frequent speaker at Reformed conferences around the world, and a prolific author.

There may be no better example of the Reformation in action than in the home life of the Puritans, who masterfully applied God’s Word to every area of life and developed a biblical, positive, and lavish perspective on the family that has been hardly paralleled in church history.1 As J. I. Packer (1926–2020) observed, the Puritans were “the creators of the English Christian marriage, the English Christian family, and the English Christian home.”2 The Puritans recognized that holiness begins at home and then extends to all of life. As experts in combining experiential piety, rigorous biblical exegesis, and a comprehensive Christian worldview into a coherent whole, the Puritans bequeathed to the church a warm, practical, and doxological vision for family life (and indeed for all of life).

Eikon 7.1 (Spring 2025) p. 81

The Puritan view on the distinct roles of husbands and wives in parenting is instructive for us today. For the Puritans, the basis for the relationship between husband and wife in fulfilling their parental duties is the loving authority of the husband and the loving submission of the wife. The Puritans taught that the headship of husbands over wives and parents over children is a biblical principle (Eph 5:22–24; 6:1–3). This means that husbands and fathers must exercise spiritual, social, and educational leadership on behalf of their wives and children. They must also provide adequate financial support for them. Although a wife must submit to her husband’s authority (Eph 5:22; Col 3:18; 1 Pet 3:1–6), the husband’s hierarchical leadership in the home does not mean that his wife is his servant (Eph 5:25; Col 3:19; 1 Pet 3:7).

Furthermore, the Puritans taught that God has ordained distinct s...