Family Discipleship: 10 Bible Verses and Quotes about This Important Task

At times, the God-given task of family discipleship can seem too heavy to bear—yet it’s a parent’s highest priority. And fortunately, we are not alone in the task. Jesus promised never to leave or forsake us (Heb 13:5), and if he has tasked us with such an important job, be encouraged: he certainly won’t leave us floundering.

Here are 10 encouraging Bible verses and quotes about family discipleship and the important job of raising children to know and love the Lord.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deut 6:5–7)

When the Great Commandment is obeyed, we see one believer loving the Lord with all of his or her affections. When the Great Commandment is reproduced, we find that one believer leading others, beginning with family, to also love the Lord with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind. Family discipleship occurs when this love for Christ is modeled and reproduced in the home.¹

—Jonathan Williams

Christian parents … with all my heart would I say to you, do not sin against the child by your ill example or by your negligence as to his salvation, but seek the Holy Spirit that to your own offspring you may fully discharge the solemn duties which providence and grace have thrown upon you.²

—Charles Spurgeon

The Great Commission is not just for missionaries and it’s not just for churches. It’s for families. It’s a call to make disciples, to begin with the people in your home, and then to see your family as partners in the gospel, partners in the Great Commission. When this becomes a joy, not a burden, when this becomes natural, not manufactured, and when this becomes intentional, not left to chance, we can truly say that missions are part of the foundation of the home. With this foundation, your family can be a force God uses to redeem the world he created.³

—Jonathan Williams

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Josh 24:15)

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Prov 22:6)

Ultimately, family discipleship is not about you, your children, or your home. It’s about being obedient to God’s word and fulfilling the Great Commission. If family discipleship just influences persons in your home, then something is wrong. If we and our children are growing spiritually in our daily walk and in understanding of the gospel, there should be a desire to share that good news with others beyond our home. Family discipleship at home should lead to an overflow of the good news to people outside the home at work, school, play, community, and around the world.⁴

—Dr. Ben Philips

Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief of the means of grace.… If these are duly maintained, all the means of grace will be like to prosper and be successful.⁵

—Jonathan Edwards

Let no Christian parents fall into the delusion that Sunday School is intended to ease them of their personal duties. The first and most natural condition of things is for Christian parents to train up their own children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.⁶

—Charles Spurgeon

We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. (Ps 78:4)

God gives to fallible parents this little boy or girl, who will certainly prove to be far from perfect, to love and train and teach, to bring up, in the “nurture and admonition,” the training and instruction, of the Lord. It’s a serious assignment. There is no higher calling.⁷

—Elisabeth Elliot

***

Need practical help on the family discipleship journey? Explore Christian Family packages with all the tools you need to do family devotionals, reading plans, Bible studies, and so much more. 

Related articles

• Discipling Families Isn’t Optional: 4 Pillars of Church Family Ministry
• Why Parenting Strategies Don’t Work (and 14 Gospel Principles That Do)
• Turn TV Habits into Discipleship Opportunities

Related resources

• Gospel Family: Cultivating Family Discipleship, Family Worship & Family Missions by Jonathan Williams
• The Shaping of a Christian Family: How My Parents Nurtured My Faith by Elisabeth Elliot
• .Come, Ye Children: A Book for Parents and Teachers on the Christian Training of Children by Charles Spurgeon

1. Jonathan Williams, Gospel Family: Cultivating Family Discipleship, Family Worship & Family Missions (Lucid Books, 2015), ch. 1.
2. Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons on Family and Home (Grand Rapids, MI: Kreger, 1995), 92.
3. Jonathan Williams, Gospel Family: Cultivating Family Discipleship, Family Worship & Family Missions (Lucid Books, 2015), ch. 1.
4. Ben Philips, Journal of Mid-American Baptist Seminary, “Family Discipleship: From Biblical Origin to Practical Application,” (Spring 2018), 73.
5. Kyle C. Strobel, Formed for the Glory of God: Learning from the Spiritual Practices of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: IVP Books, 2013), 24.
6. C. H. Spurgeon, Spiritual Parenting (New Kensington, PA: Whitikaer House, 2003), ch. 8, pg. 63
7. Elisabeth Elliot, The Shaping of a Christian Family: How My Parents Nurtured My Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 2005), 120.