{
  "id": "dict_004257",
  "term": "parenting",
  "slug": "parenting",
  "letter": "P",
  "entry_type": "practice",
  "entry_family": "theological_term",
  "tier": 2,
  "aliases": [],
  "short_definition": "Parenting is the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord.",
  "simple_one_line": "Parenting is the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord.",
  "tooltip_text": "Parenting is the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord.",
  "lede_intro": "The topic of parenting concerns the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord, so this entry should be read from the texts that define it and then from its place within the wider doctrinal shape of Scripture.",
  "at_a_glance_definition": "Parenting is the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord.",
  "at_a_glance_key_points": [
    "Start with the texts that present parenting as the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord.",
    "Trace how parenting serves the gathered life, holiness, order, and witness of Christ's people.",
    "Do not define parenting by tradition, reaction, or church culture alone; let the whole canon set its meaning and limits."
  ],
  "description_academic_short": "Parenting is the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord. In dictionary use, the term should be explained from its immediate contexts, its place in biblical theology, and its bearing on faithful Christian life.",
  "description_academic_full": "Parenting is the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord. More fully, the topic should be interpreted through the passages that name it, illustrate it, regulate it, or warn about its misuse. A sound treatment therefore asks how parenting relates to creation, sin, redemption, discipleship, and the church's life under Christ, without turning a practical category into a slogan detached from context.",
  "background_biblical_context": "Biblically, parenting is framed by creation order, covenant obligation, wisdom instruction, Jesus' teaching, and apostolic exhortation as the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord. Scripture therefore places parenting within holiness, fidelity, household responsibility, and love of neighbor rather than leaving it to custom, appetite, or private judgment alone.",
  "background_historical_context": "Historically, discussion of parenting was formed by the church's actual patterns of worship, ministry, oversight, and sacramental practice as much as by formal doctrinal controversy. Patristic ecclesiology, medieval institutional development, Reformation debates over polity and ordinances, and modern church practice all contributed to its meaning.",
  "background_jewish_ancient_context": "In ancient Jewish and wider Mediterranean context, parenting was heard within household structure, kinship obligations, inheritance patterns, marriage customs, honor-shame expectations, and covenant identity. That background clarifies why biblical commands address family life concretely while also challenging surrounding abuses and distortions.",
  "key_texts_primary": [
    "Deut. 6:6-7",
    "Eph. 6:4",
    "Prov. 22:6"
  ],
  "key_texts_secondary": [
    "Col. 3:21",
    "Ps. 127:3-5",
    "2 Tim. 3:14-15"
  ],
  "original_language_note": null,
  "original_language_terms": [],
  "theological_significance": "parenting is theologically significant because it refers to the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord, showing how creation order, covenant fidelity, and holiness shape embodied human relationships.",
  "philosophical_explanation": "Philosophically, Parenting lies at the intersection of sign and reality, communal identity, institutional authority, and corporate agency. Discussion usually turns on corporate identity, ministerial authority, symbolic mediation, and the extent to which institutional form carries theological meaning. Its philosophical usefulness lies in giving conceptual shape to ecclesial life while keeping that life normed by Scripture.",
  "interpretive_cautions": "Do not let parenting function as an umbrella category that obscures the passage's actual argument. Read the language within ecclesial, liturgical, and covenant context, and avoid deriving a complete polity or sacramental system from usage that may be narrower or broader than later practice. Use the entry carefully enough to prevent it from carrying more doctrinal weight than the text assigns, while still allowing later theological reflection to summarize real biblical patterns.",
  "major_views_note": "In conservative usage, parenting is usually treated as a meaningful biblical and theological category, but traditions differ over how tightly it should be defined and how directly it should govern doctrine, worship, or pastoral practice. The main points of disagreement concern creation order, covenant fidelity, pastoral wisdom, and the difference between abiding principle and culture-shaped expression.",
  "doctrinal_boundaries": "Parenting should be bounded by Scripture's teaching on the church, its ministry, and its ordinances, so that visible order and spiritual reality are related without confusion. It must not confuse sign with thing signified, office with personal holiness, or institutional belonging with saving union to Christ. It should keep sign and thing signified related without treating the rite as mechanically saving. Sound doctrine therefore lets parenting serve the church's worship, order, and communion without treating secondary polity judgments as the whole of the doctrine.",
  "practical_significance": "Pastorally, parenting matters because believers need wise, Scripture-shaped guidance for everyday obedience, worship, suffering, relationships, stewardship, and life together in the church.",
  "related_entries": [],
  "see_also": [],
  "meta_description": "Parenting is the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord. In theological use, the topic should be...",
  "jsonld_description": "Parenting is the stewardship of raising children in love, discipline, wisdom, and instruction from the Lord. More fully, the entry should be read from the passages that establish its meaning, the doctrinal...",
  "source_basis": "scripture-led synthesis",
  "public_url": "/companion-bible-dictionary/bible-dictionary/parenting/index.html",
  "public_url_absolute": "https://ai-bible-commentary.com/companion-bible-dictionary/bible-dictionary/parenting/index.html",
  "public_json_url": "/companion-bible-dictionary/data/dictionary/parenting.json",
  "public_json_url_absolute": "https://ai-bible-commentary.com/companion-bible-dictionary/data/dictionary/parenting.json",
  "route_mode": "canonical",
  "canonical_id": "dict_004257",
  "canonical_term": "parenting",
  "canonical_slug": "parenting",
  "authority_status": "finalized",
  "review_state": "finalized",
  "build_lineage": {
    "workbook": "Bible_Commentary_Companion_Dictionary_Workbook_phase19_10_release_bundle_generated.xlsx",
    "renderer_family": "reconstructed_final_from_live_theme_swap_plus_earlier_polished_renderer",
    "phase": "Phase 19",
    "base_path": "/companion-bible-dictionary",
    "site_domain": "https://ai-bible-commentary.com"
  }
}