Read Previous Articles in this Series:

Biblical Exhortation to Dads #1: Imitate Your Heavenly Father
Biblical Exhortation to Dads #2: Love Your Wife and Children

As Christian fathers, we should want to honor God and bless our families in our parenting. But how do we do that?

In this new series of articles, we’ve been reviewing what God has told us in His Word about what He expects from fathers. We’ve been reviewing a list of biblical exhortations for fathers and, so far, we’ve looked at how we are to imitate our heavenly Father and love our wives and children.

Let’s look at the next item on our list.

Biblical Exhortation #3. Lead Your Family

The Christian father must lead his family. Scripture is clear that the husband is the head of the family.

For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. (Eph 5:23)

Now this teaching is deeply unpopular today. After hearing that verse, you may be thinking, “Wow—that is so misogynistic. What regressive teaching is this? Did we time travel back to the 1950s?”

Actually, this truth from Scripture goes way back before the ‘50s. It goes back to creation, because it is truth from the eternal God. God is the Creator of men and women and the designer of the family (Gen 2:24). He is our authority, and he knows what is best for families. Whether we like it or not, we will be held accountable to this truth.

As husbands and fathers, God will hold you accountable for how well you did or did not lead your family.

I was in tech for almost twenty years before moving into full-time ministry. My team managed many different cross-functional projects; sometimes we had up to seventy projects on our roadmap at a time. For every project, we made sure that it was crystal clear who was leading it. If multiple people led a project, it was often a recipe for confusion or a lack of ownership.

Single Threaded Ownership

We had this concept of “single threaded ownership,” meaning that there was ultimately one person accountable for that project. That person had decision-making authority and was responsible for the outcome of the project even if many other people were involved in making that project successful. A not-so-nice way to put it was that we always needed a “single throat to choke” if things were getting off track.

In God’s eyes, the husband and father is ultimately accountable for the family, even though wives and mothers are irreplaceable and invaluable to the family’s success.

Husbands and fathers, you cannot be passive in your leadership of your home. You should not just be “going with the flow.” You’re ultimately responsible for the spiritual and physical well-being of your family. You need to lead according to biblical principles with the ultimate goal of having your family honor God in all things.You need to set the tone for your family spiritually. You need to sacrificially love and lead your family in the same way that Christ does the church.

It doesn’t matter how tired you are. It doesn’t matter how uncomfortable you might be making decisions. You will stand before God and give account for how you lead your family, so lead with diligence and obedience to Scripture.