Q & A with Paul David Tripp, Part 3

Paul David Tripp recently visited Louisville for a conference on biblical counseling. Gender Blog was fortunate to have an opportunity to sit down with him and discuss issues of gender and culture. Following is the third part of a three-part interview with him. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Paul Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization, whose mission statement is "Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life." He is on the pastoral staff at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pa., where he preaches on Sunday evenings and leads the ministry to Center City. 

 Gender Blog: Let's change gears a bit and discuss something that is intimately related to what you just said, to put some legs and feet on it. You and your wife Luella raised four children. As the kids were growing up what did a typical day in the Tripp home look like in terms of family worship and interacting about the things of God with your children?

Paul David Tripp: We always planned our mornings so that the last thing we would do before we went out the door was to ask one anther about their day and pray for one another. So, it was a reminder of God's presence, but it was very specific to what was going on that day and it was wonderful if, for nothing else, to have that moment of love and sanity before we left the home. It was mandatory and we would plan our morning so we had that five or ten minutes before going out the door. Our family worship tended to happen around the supper table. It was our pattern that we always read our children adult books. This has changed now, but back then there wasn't much in the way of children's Bibles with good content. What I would do is read ahead and dumb down the language in places where I needed to because I didn't think it would help my children if there were words that they didn't understand. So, I would find similar words that were faithful to the content that they could understand and check out the illustrations, because sometimes I would insert another illustration that would be more at their level. We wanted them to be exposed to rich, content-filled things because we wanted them to learn to self-consciously think from a biblical perspective. And we were always very willing for our children to question or disagree because we thought that was a part of learning and internalizing.

 Gender Blog: What would a Gospel-centered home tend to look like?

Paul David Tripp: I think Gospel-centered parenting has this gorgeous law-grace balance. On one hand, I really do esteem that the Law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. There is a way in which my sense of need is built as God's standard is held before me and I begin to break under the burden of the standard, I begin to feel how much I fall short of the standard and that builds in me a sense of need. Now, if that's all I have, I will break my children. So, that has to be balanced with the rescuing, forgiving, empowering, delivering message of God's grace. Now, if I don't have the law, all I have is a sense of His grace and that results in a sort of easy-believism and a sort of lazy Christianity that doesn't take sin and struggle seriously. It's that harmony of those two things that need to be expressed. I don't think that law will that which ultimately rescues my children, because if law does that, then Jesus would not have had to come. I also think you only get excited about grace if you have a sense of need. It's the harmony of those things that I want to structure the way I interact with my children.