Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we've got with us Josh Mulvihill, who wrote a really great book on a subject that nobody really writes biblically-based books on, grandparenting. I hope you enjoy the discussion. Josh really has brought a wonderful resource to the church to help grandparents figure out how to walk biblically through their grandparenting. Hope you enjoy the discussion.

So Jason, early this year, I was Googling grandparenting. I have 28 grandchildren, You would expect me to do something like that, right? And this book came up in the search, biblical grandparenting, exploring God's design for disciple making and passing faith to the future generations. I thought, that sounds like my kind of book. That's promising.

Yeah, so I buy the Kindle version, and then I read it, and of course, I've been talking about these passages about, you know, that really folk that really dovetail into this subject. But I gave the first conference message I'd ever given on being a grandparent in St. Louis. And I drew a lot from the book. Hey, we should see if we can get the author to podcast with us.

You think maybe you let's, let's, hey, he's right here. Josh Mulvihill. Josh, great. Yeah, thank you. Great to be here.

Yeah. So you're the, you're the man you, you've wrote. I it's, it's got to be the most complete treatise on the subject of grandparenting in the Bible. And so it's a great book. I don't know of any other book like it.

There are books that talk about grandparenting, but they're not biblical theologies, and they don't really, they don't really begin with really the greatest proposition that every book should begin with. Scripture is sufficient, right? So It's kind of like the sufficiency of scripture for grandparenting. I love it. I have five grandchildren with a sixth on the way, and it's one of the very sweetest parts of life.

And I want to do that well. Yeah. So, hey, before we talk, I just want to tell you, you also wrote another one called Grandparenting, Strengthening Your Family and Passing on Your Faith. I haven't read it, and I haven't read this one either, I just bought it the other day. Discipling Your Grandchildren, Great Ideas to Help Them Know, Love, and serve God.

I want to read that too, but I haven't read them. But hey, so you're, you've really piled in on it. Well, it's actually a demographic wave, right? I mean, we're going to have, we got more grandparents on the ground in America than ever before, and it's only going to increase. But how, how should a listener who's not a grandparent benefit from the message?

I assume there's both grandparents and then those who aren't grandparents listening. So I want to encourage you, if you're not a grandparent, stay tuned in for a couple of reasons. One, if you have kids, it's almost a lock that you will be a grandparent at some point in the future, so this is helpful for you to hear. Two, you are the gatekeeper as a parent to your kids' grandparents, and if God has a role for grandparents, which he does scripturally, then it's appropriate for us as the gatekeepers to open the gate. And there is so much hurt, both generations, adult children and grandparents, but particularly grandparents that lament as I am speaking to different groups, that they don't have the opportunity to have a relationship or to speak into or just that they don't know their adult children anymore like they had anticipated.

And of course, there's a lot of dynamics that go into play into all that. But as adult children, God does have a role for grandparents. And so we want to, as appropriate, invite grandparents into the mix and that doesn't happen by default. So that's helpful to note. The last thing I'll mention here, as you think about the primary Influences in the life of a child Grandparents come in at number two second.

Well, I'll say potential influence second only to parents, you know, they Yeah, you think about who is present in the life of a child from birth all the way through into the adult years, teachers will come and go pastures will hopefully be there for a long time, but even they come and go. Coaches come and go and they certainly have a significant influence, but not like grandparents. And so I love to say to grandparents that we want to move from Christian parenting to intentional Christian grandparenting because the potential is so significant. I'm a father of five kids. My oldest is in college now.

It's a challenging day to raise a child, and to raise one to love Jesus, lifelong faith rooted and established in their faith. I'll take all the help I can get in doing that from the right voices. And grandparents that love Jesus are grounded in his word, are such a blessing, and they're a God designed blessing. And so we wanna be thinking through how do we work together in, in raising our children, grandchildren to know, love and serve Jesus. And, and so that, you know, that's, that those are some of the reasons everyone should listen.

Hey, also you're not a grandparent yet. So what made you want to write a book on grandparenting? I didn't start thinking about writing a book on grandparenting until I started having grandchildren, but you're kind of before the, you're a little bit like the apostle Paul was writing about marriage, even though he's not married. Yes. Well, I had a lot of people ask me that question, and it's a really good one.

Obviously, I can't rely on my own experience because I'm not a grandparent. So what what brought it about simply was as a pastor, I have a very strong conviction on the place of parents in discipling their children, went back to get a PhD to learn how to do that better as a parent. And in some of the course reading, I came across some reference to grandparenting and thought, huh, I wonder what's out there on it. I assume there's like piles of it, just like there's piles of stuff for parents to help them in the Christian arena. And I was shocked.

I was just shocked how little there was. Just a couple self-published books, one ministry at the time. I couldn't find a single church that had really any significant or even a small offering, like can I find a sermon, a small group, a class that is helping grandparents do what God's called them to do just through census numbers? This is a dart throw a little bit, but there's approximately around 30 million grandparents in America that would fall into the Christian category. And the average grandparent has somewhere between five and six grandchildren.

So you can start to think, just imagine the impact that could happen in the next generation if Christian grandparents capture a biblical vision for what God's role is for them, and become serious and intentional about that. So I saw the need and I, you know, I was one of those where I went to the Lord and prayed, is this, you know, you opened my eyes up to this Lord, is this something you would have for me? My instructor at the time at Southern said, He goes, Josh, he goes, I need you to be prepared. He goes, this may be something that you do. And he goes, you might only find two people interested in it, your mom and your wife.

But so I was honestly OK with that, if that was what the Lord had, you know, I just felt like this is an area that has the potential for some pretty significant impact. And if that's all that God had, fine, but it has certainly exceeded my expectations for how God has utilized it. And I'm grateful that, that's a lot of time and energy put into it. I'm grateful that it's been helpful to people. So before we get into the scriptures here, I'd like you to talk about what society says about grandparenting.

I think the dearth of books is a reflection, but can you give us some more? Yeah, we've been conditioned to think in terms of immediate family by our society. The Bible talks in the terminology as extended family, kind of multi-generational discipleship, and so just that we've kind of created this distance between the generations that's not reflected in the pages of scripture. Most grandparents think of themselves as as good grandparents and according to the world standards they probably are, but according to what the Bible says we tend to see that a lot of grandparents really don't have a biblical understanding or a biblical vision. So let me give you some examples of that.

The world has some really subtle but powerful messages about the role of a grandparent. And I like to summarize them in two words, the word independence and the word indulgence. And so essentially, the world encourages Christian grandparents to live their life separate from their family. Essentially, grandparents are seen as an extra, a non-essential member of the family that really lives at kind of the edges of the periphery of family life. And what ends up happening if we adopt that perspective is that it makes it pretty hard to establish really strong relationships between the generations or even simply to have enough time on a regular basis with children, grandchildren, really to have any kind of strong influence in their life, discipleship-wise or other.

And so, you know, you hear these warnings from our culture, things like don't overstep, don't interfere, don't be a burden. That's the encouragement to grandparents. And there's certainly some truth in that and some wisdom there. Nobody loves unsolicited advice. And there is boundary lines that we do need to be thinking of, but it does become problematic.

And sometimes grandparents find themselves out of the picture entirely if they take that, you know, too far. The other message is indulgence. And so you've heard this culturally, it's the idea of spoil your grandchildren or your grandparents should spoil your children, have fun, fill them up with sugar, then send them home to work a real job. You've heard that. I had a grandparent once.

I was talking about this and he came up afterwards and he had a really big smile on his face and he said, Hey, Josh, I want to show you something. And he held out his phone and he said, you know, my grandkids love vegetables, love eating vegetables, and I love to feed them vegetables. And he held out his phone showed me a picture of his, the drawer in his refrigerator fully extended out the crisper drawer and it was filled up with king-sized candy bars. He thought it was really funny. That was the first day in kids.

There's nothing wrong, I'm not saying don't hear me wrong. There's nothing wrong with having fun with our children or our grandchildren, but when that becomes the end goal, the totality of, you know, We've just missed the overall purpose that God has called us to. And those become means to a greater end. The activities we do, which we do with our kids, we live in Minnesota, so I was up with my three boys for a week of camping and fishing and you know, we had a lot of fun But there's some intentionality that comes through that. It wasn't just for the sake of fun And it's that's your Deuteronomy six opportunities whether it's baking in the kitchen out fishing whether it's sports or whatever it is, you know, those are the opportunities that God's given us to weave those Deuteronomy 6 moments in.

And so we have to reject the idea of indulgence and independence. If we absorb that, you know, I'm going to go out on the limb and say we're probably not going to get the kinds of results that we truly hope for in our heart with a strong family relationship, with the opportunity to influence the hearts and minds of our children, grandchildren at this stage of life. And so we just need to be aware of that. And as I tell grandparents that, a lot of times light bulbs go off and go, wow, yeah, I recognize that. I didn't even realize I was kind of operating according to that viewpoint.

But then if you go to the Bible and start reading, if you just read the passages that talk about grandparenting in Scripture, which you can talk about next, but it's really good then to just do a little bit of self-evaluation and say, am I operating more according to this indulgence, independence mindset, or do I look more like what I see in the pages of scripture? And what we see is that a lot of grandparents, there's either this hybrid thing going on or it just really, we don't see even a lot of what we're doing reflected through the pages of Scripture. And so, you know, I hope I don't want that to be a discouragement to anybody, but I do hope that, you know, there is a potentially for some there's a humility piece that needs to happen where we say, okay, I want to be obedient and honoring of the Lord. And, you know, I realized this anew for the first time and I'll make the changes that would be obedient to the Lord here. Amen.

Yeah, and in your book, you identify these different kinds of grandparents. I thought that was, I thought that was really helpful. Hey, let's talk about the Bible. Walk us through sort of this biblical theology argumentation that you've got in the book. Some people suggest the Bible doesn't talk about grandparents because that if you look up that word grandparent or grandparenting, depending on the translation you'll see it a couple times but it really doesn't show up much in scripture.

But if we go to the Bible on its terms using the Bible's terms like father's father, sometimes the term father, father's son's son, children's children, Suddenly we have quite a few passages on grandparenting. And that's a fun study if you've never done that. Go open a concordance and start looking up those kinds of terms and just go to the Bible. What does the Bible say when you go and look at those and start to build that theology of grandparenting through scripture? One of my favorite passages is Deuteronomy 4.9.

It's probably the most concise, I would say, scripturally on grandparenting. I'll just read it here. It says, only be careful and watch yourselves closely. Notice the grandparenting starts with our heart and how we're living. And do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live.

Teach them to your children and to their children after them. So you're starting to get some of the actions, the role of what grandparents teach, you know, there's a teaching role that grandparents have with children and children's children or children after them, depending on the translation. And, you know, that's just that. If that was the only thing we had, that's, that's a pretty big role right there. One of my favorite family discipleship passages in Scripture, Psalm 78.

There's a four generation vision in Psalm 78. If you read that versus 567 talks about four generations, that's a massive family vision. You know, sometimes we think about raising our kids or even like even grand parenting. Psalm 78 talks about great grandchildren even. Like if you think about your grandkids today, they will probably be alive with their kids a hundred years from now, that fourth generation out.

And what we're doing today to build into children and grandchildren will likely be influencing this world 100 years from now. That is a huge family discipleship vision that God has given us for the family. And Psalm 78 not only provides the goal of parenting and grandparenting for us, we get into that in verses seven, but it also provides some methodology. So this is real helpful for grandparents, talks about tell the coming generations the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders he has done. That's verse four.

It says in verse five, God has established a testimony in Jacob. So here's one of the, we talk about the sufficiency of scripture. Not only does God tell us what we're trying to accomplish, but he also tells us how. And here we have testimony telling, sharing our story as part of the means of discipling grandchildren, children as well. You know, our story's not the point, it is the pointer to make much of God.

And we get that, you know, the whole focus there is the glory of God, helping children and grandchildren see that in a mighty way. And then again, you have, following that, you have teaching comes up in Psalm 78 as a focus, as a method, teaching the law. And we could dive and talk about that a lot. That's probably one of the most common phrases for parents and grandparents in the Bible, teach the law. And man, how important that is today.

Not only teaching the morality of what's right and wrong, but when we teach the law, it teaches kids and grandkids that there's a standard and they didn't live up to it. They need Jesus as Savior and it becomes, of course, it's evangelistic. It's the gospel in that. And so, man, the Bible is so rich when we start to just read what God has to say, not only what the role of a grandparent is, but then the actual means, the methods of the role. So if you would say, Josh, what is...

Yeah, I'm just looking at Psalm 78 here, and it's got this multi-generations that are mentioned, and then the punchline is in verse 7, that they may set their hope in God. So this is just what you're saying, but this is what we're passing to our children and grandchildren. Sorry to interrupt. No, absolutely. Yeah, that's evangelistic salvation language right there.

What greater burden, desire, prayer for all of us that we have for our children, grandchildren is just that. We want to spend eternity in heaven with them and here is God's means of accomplishing that. Parents, grandparents, teaching, telling, that's, you know, this is what that looks like scripturally. The Bible doesn't say be a godly man and have ungodly offspring. The Bible actually says be a godly man and have godly offspring.

That's really the overwhelming force of Scripture. Now we know that some godly men will have ungodly offspring. We know that, that's obvious, but that's not what the Scripture focuses in on and it's that blessing for the coming generation. Yeah, I think that's so the encouragement here is if you've never really dived into the scripture and what it says in this area, do that, you'll be blessed. Yeah, I was looking at Psalm 145 verse 4, one generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.

Men shall speak of your awesome acts and then he says I will declare your greatness and then one of my favorites Psalm 71 18 now also when I am old and gray-headed oh God do not forsake me until I declare your strength to this generation your power to everyone who is to come. What a blessing. I mean, this is the role of a grandfather. And you'd brought up Deuteronomy 6. You, your son, and your grandson all the days of your life.

In other words, you're not done when your kids turn 18. You need to be powered up for your son, your sons, sons, and as long as you're alive, until you're dead, you're not done. The vast encouragement that I'd be pushing people towards today is just to get into God's Word in this area. And of course, it's not enough to know it. We want to align our lives to it.

And I will even encourage, I believe God will bless those individuals that seek to honor him through obedience in this area. You know, never will it be easy, but I believe as we live according to God's commands for our life, We're going to, you know, the response that we get is peace and joy and, and at least in our own hearts. We can't control sometimes how our family responds to that, but that of course would be a blessing for us. Yeah, Josh, thank you for writing the book. You know, you started with the Bible.

Those are the books on these kind of subjects. You know, books on marriage, books on child raising. A lot of times they start off with these principles and they bring all these, but they don't start with the Bible and work through the Bible. And for me, the best books for the church are the ones that really work through scripture first to try to define the terms and to issue the proclamations. And that's what you've done.

I hope a lot of people get your books, and I'm going to keep giving messages on grandparenting, and I'm probably going to be quoting Josh Mulvihill. Here's the thing I'm going to remember the most from this discussion. Josh, you said our stories aren't the point, they're the pointers to make much of God. And we've experienced so much of the faithfulness of God in our lives, and our grandchildren actually need to hear those stories, not just for story time, but just so that they know there's a great God who sustained us through a long life. Amen to that.

So Josh, thank you. Thank you for joining us. We really, really appreciate it. Hope God really prospers your work. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast.

Hope you can be with us next time. Church and Family Life is proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture by helping build strong families and strong churches. If you found this resource helpful, we encourage you to check out ChurchandFamilyLife.com