“Duties of Parents”: A Dutch Classic on Raising Children

Last updated on: October 6, 2017 at 8:00 am by Coyle Neal

“Duties of Parents”: A Dutch Classic on Raising Children 2017-10-05T09:56:19-06:00 Coyle Neal

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

If you’re not aware of the “Classics of Reformed Spirituality” series or the good work of the Dutch Reformed Translation Society, you should definitely take a look. Their goal is “the publication and dissemination of historically important Reformed theological and religious literature originally published in the Dutch language.” (From their website.) One piece of such literature is Jacobus Koelman’s The Duties of Parents.

A Child’s Walker (Source: Pinterest)

Just to get the review proper out of the way: this book is excellent and you should read it if you want to think about how to parent well as a Christian. Koelman gives 282 ‘guidelines’ for raising children (though in good reformed fashion some of the guidelines are several pages long and include multiple subpoints). Most of these guidelines are practical and solidly Biblical (not that those are two different things).

As with any good Puritan/Reformed book, there are the requisite things I disagree with. For example, infant baptism. One ought not intentionally baptize unbelievers. For my thoughts on that see this. Those disagreements are few and far between. Most of the book is a combination of good, solid, Biblical theology combined with practical wisdom.

So go and read this book!

Okay, on to the specific point of this review. As with any Puritan worth his salt, Koelman uses language regarding eternal punishment that I’m not comfortable with. That is, in his view hell is painful, sorrowful, and eternal (to say the least). Now I completely agree with that and will decry as a heretic anyone who pointedly refuses to preach such from the pulpit when the passage in question calls for it. The problem is, this is a book on raising children.

Which is really to say that my discomfort is the result of my sin. I don’t want to think about sharing the reality of God’s justice and the punishment of those who rebel against him with a child. My emotions have become the standard by which I think and act, and that is unacceptable for a Christian.

All that to say, I know what the truth is and that I should share it with my kids. Yet I remain reluctant to do so. Koelman, on the other hand, has no such reluctance. He writes about what we ought to say to those for whom we are responsible:

“Speak often and in the most serious tones with them about hell and the punishment of the damned, how they have fallen in a most dreadful way into the hands of the living God, who is most holy, righteous, and mighty, and an avenger of sins, and who wishes to glorify his infinite wisdom and power in their punishment. Their souls are punished with the loss and deprivation of the glorious, comforting presence of God and the blessedness of heaven, a lack that, after all, is little less than half a hell and will be experienced as such. But their souls will also be punished with dread and fear and torments by a sense of God’s fiery wrath resting upon them and by the arrows of the Almighty! What wretched and anxious thoughts, what a dreadful sense of their situation they have there! What depressive despair they have in their soul because God’s wrath has been poured out upon them like water and they are filled to the brim with it! What a hell they carry around within themselves, while they are in hell, on account of their conscience, which, like an undying worm, keeps gnawing at them and will tear them to pieces! What a storm there will be in their mind on account of the wind of God’s wrath!
Their bodies too will be tortured after the day of judgment as they lie in the pool that burns with fire and sulfur.Their eyes will burn in their heads; their tongues will roar and simultaneously be chewed up by pain; their hands and feet will be fried and their flesh roasted–not not a single part of their body will be left untouched by the devouring flames of this dreadful fire of hell. The punishment will be more severe and heavier than if molten lead or pitch were poured into their intestines, or if their body were pulled to pieces by wild horses, or if their chest were torn open and their heart and flesh were pulled from their body with red-hot tongs. They suffer more and worse pains than if they simultaneous had all the diseases and pains that people suffer in this life: headaches, toothaches, gallstones, kidney stones, gout, hot fevers, festering boils, and so forth. Their souls and bodies will then be larger, more capable, and stronger to bear the most extreme and sharpest pains without being destroyed by them. Their punishments will never be ended or alleviated but will go on day and night, without rest, not having anything but weeping eyes and gnashing teeth, without any food or drink, without a soft bed or a pleasant walk and view, without light or the relief of a pleasant fragrance, without a comforting thought or a lovely sound, without any eye that will look upon them with compassion or bring them any refreshment….
Consider especially how those punishments will be forever and ever and ever! This hellish fire will be everlasting and never quenched. The smoke of their torments will go up in all eternity so that they will always die, roar, burn, and sink and still never, never, never be dead or consumed or reach the bottom of the pit. After they have lain in hell for so many hundred thousands of years as there are stars in the expanse of heaven, grains of sand on the seashore, drops of water in the sea, and specks of dust in the air, their pain will still be at the beginning, not any closer to the end than on the first day when they were cast into that place. And even if that incomprehensible and innumerable number were surpassed with pains a hundred thousand times over, they would not have advanced even a hairbreadth in making full the measure of eternity. O eternity, eternity, eternity! (pg 136-138)

And given the intensity of that lengthy quote, I think it’s worth it to include one more (shorter) passage, just to be reminded that there’s an alternative to hell

“On the other hand, speak with the utmost appeal and faith about heaven and the glory and blessedness that are there. Even the bodies of the righteous will taste a heavenly bliss, since they are glorified bodies that shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father, conformed as they are to the glorified body of Christ, perfectly healthy and splendid.” (138)

To be fair, Koelman talks as much about the delights and glories of heaven as he does about the pains of hell–to say nothing about the necessity of faith and atonement as a way to avoid the latter and achieve the former. The problem is that nobody has trouble talking about the benefits of heaven. It’s the hell side of things that gives us pause.

Which brings me back to my original difficulty. I know the Biblical truth that whoever doesn’t believe in Christ will spend eternity in hell. Because of my fallen emotional sentiment–which puts the creature ahead of the Creator–this reality is not pleasant to think about. It is even less pleasant to contemplate telling children about. And yet, to fail to do so is to risk them ending up in that very condition which is so unpleasant to think about in the first place. Which is where Koelman’s charge comes in: we must share the Gospel with them. And this sharing must be of the full Gospel, including all the work Christ has done to save us, what He has saved us for, and what He has saved us from. To do anything less is to dishonor Christ’s work, deny the reality of the world, and endanger the lives and souls of our children. And when we put it like that, hopefully our fuzzy sentimentalism can be set aside and we can better fulfill our calling as parents.

Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO, where he eschews cheap sentimentalism whenever possible.

Previous Post

October 3, 2017

A Classic Writer on Disciplining Children

Next Post

October 10, 2017 The soft corruption of the church

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Action AFI Top 100 Animation Best Picture Winner BFI Top 250 Biography Biopic Books Childrens Christian Classics Classics Comedy Crime Documentary Drama Editor's Choice Family Fantasy Fantasy Films Foreign Historical Historical Fiction History Horror Horror IMDB Top 250 Indie Memoir Modern Novel Musical Mystery Non-Fiction Oscars Philosophy Poetry Popular Literature Reading and Writing Reality Romance Science Fiction Science Fiction Silent Sports Thriller TV Show Uncategorized Western Westerns Young Adult

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 June 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

I killed 600 Philistines with nothing but an oxgoad. Who am I?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Ehud Shamgar Samson Gideon