“we live in an era when many refuse to accept their God-given responsibilities and look all around for anyone and anything to blame. Instead of taking responsibility for the mind-numbing ‘entertainment’ to which we expose our children, for example, we blame the entertainment industry. Instead of taking responsibility for the godless propaganda that is pumped into children’s minds in the public school classroom, we blame the educational system. We even spiritualize our blame by castigating the father who spends too much time at home slumped in his La-Z-Boy with remote control in hand to the exclusion of his wife and children, while at the same time we fail to see that the father who spends too much time with a systematic theology volume in his hand to the exclusion of his wife and children is no better. In Chrysostom’s words, if we make our children ‘a secondary concern,’ we have no one to blame but ourselves. In the movie Gladiator, the character of the pagan Marcus Aurelius understands this important truth in a telling and memorable line. Upon informing his own son that he would not become the next emperor of Rome because of his lack of virtue, Aurelius nevertheless accepts full responsibility by saying in a tear filled scene, ‘Your fault as a son is my failure as a father.’ Christian fathers, do you have the humility to accept such responsibility?”

David G. Hagopian, To You & Your Children – Examining The Biblical Doctrine of Covenant Succession, Canon Press, 2005, Pgs. 120-121