Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20050703.htm

BIBLICALLY PARENTING THE MATURING CHILD
Part I: Effective Parenting In An Inescapably Negative Environment
(Hannah and Samuel - 1 Samuel 1-3)
  1. Introduction
    1. Rearing a child who is starting to mature isdifficult for many parents who face an inescapably negative environment such as a dysfunctional home or inadequate school!
    2. Hannah's successful rearing of her son Samuel in an inescapably negative series of environments pattern for us parents how we can heed God's call to rear our children well like she did (as follows):
  2. Effective Parenting In An Inescapably Negative Environment, Hannah and Samuel - 1 Samuel 1-3.
    1. Hannah faced great limitations and obstacles to her godly influence in the environments that her son, Samuel faced both in his early as well as in his later childhood years, 1 Samuel 1:1-28; 2:11-15, 22-25:
      1. The initial home life for Hannah's son, Samuel was negatively impacted by bigamy:
        1. Hannah was one of her husband's two wives, a situation that was never intended by God for a home and that would have negatively impacted Samuel, 1 Samuel 1:1-2a with Gen. 2:20-25 with 4:19.
        2. Also, the other wife, Peninnah had several children before Hannah bore Samuel, a state the husband tried handling by favoring Hannah over Peninnah; that only made Peninnah jealous of Hannah, so she afflicted Hannah, 1 Sam. 1:2b, 4-6! Samuel thus entered a home where his Father's other wife and probably her older children vied against his mother and him for no fault of his own, 1:20!
      2. The later home life of Samuel's older childhood was even more dysfunctional: when Hannah received Samuel from the Lord in answer to her prayer for a son (1 Sam. 1:9-11, 17, 20), in keeping with the conditions of her prayer request for Samuel, Hannah had to turn Samuel over to Eli, the temple's high priest, for his final rearing, 1 Samuel 1:24-28. However, this put Samuel into an even more problematic environment than he had experienced in his early childhood years (as follows):
        1. Eli had two maturing, evil sons, young men who set a poor example for the young boy, Samuel: (a) Eli's sons disrespected and misused God's sacrifices, 1 Samuel 2:11-17 and (b) they even committed immorality with the women who came to the temple to worship the Lord, 1 Samuel 2:22.
        2. Eli's failure to control his sons meant Samuel was put under a poor father in Eli, 1 Sam. 2:23-25b.
    2. Yet, Hannah handled this situation by doing HER part in HER Biblical role as BEST she COULD, and left the rest that she could not BIBLICALLY rightly control for God to handle, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, 18-19:
      1. Hannah walked with God as is evidenced by her edifying song of praise in 1 Samuel 2:1-10.
      2. Hannah also kept up her influence on Samuel as best she could even after Samuel was given to Eli:
        1. Hannah made a priestly garment for Samuel each year as he was growing up, 1 Samuel 2:18-19.
        2. Samuel would wear this clothing in his daily ministries, and it would remind him of his godly mother and her influence that worked to offset what the poor influences of the men who were around him, be it Eli with his failure as a father or the bad example of Eli's wicked, older sons!
        3. Hannah stayed Biblically submissive to her husband in her difficult marriage all the time that Samuel was in Eli's charge, leaving what she could not do for Samuel up to God to handle, 2:19b.
    3. God richly honored Hannah's rearing efforts, taking up the slack where her influence could not go:
      1. In the absence of his mother, Samuel saw God become his Parent, countering the bad influence of Eli and his sons: God directly approached Samuel with news of His discipline of Eli and his sons, 3:7-14!
      2. God continued to reveal Himself to Samuel to offset the bad impact of Eli and his evil sons so that Samuel eventually became the spiritual leader of Israel for the glory of God, 1 Samuel 3:19-20, 21.
      3. [Of import to us, Mary, the mother of our Lord, patterned her great Magnificat after Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2:1-10, cf. Bible Know. Com., N.T., p. 206. Thus God USED Hannah's godly influence to go beyond impacting just Samuel and affect even our Lord's earthly rearing by its impact on Mary!]
Lesson: By working WITHIN the IMPERFECT environments she was BIBLICALLY ASSIGNED for the rearing of Samuel, Hannah heeded God and did her BEST with Samuel, leaving the REST to GOD.

Application: If we find ourselves having to rear maturing children in unavoidably faulty environments, God expects us to watch our OWN walk with Him, to do what we CAN do to impact our children for Him WITHIN our BIBLICALLY assigned roles, and let GOD deal with what we are not able to handle!