1Cor 4, 15-21 I became your father in Christ Jesus

(1Cor 4, 15-21) I became your father in Christ Jesus

[15] Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. [16] Therefore, I urge you, be imitators of me. [17] For this reason I am sending you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord; he will remind you of my ways in Christ (Jesus), just as I teach them everywhere in every church. [18] Some have become inflated with pride, as if I were not coming to you. [19] But I will come to you soon, if the Lord is willing, and I shall ascertain not the talk of these inflated people but their power. [20] For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. [21] Which do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a gentle spirit?

(CCC 2214) The divine fatherhood is the source of human fatherhood (Cf. Eph 3:14) this is the foundation of the honor owed to parents. The respect of children, whether minors or adults, for their father and mother (Cf. Prov 1:8; Tob 4:3-4) is nourished by the natural affection born of the bond uniting them. It is required by God's commandment (Cf. Ex 20:12). (CCC 2222) Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God's law. (CCC 2223) Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones" (CA 36 § 2). Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them: He who loves his son will not spare the rod.... He who disciplines his son will profit by him (Sir 30:1-2). Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4). (CCC 2224) The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies.