God gives parents the privilege of being the primary shapers of their children¹s attitude to racial differences. According to Ephesians 6:1-4, both mom and dad are to be honored and obeyed by their children. This is God’s good plan for our great good, and where this breaks down, everything begins to break down.

Fathers are named specifically in Ephesians 6:4 and have an especially prominent role in shaping the minds and hearts of their children in accord with the Lord¹s instruction. And part of that instruction is the Lord’s truth about racial differences and how we should think and feel and act about them.

Here are 8 ways (among other possible ways) for moms and dads to help their children to love people who are different from them:

1.Help the children believe in God¹s sovereign wisdom and goodness in creating them with the body that they have.

2.Help the children believe in God’s sovereign wisdom and goodness in making other people with the body that they have.

3.Help the children believe that they and all other children and adults are made in God’s image.

4.Teach the children that God tells us to do to others as we would like others to do to us.

5.Teach the children and model for them that their own sin is uglier than anybody they think is physically unattractive.

6.Teach the children that God loves them in spite of the ugliness of their sin and that he proved this by sending his Son to die for our sins and give forgiveness to all who would trust him.

7.Teach the children that because Jesus died for them and rose again, he becomes for them an all-satisfying Friend and Treasure.

8.Teach the children to love others who are different from them, not in order to be accepted by God, but because they already are accepted by God because of Jesus.
It is the power of God in the gospel that is the power to love people different from ourselves. This is the key we give to our children, and the key to daily life as parents.

(RT: Desiring God)