---
title: 'The First Mission Field: Thomas Smyth on Christian Parenting'
type: video
hasMedia: true
requiresPurchase: false
authors:
- 'Jonathan Master'
date: 2026-04-28
collection: 'Dead Presbyterians Society'
subcollection: 'Season 3'
topics:
- 'Missions (General)'
- 'Children and Youth'
- 'Family, Marriage, and Roles of Men and Women'
scriptures:
- 'Proverbs 22'
- 'Matthew 6'
- 'Matthew 22'
- 'Luke 10'
- '2 Corinthians 5'
- 'Matthew 28'
- 'Psalms 8'
- 'Philippians 2'
- 'Proverbs 23'
- 'John 4'
- 'Acts 20'
- 'John 21'
- 'Matthew 9'
url: https://confessional.org/dead-presbyterians-society/season-3/the-mission-field-of-the-christian-home-thomas-smyth-and-the-mission-of-parenting
---

# The First Mission Field: Thomas Smyth on Christian Parenting

In this episode, we explore The Mission of Parenting by Thomas Smyth, a powerful call for Christian parents to see the home as the first mission field. Smyth challenges families to raise children not merely in knowledge, but in a living zeal for Christ’s kingdom and the spread of the gospel.

[Watch](https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1187151750)

## Transcript

Do you see your home as not merely a place for nurturing and teaching and safety, but as an outpost of the Great Commission? This is the call that Thomas

00:00

Smith gives to Christian parents in our own day. Greetings from the past. Welcome to "Dead Presbyterian Society." My name is

00:11

Jonathan Master. I serve as the President of Greenville Seminary. There is a lovely family story from the household of Charles

00:48

Hodge. We've mentioned Hodge on numerous occasions on this podcast, and there's a great story from the lives of his

children. When his son, Archibald Alexander Hodge, AA Hodge, was only 10 years old, he and his sister, Mary Elizabeth, sealed a small envelope, which they

01:02

addressed to India. Inside this envelope was a letter to missionary James R. Eckerd and a modest gift of $2.

01:14

$2 that these children had collected over the course of many months to be sent to the mission work in India.

01:24

It was a child's gesture, yet it carried the weight of eternity. Charles Hodge, their father, had taught them that

every prayer and every penny offered to Christ's kingdom mattered. Years later, that same boy, Archibald Alexander Hodge, now grown, would

01:39

set sail to India himself to serve as a missionary. He did not serve there very long. He was beset by health difficulties.

01:51

His wife also had health difficulties. He was only there for three years, from 1847 to 1850. But what we see was what had been planted in his heart as a young

01:57

child, this love for the lost, this desire to serve the cause of global missions, was something that stuck with him even until adulthood.

Faithful parenting along the lines of a missionary enterprise blossomed into what would become a lifetime of service to God.

02:18

This example of the Hodge family beautifully illustrates one of the truths from the book we're going to look at

02:40

today, written by Thomas Smith. And I'll say just a brief word about the pronunciation of Smith's last name. It is spelled S-M-Y-T-H. He changed his name when he

02:48

arrived at a General Assembly and realized there was another man there named Smith, S-M-I-T-H, but his given name was Smyth. He was born in Northern

Ireland, and the pronunciation seems to have remained consistent even when he changed the spelling. He was a student of Charles Hodge's at Princeton Theological Seminary, and

03:10

he shared his mentor's understanding that the place to begin when considering global missions was in the home. And so in 1846, he published

03:20

this little booklet, "The Duty of Interesting Children in the Missionary Cause." Now it's been republished by Log College Press under the title, "The Mission of Parenting: Raising

03:32

Children Who Love the Mission of God," and that's what we're going to look at today. In it, Smith urged parents to do more than

03:44

instruct their children in doctrine. Of course, we must instruct our children in Christian teaching, but he also called parents to exercise their very best

03:51

efforts to awaken in young hearts a zeal, a holy zeal, for the salvation of the world. And to Smith, the true measure of Christian parenting was not simply

well-taught, well-catechized children, but children whose lives were aflame for the kingdom of Christ around the world. Now, a few notes about Smith's biography.

04:10

He was born, as I mentioned already, on July 14th, 1808, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His parents were Samuel and Ann

04:22

Maggie Smyth. He was born, as I said, with the surname Smyth, S-M-I-T-H, changed it in 1837 because there was another Thomas Smith at the General Assembly, and for the

04:30

records of the General Assembly, it was important to distinguish between the two of them. In Ireland, Smith studied at the Academic Institution of

Belfast and later at Belfast College, where he graduated with honors in 1829. He made a profession of faith in Christ at age

04:49

21 in Belfast. He attended Highbury College in London briefly before he and his family emigrated to America in 1830, and upon arriving in America, he

04:57

soon enrolled in the senior class at Princeton Theological Seminary, and he graduated in 1831. Later on, he was awarded a Doctorate of Divinity. That would be in

1843\. In 1832, after his graduation, he was called to serve the pulpit at Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He was originally just a supply preacher

05:18

there, and two years later, he was called and installed as the pastor there, and he went on to serve that church, Second Presbyterian Church in

05:30

Charleston, for the remainder of hislife. He was married in 1832 to Margaret Milligan Adger. Margaret was the sister of John

05:37

Bailey Adger, who was another leading minister in the Southern Presbyterian Church, and the couple went on to have nine children.

He died on August 20th in 1873. His body was laid to rest in the Second Presbyterian Church Cemetery, and his funeral sermon was delivered by his

05:55

successor at Second Presbyterian Church. The bulk of his personal library, he had over 20,000 volumes, was sold to Columbia Theological Seminary,

06:05

and his works were later published in 10 volumes. There was an autobiography that he had written that was edited by his

06:16

granddaughter, and that was published in 1914. But we're today going to look at just one small work, "The Mission

of Parenting." This was written in, as I mentioned already, 1846, so he was serving as the pastor of Second Presbyterian

06:30

Church in Charleston, South Carolina, at this time. This essay sets forth Smyth's conviction that Christian parenting is at heart a missionary

06:37

calling. To raise children for Christ means raising children for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. And I just want to pause there and say this is a radical notion in our day.

To think about parenting not simply as a duty of instructing children and of raising them to be well-behaved and

06:58

to honor their parents and to be good workers and to be well prepared for life, but rather raising children who are concerned about the

07:06

missionary cause. He wrote as both a pastor and as a father, and he urges parents and teachers and ministers to instill in the young a heartfelt

07:14

concern for the spread of the gospel. Now, much of what he writes, and you'll see this as we survey this little booklet,

much of what he writes is a kind of expansion on the teaching of the Lord's Prayer. He will refer again and again to the Lord's Prayer in

07:32

his analysis of what Christian parents ought to do, and particularly the key petitions that we are, as Christians, commanded to make based on the Lord's model prayer.

07:42

Home is the seedbed of missions, and the prayers of children, Smyth recognizes, may be as vital to God's work as those of

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seasoned saints. He warned that, quote, "The present generation must pass away before a race shall rise adequate for the work

of the world's evangelization." And he called Christian parents to prepare that next generation right now with prayerful devotion, holy example,

08:09

and missionary zeal. Brothers in ministry, the work of shepherding Christ's flock requires theological clarity and faithful witness in our

08:21

increasingly confusing age. So we invite you, if you're a pastor, if you're engaged in ministry, to come and join us for this

08:32

year's Summer Seminar, August 4th through 6th. The title of this year's seminar is Apologetics and Evangelism for the Pastor, and our instructors this year will be Dr.

Carlton Wynn and Dr. Camden Busey. They'll be giving a series of focused lectures and leading discussions on how pastors can think

08:50

carefully and defend the faith wisely and proclaim the gospel with increased confidence. Whether you're laboring in the pulpit each week or preparing

09:00

men for ministry, this seminar is designed to strengthen your work and encourage your heart alongside other fellow servants of Jesus Christ. We hope you'll join us for this year's Summer Seminar.

men for ministry, this seminar is designed to strengthen your work and encourage your heart alongside other fellow servants of Jesus Christ. We hope you'll join us for this year's Summer Seminar.

09:10

If you want more information or you want to register, you can do that at gpts.edu/events. Now, as we look at this work, we can look at it under several headings,

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several categories. First, we can look at the why. What are the duties of parents, and why must parents devote

09:45

themselves to this great work? He begins with a simple truth from the Word of God that addresses both young and

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old. Parents are commanded to, quote, "Train their children in the way they should go, that when they are old, they may not depart from it.”

That, of course, is from Proverbs 22:6. And from this, Smyth draws an inference, what he calls an undeniable inference, that it is incumbent upon

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every Christian, parent, teacher, and church to see to it that the children of their charge are brought up as the Lord's, as

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Christians, as members of the visible church. And we can also see in this a real outworking of his Presbyterian

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convictions, that children of believers are members of the covenant community, that they are part of the visible church. The responsibility of training the young in Christian duty extends,

therefore, beyond mere moral instruction. It encompasses the call to, as Smyth puts it, quote, "Promote his glory and advance his cause according to each one's

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ability and influence." And to this end, Smyth insists, quote, "It is therefore our manifest duty to bring up our children in a missionary spirit and in a missionary

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practice." And that kind of training must include both fervent prayer for them and with them, and then active participation, again, with them in the work of

11:06

advancing Christ's kingdom on Earth. And we can think again of the example of A.A. Hodge and his sister, who were at a very young age, thinking about ways that

they might contribute, perhaps in a small way, but that they might nonetheless contribute to the missionary work around the

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globe. So that's the why. Why do they do it? And he goes on to further expand on the why, because

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children, Smyth argues, are capable of receiving and embodying the missionary spirit from a young age. They can pray. They can give.

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They can labor for the gospel as they're taught to do so, just as they can love Christ and their fellow human beings.

As they learn the second petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come," they can both desire and work toward its fulfillment,

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for that petition itself is a missionary plea. The summary of the law, Smyth reminds us, teaches them to love God with all

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their heart and their neighbor as themselves. And unbelievers around the world, Smyth reminds us, are our neighbors in a

12:09

true biblical sense, and the duty to love them and serve them belongs to all. Here's a quote. "Many of these heathen, who are our

neighbors according to the teaching of Christ, are daily perishing. And if our children as well as we ourselves are not doing what we can

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to save them, how can we meet them when we and they shall both appear before the judgment seat of Christ?" And therefore,

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Christian education, the education of the young, must move beyond knowledge to action. Here's a quote. "Children, then, cannot too soon be taught the practice as well as the doctrine of

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Christ. They cannot be taught too soon to do what they can, as well as to think and to feel as they can. They begin to speak, to walk, to

read, and to learn as soon as they can. And why should they not also begin to think and to work, to

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talk, to pray, and to give for Christ as soon as they can?" There are blessings, Smyth reminds us, to children who obey and serve.Children cannot

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but get good in doing good. Children who do good to others not only do good, but prevent evil to themselves.

13:16

There is no way in which they can better make the love of self weak and the love of others strong. The child who keeps his hand and his

heart employed in what is good, who is learning what needs to be done for the heathen at home and abroad and is giving his money or his prayers that they may be

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brought to Christ is preventing much evil to himself. And again, dealing with the why, Smith insists that neglecting this spiritual duty is not a small

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thing. It is, he says, as truly sinful to neglect to bring up children in a missionary spirit and a missionary habit as

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it is to bring them up without any knowledge of God or of his law or of any moral duty. He concludes in this way, “The

duty of praying, laboring, and giving for the spread of the gospel and the salvation of souls arises as much as any of the other duties mentioned out of

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the relations in which we stand to God, to Christ, and to our fellow men, and is plainly and absolutely commanded by heaven."

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Now moving from the why, why this must be a part of our homes, he then deals with the how. How to instill a

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missionary spirit. Now, first of all, he tackles the all-important issue of the children's own conversion. Smith is clear that a true

missionary spirit and zeal cannot exist apart from saving faith. Here's what he writes, "In order to enable children to take a

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heartfelt interest in Christian missions, they must unquestionably be taught that it is their duty to become true Christians themselves."

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And for this reason, he counsels parents, "It must therefore be our first and great object to lead our children to Christ.

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We must pray to God to draw them unto Christ, and we must persuade them without delay to receive Christ, to give themselves to Christ, to be saved

by Him, and to serve Him." This isn't something, this missionary spirit, that can be simply manufactured by mere enthusiasm. It flows from a heart that is renewed by

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grace. Here's how he puts it, "For it is utterly impossible to have a missionary spirit unless the heart is full of love and devotion to the

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cause of Christ." Now beyond conversion, he strongly advocates that parents and teachers and pastors must model and teach the missionary life.

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We cannot expect our children to love what we treat with indifference. They need to see in us a genuine devotion to the

missionary cause before they will make it their own. Here's a quote, "It is to be done first by their seeing that you,

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their parents, are truly and heartily interested in this work themselves, and that they are really anxious that their children should

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also be interested in it." And he extends this beyond parents to teachers and church leaders. They too must evidence a real

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missionary zeal, and this will then be modeled for those under their care. Practical instruction then follows from this example. And so to that end, Smith encourages parents to provide

children with appropriate reading that acquaints them with the world's spiritual needs. Smith writes, "Children should be taught also to pray for

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the heathen. This is as binding on them as on those who are grown up. The glory of God in the extension of the Church and

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Kingdom is the great burden of the prayers of Scripture, and occupies three petitions and doxology in the Lord's Prayer, which

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is essentially a missionary prayer, and which we all feel bound to teach to our children in their earliest years." And then he also

advocates sharing with the young inspiring examples of great missionaries of the past, and perhaps even children who have been used by God to

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expand the kingdom of Christ. By learning what their peers, past and present, have done for the gospel, children are encouraged to join that same

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noble endeavor. Now, once it is understood that Christian parents bear a sacred and pressing duty to train their children

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to possess and to practice this missionary spirit, the natural question arises, how shall this be accomplished? And again, Smith gives a

number of examples, but what he does at the end of this how section is he acknowledges the real shortcomings in his

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generation in instilling this spirit and in fulfilling the Great Commission. Here's what he writes, "And one thing is very plain, that all our hope for the

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progress of the gospel is in the young." And he says that with a kind of sadness because he looks at his own generation and sees how much work

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remains to be done in terms of missionary efforts. "The present generation must pass away," he writes, "before a race shall rise adequate for the work of the world’s

evangelization." Yet, while there have been failures in this present generation, while we have not done all that we could, we can still pass

18:15

along to children a holy ambition to embrace the cause of Christ. So then he tries to explain what some of the benefits of this would

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be, and how it could be effective. To the worldly mind, the idea that even children might be instruments in the advancement of God's kingdom

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seems improbable. As Smith observes, divine wisdom often confounds human expectation. Here's a quote, "For in the estimation of the

world, the ministry of the word, the means of grace, and the influence example in the agency of individual Christians are as weak and inefficient as

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babes and sucklings. And yet, by this instrumentality, God secures the grandest results, even the salvation of all that believe, the

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completion of his own designs, the glorious triumphs of the Redeemer, and the everlasting blessedness of heaven." And so what he's saying is

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this, that if we look at all the things that the church embraces, the ordinary means of grace, to the world's eyes, those look ineffectual.

So of course, children look to be ineffectual as well. But he continues by writing, "It is in accordance with God's

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wisdom to employ the instrumentality of the young in the great work of the world's conversion. Children," he continues, "are no incidental

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members of Christ's church. They are vital participants in its mission." He says that many Christians tragically underestimate the potential of the young.

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Somehave a vague hope that perhaps later in life, children will turn to Christ and follow him, and some actually deny

altogether the possibility that children can meaningfully engage in the work of evangelization. Thus, he writes, "The place of the young in this great

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work of the church is undervalued or even opposed." But he goes on to contrast this with what the Bible teaches.

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The Savior commands that children are to be discipled and taught all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. That's from the Great Commission.

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"The language of our Savior implies at once a command, a prophecy, and a promise. Children must and will be brought up to active cooperation in the

cause of missions. Their agency will yet be found mighty through God. And when the church realizes this truth and acts upon it and calculates and

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relies upon the efforts of the young, then will she find herself strong enough to fulfill her great commission to preach the gospel to every creature.

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And then shall every knee bow and every tongue confess that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." He goes on to put it

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this way. "The first great demand which the reconciled God makes of all, young and old, is give me thy heart or love

me, and the second is like unto it, love thy neighbor as thyself." And this, of course, is expanded upon in the Lord's

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Prayer. "Understand then, dear readers," he writes, "young and old, what you really mean when you pray that God's kingdom may come.

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If you pray for the coming of God's kingdom and do nothing for its coming, you are praying for your own destruction." He observes that many

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children across the world are already active in the missionary cause. He calls this, "A foretaste we trust, of what another generation

will not only attempt, but achieve. Training the young not only advances the work of missions today, but secures its future. The call to labor is urgent.

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The fields of the world are white for harvest, whether in distant lands or within our own communities." And Smith exhorts

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believers to do all they can for the spread of the gospel, and he concludes in this way. "Young friends of missions, thank God and take courage.

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You are already great, and you are increasing every day in number. God alone can know the good arising out of your new and

happy movement in the cause of missions. Think of the good it will do to others, and remember, it cannot but

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prove an infinite blessing to yourselves, for Christ has said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" And then

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to Christian parents and teachers and ministers and elders, he presses a final searching appeal. "Are you hoping, praying, and laboring for the conversion of the

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world? How then can you fail to train solely for that God, that Savior, that church, the children God has given

you? Hear the voice of the Redeemer. He calls you each by name. 'Lovest thou me?' Does your soul answer, 'Yes, Lord'?

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Then heed your Savior's message. 'Feed my lambs.'" I have to say, reading through this book by Thomas Smith, it is as

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relevant today as it was in 1846. He saw clearly that the vision for evangelism does not begin on distant shores, but in the Christian home.

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The nursery, the family pew, the evening prayer at bedtime are the seedbed of the future cause of missions. Smith understood that

when parents shape their children's hearts around the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom, this is a great work in

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participating in what the Lord is doing. To raise a child in Christ is itself an act of missions. And so this call is both ordinary and eternal,

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to cultivate in our homes a living concern for the lost, a love for the nations, a steadfast devotion to the

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Lord of the harvest. Smith's appeal is not just to sentiment, but really it's a call to duty. That the sacred responsibility entrusted to every Christian to say

as a parent, "Lovest thou me, feed my lambs." As we reflect on Smith's challenge, we can't help but examine our

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own hearts and homes. Do you speak often to your children of Christ's kingdom? Do you see in yourself, and do you model for your children a

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living faith that prays, gives, labors for the salvation of the world? Are you training those under your care to think of their lives and their talents and

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their vocations as instruments in God's redemptive plan? Smith would have us remember that the missionary spirit cannot be inherited by accident. It must be cultivated with intention

and prayer. That same grace that transforms the heart must also direct the home. If we desire a generation adequate for the work of the

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world's evangelization, then we must begin by shaping our own households into outposts of the Great Commission. The question that remains for us is one of stewardship.

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What kind of missionaries are we supporting? What kind of missionaries are we raising? And what kind of mission field

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is our own home?