AE 45:40–41: Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool—though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith—my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling—not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith. Those who sneer at him and see only the task but not the faith are ridiculing God with all his creatures, as the biggest fool on earth. Indeed, they are only ridiculing themselves; with all their cleverness they are nothing but devil’s fools.[1]
http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=17528: The first duty of Dad is to know who is boss. No, it’s not you. And it’s not your children. It’s God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. “I believe that God has made me.” In making you he has defined for you what you are all about. The fatherhood of God determines for us Christian fathers what fatherhood is all about.
Fathers, you don’t need your children’s permission to be their father. God made you their father. God decides what you are to do. Your children don’t decide. You don’t decide. God decides.
God has given to fathers and mothers the responsibility of teaching God’s word to their children. We Lutherans confess this in the Catechism where each of the six chief parts of Christian doctrine has the heading: “As the head of the family should teach it in a simple way to his household.” Ordinarily, the father is the head of the household. Sometimes the mother becomes the head by default. When God spoke through Moses to Israel (Deuteronomy chapter 6) to give his chosen people their duties as his children, the first thing he commanded them to do was to keep his word in their hearts. The second thing he commanded them to do was to teach it to their children. What do you love? What is precious to you? That’s what you give to your children.
Martin Luther, *[Luther’s Works, Vol. 45 : The Christian in Society II]{.ul}*, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 45 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 40–41.