Are Your Children Unruly?

I sat in the adult Sunday school class with my 2 year old son on my lap. Occasionally he would wiggle, but he had learned to sit still- for the most part- as I held him. After class the lady across the table told me how impressed she was about how good he was. I responded that he was not always that good. She then said that she was also impressed with how well his 2 older brothers had sat in the same class a few weeks earlier.
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At that time I admitted to her that our 3 and 4 year had been in class with us because they had not wanted to go to their own class even though we had told them they should. I then explained that we had been on the road a lot recently, preaching in other churches, and that the boys were often in unfamiliar settings and had gotten a bit scared and wanted to be close to Mom and Dad.
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This brings up an important question: Were my children being disobedient and unruly in a way that would disqualify me from being a pastor because they were too scared to go to their class and insisted on staying with us?
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Consider 1 Timothy 3:4-5, “One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)” Consider as well Titus 1:6, “If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.”
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Let me be honest. This is not the only issue my children have. They do not always sit quietly- especially if they have to sit for more than an hour. Further, they fight with each other over toys, they have taken candy without permission, and they have tracked mud across the floor. Even though we remind them to take their shoes off, they sometimes forget or are just in too much of a hurry to obey. Is this what the Apostle Paul was referring to when he used the word “unruly” in Titus 1:6?
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Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible defines the underlying Greek word for unruly as: “unsubdued, i.e. insubordinate (in fact or temper):- disobedient, that is not put under, unruly.” The Geneva Bible Notes (commentary from the year 1599) gives some further light to the subject when it states, “This word is used of horses and oxen, who will not tolerate the yoke.”
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In 1599, it was much more common to have horses and oxen in a yoke than it is today, yet the usage of the word should help our understanding. Though a horse may tolerate a yoke, that does not mean it will never throw its head or even stomp its hooves. Further the driver of the yoke may have to pull the reigns to steer the animal back on course from time to time.
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The same is true of children. They are not robots that we can just program for an automatic outcome. We have attempted to program them to never walk across the house with muddy shoes and they are improving, yet they are not perfect. Even a well trained horse may have to be reigned in now and then.
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Still, children should not be allowed to run wild. A pastor, just like any parent should be concerned about the behavior of his children. A pastor who has no restraints on his children should be disqualified from ministry, but this does not mean that his children have to be sinless.