Train up a child. . .

Daily Bible Reading – Proverbs 22:1 – 24:34

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) A similar Danish proverb reads, "What youth learns, age does not forget." An. English proverb says, "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree."

It is important, in considering the great implications of Proverbs 22:6, to remember that there is all the difference in the world between telling a child and training a child. The Hebrew word translated "train" means "to hedge in." The word suggests a picture of cattle being guided into a pen. Their path is fenced so that there is only one way they can go.

Child training has to be comprehensive and consistent. There are fours areas to be reached and ruled. The first area is the mind. The secular educational system of our secular society is geared to focus the mind's attention on this world's priorities, philosophies, pleasures, prosperity, programs, principles, and praise. The goal of secular education is to prepare children to succeed in this world, so the system sets this world's art, science, religion, heroes, and idols before the child. The goal of Christian parents must be different. They must teach their children to fix their attention on the world to come.

In Genesis 4 we read a list of Cain's descendants and catch a glimpse of people who lived solely for this world. In Genesis 5 we read a list of Seth's descendants and catch a glimpse of people who lived solely for the world to come. The parting of the ways comes early in the Bible and must also come early in life. The Christian parent must lay a firm foundation with the Bible during the first seven years and then build on that foundation during the next ten years. Since the entire secular-humanist educational system scoffs at the Bible, the Christian parent must make sure that the Word of God is so firmly implanted in the child's mind that no amount of secular influence will challenge the Bible's authority.

In Child training the second area to be reached and ruled is the heart. The citadel of the emotions has to be stormed and taken for Christ, for self is firmly enthroned from the very beginning. Every child also comes equipped with the capacity to love, hate, laugh cry desire, fear, and hope. He is a bundle of emotional contradictions, thanks to the Fall. Parents must instill in their children a fear and horror of sin, seek to engage their affections to Christ, and meet their emotional needs. Jesus is the friend of little children and in our efforts to reach their hearts, we have a willing and wondrous ally in the Holy Spirit.

The third area to be reached and ruled is the will. Above all parents must school the will of their children in obedience. Genesis 18:17-19 shows the importance God places on this area of child training: "The Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do...? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him."

The marked decline in parental authority in Abraham's line deserves careful study. Abraham's family was marked by discipline, Isaac's by discord, and Jacob's by depravity.

Parents must command respect, fear, and obedience early, for parents stand in the place of God in the lives of their young children. That stubborn, childish will must learn to obey without argument or the display of temper. Children who do not learn to respect parental authority will learn to defy or challenge all authority.

The fourth area to be reached and ruled is the conscience. Conscience—the innate knowledge of right and wrong, the representative of God in the human soul—is the only positive legacy we have from the fall. But conscience by itself is a goad rather than a guide, for it can be conditioned—it can be sensitized or seared. That is why it is vital that conscience be bonded to the Word of God. Parents must lay a good moral foundation early in a child's life by instilling the precepts of the Mosaic law. These principles condition the conscience, which the Holy Spirit eventually uses as the instrument for bringing about conviction of sin, and conviction of sin is the great prerequisite to genuine conversion.

"Train up a child in the way he should go." If we neglect this part of the verse, how can we claim the second part: "When he is old, he will not depart from it"?

It should be added that this verse is not a promise. The proverb enshrines a principle, but it is not a blanket guarantee that every child raised in a Christian home will eventually be saved. The book of Proverbs sets before us guidelines and general rules rather unconditional promises. Those who take Proverbs 22:6 to be an unqualified promise may well be disappointed.