Train Up a Child

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

In my congregation, I’ve been running a series about common misquoted and misunderstood Bible passages. One of the ones that I wasn’t expecting to be brought up was Proverbs 22:6. So, how does this verse get misused? Well, it’s often thought that as long as we get our kids involved in Sunday School, then when they get confirmed, and then later graduate and move out, that they will stay strong in their faith, because we made sure that they attended church and Sunday school, at least occasionally. And definitely on those really important days, Christmas and Easter. But let’s just look at the grim reality that’s staring us back in the face. Our confirmands take the oaths of confirmation, swearing that they will suffer anything, even death, rather than fall away from the faith, and then the very next weekend, stop coming to church and fall away from the faith. So either God’s lying in the Proverbs, or we’re doing something wrong.

Well, God’s not lying, so what are we doing wrong? Well, it’s time to take a good, hard, honest look at ourselves. Are we truly bring up a child in the way that he should go? Or are we just bringing him up in the way he should go when it’s convenient for us? What do I mean by that? Well, let’s just look at a few numbers for comparison. Typically, there are 180 days in a normal school year, multiply that by seven and you get 1,260 hours a year spent in school. Then you have extra curricular activities, conservative estimates on this put it at 5 hours per week, adding 180 hours, giving us 1,440. Now let’s assume that you only spend an average of 1 hour a night on homework, and that brings us up to 1,620. This is the average time per year invested in an “average” child’s education. Don’t get me wrong, education is important, it has a long lasting impact on their entire lives. But what about something that will impact not just their entire lives, but their eternal lives? Let’s say that they are confirmation age children. You have 30 hours in confirmation instruction. Then you have 70 church services throughout the year, and let’s say that they are 1.5 hours long. We’re up to 135. Then you have 50 Sunday School sessions, and we’re at 185. 185 hours vs 1,620.

We are training them up in the way that they go, and that is the way that says God isn’t nearly as important. We aren’t taking the time to show our kids, by our actions, that God is important to us. We regularly miss Church for foolish reasons and don’t bat an eye, yet you wouldn’t accept those same reasons for a kid to miss school, would you? We are training our kids up, just not how we think that we are. It’s not enough for us to just drop them off at Sunday School and confirmation and just hope that God’s Word takes root. We have to actively be involved in passing on our faith to our children. It’s in the little chats throughout the day, it’s at the conversations at the family dinner table, it’s at the insistence that we get our stuff together and get to church, no matter that we’d rather be in our pajamas and taking it easy, it’s showing our kids that we read our Bibles too, that we’re still learning from them and will be learning from them until the day that we die.

Yet, even the parents who do everything correctly, sometimes their children still fall away. The author of this parable is Solomon, who wrote this for his son Rehoboam. Yet Rehoboam didn’t listen to his father, he abandoned his wisdom the second that the crown was upon his head. Which means that sometimes, children will abandon the faith. And Jesus warns us about that in Luke 12:51 – 53. Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." But, to that parent who is hurting, take heart. See what the proverb says. “In his old age.” There is still hope. Luke will go on to record Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son just a few chapters later in chapter 15. Repentance does happen. So continue to pray for your children, continue to drop the seeds of God’s Word into their rocky and thorny soil. And trust in our Lord, for He will sustain you in His way, until He comes again. In Jesus’ name, Amen.