Train Your Children – Proverbs 22:6

Can you think of some parents who seem to have trained their children well in the Lord, but whose children chose to go on a path away from the truth?  Solomon, in the very Proverbs we are studying, warns his son not to run with the wicked.  Shouldn’t he only need to train his son well and feel secure?  No, because his son has his own will, and no matter what his training, may choose to do what is clearly against the Lord’s will.

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

This is generally true.  I say “generally” because, as we have seen, the proverbs deal in generalities, not absolutes, at least not in most cases.  I say “generally” because there have been children who were raised in the way they should go and they did depart from the way.  Proverbs will recognize the exceptions that prove the rule.  The best example of this is Proverbs 26:4–5,

[4] Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.  [5] Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. (ESV)

Parents, however, have clung to this verse about training children as a promise with no exceptions because they are afraid.  They’re afraid that they can do everything right and their child can still rebel against the Lord.  Humans long for guarantees of a good future (the book of Ecclesiastes addresses this).  But there are none, except that the person who has trusted in Christ will be saved.

Parents and other humans will therefore judge parents whose children fail as parents who did not properly train up their child.  Like Job’s friends, they must convince themselves and maybe even those parents whose kids fail that it is the parents’ fault in how they raised their child.  Otherwise their own supposed guarantee on the future is in question.

Children need to be trained in the way of Yahweh.  They will benefit from such training and normally speaking they will not depart from it their whole lives.