At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“Train up a child in the way he should go: And when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
This is a proverb that has been attended by some debate. The question is whether this is a statement that includes the spiritual state of the children, or if it is more of a practical promise.
A practical take would say that if you evaluate your child’s aptitudes wisely, seeing that he has a real mechanical talent, and you train him up accordingly, then he will grow up into real productivity. He won’t depart from what he was clearly made for. But if you try to make your philosopher into a back hoe operator, then it will just be grief all around.
Others, like myself, don’t exclude this kind of practical parenting, but also want to include the most important thing about raising children, which is bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).
This is a sensitive subject because when parents are dealing with the grief of a wayward child, one who isn’t walking with God at all, this proverb would appear to lay the responsibility for the apostasy squarely at their feet. Why was the promise not fulfilled? Well, it appears that somebody didn’t bring them up right.
Wayward children are already a grief to their parents, a point that is made over and over again in Proverbs. “He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: But he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame” (Proverbs 10:5). But why would we be ashamed of something that somebody else did? Clearly the parents had something to do with it, which they instinctively know. Given this, it is not our place to rub it in. We should interact with such parents with grace and sensitivity. But at the same time, we shouldn’t shy away from the teaching of Scripture just because of this problem either. When addressing the subject of child-rearing, the book of Proverbs does not detach a person’s destiny from how they were brought up (Prov. 23:14).
