Proverbs 22:6
Topic : -Resources
- The Strong Family, Bible Study Guide by C. Swindoll, p. 29
- The Moral Catastrophe, David Hocking, Harvest House, 1990, p. 95
- “Proverbs are presented as probabilities, not promises.”
Ernest Hemingway
Writer Ernest Hemingway, whose novels The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms are an integral part of our American literature, was the son of devout Christian parents. His writing was forceful, action-packed, and often brutal but exhibited none of the belief his parents tried to instill in him. Hemingway professed a concern with “truth,” but his truth bore little resemblance to Christian principles modeled by his parents while he was growing up. Early in his life, he rejected these principles as irrelevant.
A letter from his mother written in 1920 illustrates how completely he had divorced himself from their beliefs: “Unless you, my son, Ernest, come to yourself, cease your lazy loafing and pleasure seeking...stop trading on your handsome face...and neglecting your duties to God and your Savior Jesus Christ...there is nothing for you but bankruptcy; you have overdrawn.”
Hemingway told a writer for Playboy magazine in 1956 that “What is immoral is what you feel bad after.” By his own standard, then, he was a man of unimpeachable morals—nothing made him feel bad. “People with different ideas about morality would call him a sinner,” the article continued, “and the wages of sin, they say, is death. Hemingway has cheated death time and time again to become a scarred and bearded American legend, a great white hunter, a husband of four wives, and a winner of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes...Sin has paid off for Hemingway.”
Ten years later, in a review of the book Papa Hemingway by A. E. Hotchner in the same magazine, the account of Hemingway’s life is a chronicle of repeated suicide attempts, paranoia, multiple affairs and marriages, and finally, on his return to his Ketchum, Idaho hideaway, his final—and successful—suicide attempt. How haunting and ironic the words written earlier about this man became. Ultimately sin did indeed pay off for Ernest Hemingway.
Keith Hernandez
Keith Hernandez is one of baseball’s top players. He is a lifetime .300 hitter who has won numerous Golden Glove awards for excellence in fielding. He’s won a batting championship for having the highest average, the Most Valuable Player award in his league, and even the World Series. Yet with all his accomplishments, he has missed out on something crucially important to him—his father’s acceptance and recognition that what he has accomplished is valuable. Listen to what he had to say in a very candid interview about his relationship with his father:
“One day Keith asked his father, ‘Dad, I have a lifetime .300 batting average. What more do you want?’”
His father replied, “But someday you’re going to look back and say, ‘I could have done more.’”
Sixteen Candle Date
In contrast to those who never feel a sense of recognition for milestone events or ages, we know of one family where just the opposite is true. Hank is a Christian education director who has world-class children. Each of his three daughters could be a foster child for someone who has grown up with a genuine sense of belonging and also developed a healthy sense of separateness from the family.
What’s this man’s secret? When we asked each of the now-grown girls to tell us one thing their father did to instill a healthy sense of separateness in their lives, they all said the same thing: “my sixteen-candle date with my father.” What is a “sixteen-candle date?” Simply something a wise father did to mark a milestone in each daughter’s life. And the only thing each girl had to “accomplish” before she spent this special time with Dad was to grow older. When each daughter turned sixteen (and for two or three years before), Dad would mention little things about a special night out for the two of them. And while Old Testament parents marked a child’s coming of age with a special ceremony of blessing, this father used an evening out to mark a special coming of age in his daughter’s life. From walking up to the door with a corsage in his hand, to going out for a special dinner at a fine restaurant, to presenting a handwritten wish list and a prayer list for this daughter and her family in years to come, he made it an evening none of the girls would ever forget. One daughter told us, After my sixteen candle dinner with my father, I felt for the first time like I was really growing up. We talked about some of the responsibilities like dating and driving I had ahead of me, and it really helped me realize it was time to grow up.
Make special mention of milestones in your children’s growth and maturity, things they have reached by age or their best efforts, and you honor them by giving them a sense of accomplishment (closing the loop). This track record of acknowledged successes is something they can build on throughout their lives in serving the Lord and their families.
Only Weeds
British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge once had a discussion with a man who firmly believed that children should not be given formal religious instruction, but should be free to choose their own religious faith when they reached maturity. Coleridge did not disagree, but later invited the man into his somewhat neglected garden. “Do you call this a garden?” the visitor exclaimed. “There are nothing but weeds here!”
“Well, you see,” Coleridge replied, “I did not wish to infringe upon the liberty of the garden in any way. I was just giving the garden a chance to express itself.”
The Way He Should Go
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
This proverb has been widely quoted, but almost as widely misunderstood. The words “train up” (Hebrew chanak) is elsewhere always translated “dedicate.” That is, a child is to be “dedicated” to a certain calling, and then trained specifically for that purpose.
But exactly what is this calling—this “way he should go?” Parents often make the mistake of trying to lead their children into ways of their own choosing. The father wants his son to follow his own profession; the mother wants her daughter to marry a rich man. The child also may have ambitions that have been colored by the times. The boy may want to be a professional athlete and the girl a country singer.
The way he should go, however, is the way the Lord wants him to go, and we can be sure that the child’s natural talents and interests will have been implanted in him by God for that high purpose. As Samuel was called into the priesthood while yet a child, and so dedicated by his mother, Hannah, and trained by the old priest Eli, so we should recognize that God has a specific purpose for each of our children. The child’s God-given abilities are to be used “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12) and need to be developed with this high purpose in view.
Both child and parents together should diligently seek to discern God’s leading, dedicate him or her to the Lord and His will, recognize the special talents and circumstances that God provides for this purpose, and then seek to encourage and prepare the child to fill that calling. Then, God’s promise is that the entire life (not just the left-overs after all the mistakes and wasted years) will be productive in the optimum career of God’s choosing. — HMM
Train Up a Child
Many sincere Christian parents cling to Proverbs 22:6, which is often understood as an ironclad formula guaranteeing parental success. No wonder Proverbs 22:6 has generated as much consternation and confusion as any verse in the Bible!
What is this hope-laden verse saying? It surprises many to learn that Solomon wasn’t exhorting parents to direct their children along a narrow path. Nor was he promising that children would someday return to that path, no matter how far or for how long they strayed.
A better rendering would be: “Train up a child in keeping with his way.” The term way is used elsewhere in Proverbs of the unique mystery and beauty of four natural wonders (Prov 30:18-19). The “way” of an eagle, snake, etc., isn’t a well-defined path, but a unique characteristic, which sets them apart. In the same way, Solomon urges parents to learn well the unique traits of their children. He knew that spiritual training, to be effective, must be “coded” differently for each child so the child will embrace it and, as he or she matures, be shaped by it. Does such an understanding render this great verse toothless? Hardly. What it does is give parents the challenge of their lives—to shape God’s truth into a well-aimed arrow that hits the mark deep in the heart of a child!
Ted Turner
Cable television mogul Ted Turner criticized fundamentalist Christianity and said Jesus probably would “be sick at his stomach” over the way his ideas have been “twisted,” the Atlanta Journal-constitution reported. Turner made his remarks Friday evening at a banquet in Orlando, Fla., where he was given an award by the American Humanist Association for his work on behalf of the environment and world peace. Turner said he had a strict Christian upbringing and at one time considered becoming a missionary. “I was saved seven or eight times,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. But he said he became disenchanted with Christianity after his sister died, despite his prayers. Turner said the more he strayed from his faith, “the better I felt.”
