Proverbs 22:6 Train up a Child in the Way he Should Go…
“Train up a child in the way that he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
A good place to begin this section is with a scripture that a lot of Christian parents are familiar with. It’s an ‘overview’ type of scripture that gives a general instruction about what we, as parents, are to do with our children, and a promise about an outcome if the instruction is obeyed. It doesn’t provide details about how the training is to be done - that is provided in other scriptures.
Some years ago, I was speaking with a father of teenagers and young adults. He and his wife were Christians, but none of their children were. He was expressing his concerns for his children, then came to a point where he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh well, at least I know that when they’re old they’ll come back to the Lord.”
I figured that he was thinking of Proverbs 22:6 when he said that, but asked him why he believed that.
“You know….. that verse that says if we train up our children properly they won’t depart from God when they are old,” he answered.
It wasn’t the first time someone had told me their children were away from the Lord, but that they, as parents, were believing for the Proverbs 22:6 outcome.
It’s commendable that they believed God. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that we please God when we have faith in Him.
However, I have found that most parents of unsaved older children are incorrectly applying this verse to their situation. This man was no exception.
Let’s break the verse down a bit.
‘Train’
Training is a process. It isn’t something that happens accidentally or by default. A parent has to decide that they are going to ‘train’ their children. It requires plans, strategies and purpose.
However, the focus for the training shouldn’t be the activities, outings or church attendances we can get our children to notch up. The focus must be the training of the child’s heart. Many children are taken to Church every Sunday, memorise scripture and win Bible quizzes yet have no real interest in God by the time they are 15. That’s because the outward appearance of being ‘good Christians’ was emphasised more than the inward issues of the heart.
The bottom line? We must train our children to ‘fear God.’
This is where so many Christian parents fail. I’ve had parents weeping as they tell me that they can’t understand what has gone wrong. They had taken their children to church every Sunday, but now in their teens, their children are rebellious and away from the Lord.
The parents usually point to anything but their own failure as to why their child is now rebellious. Academic demands. The influence of ‘bad’ friends. An abusive father. Or they point to their Pastor or the Church and blame them.
Hey, the Bible is there for us all to read. No-one taught my husband and me. We didn’t have the internet to help us either, and there were no ‘Family’ training workshops or seminars that we were aware of. We had to get it all for ourselves from the Word of God - and so can you.
That’s not to say that my husband and I got it all right. We didn’t. We learned as we went and we made mistakes. We also knew far less than we do now when we were raising our older children.
You don’t have to have a degree in child raising. You just need to fear God yourselves and teach your children to fear God. I’ll do another post some time soon about some of the ways to teach the fear of God to our children.
Anyway, it’s surprising how many ‘reasons’ are given by parents for their child’s rebellion. I haven’t heard any parent explain to me that they failed to train their child’s heart or that they didn’t teach their child to ‘fear God’.
Jeremiah 32:40 says, “but I will put My fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from Me.” That’s the key to ‘training’. We must teach our children to fear God, and when that is accomplished, they won’t depart from Him.
So this is the ‘training’ that Proverbs 22:6 requires in order to get the outcome it speaks of. Sure, there are lots of other things we need to teach our children along the way - but it is the fear of the Lord that will keep them faithful to Him.
“Child”
Funnily, this word is a sticking point for some people. One parent, in trying to evade the use of the rod on her 10 year old said, “But a child is aged 2-8″. Don’t ask me where she got that from, but she said it nevertheless.
Strong’s concordance describes the original Hebrew word as meaning ‘from the age of infancy to adolescence’. So we have a responsibility before God to train our children from the moment of birth (some even begin the process before then) and through the adolescent years.
‘The way he should go’
There is only one way that God is referring to here. It’s to follow Him with our whole hearts, minds, souls and strength. To do this our children need to be taught to fear God.
‘When he is old he will not depart from it’
This is a real problem area. Many parents take solace in this by saying that ‘even though my son is away from the Lord now, I believe that when he’s old, he’ll come back to the Lord’.
One Christian parent told me, “You have to expect some of your children will rebel when they are teenagers.” In fact it’s so common these days that most people think it’s ‘normal’.
Rebellion isn’t ‘normal’ - it’s SIN.
It’s right to believe for the salvation of our children, and if for some of them, life takes them to old age before they are saved, then that’s still a wonderful outcome for that person.
But what about their children - our grandchildren? What happens to them? While we are hanging in there waiting for our children to come back to the Lord ‘when they are old’, our grandchildren have no hope of being brought up ‘in the way they should go’.
No, this verse is NOT saying, ‘It’s normal for our children to turn away from the Lord - but hang in there, for it you’ve taken them to Church and had them memorise some scriptures when they were children then you’ve done your job, and they will come back to the Lord when they are old.’
Unfortunately many translations leave out a word that is clearly there in the original Hebrew. It’s the word ‘even’. This single word brings a great deal of clarity to the meaning of the verse. Here it is with the word ‘even’ included:
“Train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Can you see the difference? If we train our children to fear God, they will never depart from Him - not as teenagers, not at any age. Even in old age - by which time they will have come to understand the ways of the world, they will be aware of the many ‘religious alternatives’ they could pursue and they will have faced the trials and difficulties that life can bring. In the face of a lifetime of experience, they will still choose one thing - to fear God.
It’s a challenging situation for Christian parents whose children have turned away from the Lord, and these days it’s the wrong thing to tell someone that they have failed in some way.
But I have found that the best thing I can do before God is to admit my failure and its consequences, and call on Him for His grace. When I humble myself in that way, I become a candidate for His grace. He forgives me, and cleans me from my unrighteousness. It brings a freedom from the burden of my failures and opens me to receive the wisdom from God that I need.
So I encourage you to humble yourself before God. Admit your failures in parenting. Such admission doesn’t mean that you personally are a failure. It is simply a recognition that you have been an imperfect parent who has made mistakes, neglected important things or even ignored wise advice, but that now you recognise this as ‘sin’ and want God’s grace and wisdom for you and your family in the years, and generations, to come. You will then be ready and able to receive and apply the right verses for your situation, and free to exercise the faith you need to see the desired outcomes in your children - no matter what their age.