Scripture Reading:

Proverbs 4:1–3

Proverbs 4:1–3

Hear, you children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.

For I give you good doctrine, forsake you not my law.

For I was my father’s son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.

Proverbs is God’s book dedicated to the subject of conveying knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to the next generation. Though hardly used in teaching colleges and seminaries as a pedagogy manual, these writings best present God’s recommended approach. The method is parental and relational. Far from being detached, academic, and aloof, the godly mentor is fully engaged.

How easy it is to forget the words of your father, and how easily they slip away! Isn’t this the ironic legacy of the author himself and his son Rehoboam? That is why we must keep these words ever before us by constant and regular study and meditation. Nothing else will do if we desire to live and walk in the right path.

Children have a heart with a capacity for relationship and a need to be loved. They are emotional beings, fragile at points especially in the early years—“tender and the only one in the sight of my mother.” They possess a spiritual and moral nature with the capability of understanding right and wrong.

The world runs roughshod over the spiritual component, the moral constitution, the emotional being, and the relational needs of children. They are herded and processed through institutions and nurtured by a bureaucracy. They are too often bullied in school, rejected by parents, ruined by peers, abused by neighbors, and deceived by bad worldviews. The teacher is hired to jam sterile facts into the heads of these “kids,” where there is no relationship, and little relevance to the facts. What little discipleship that does occur is haphazard and
counterproductive.

In contrast with the professionalized systems employed today for the “religious,” “academic,” and “character” training of children, the Bible assigns this role to parents. This text refers specifically to a father and a mother, and no mention is made of Sunday school teachers. The heart of the parent matters in this discipleship—as God would have it. The father recalls how his own parents loved him. What difference does it make to receive these heart-level instructions from a loving parent? There is an added value to a loving parent bringing the commandments and teaching the love of God and the salvation of Jesus. The heart of the parent is felt.

“For I give you good doctrine. Do not forsake my law.”

This instruction which is to convey the very Word of God to a son cannot be delivered by some video put together by professionals in a recording studio 2,000 miles away. This father speaks from the heart— exhorting, pleading, and appealing to his son about the most important lessons of life. He lives out his commitment to God and His Word in the presence of his children. God has ordained that parents be the primary means by which children are saved. More so than pastors,Sunday school teachers, and day school teachers, God has called and equipped parents to lead their children to faith. This message was sadly lost in the industrialized age, with the dissolution of the family and the institutionalization of modern education. As a consequence, generational faith died out in the 20th and 21st Centuries.

Above all, this appeal contains a sincerity, a sobriety, a deep interest, and an attentiveness on both sides. The father is concerned for the child, and the child is concerned to hear from the father. The appeal originates in a passionate commitment to the truth and a desire for the son’s glad reception of the truth. Later, the father cries out in the book: “My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways!” (Prov. 23:26). Such relationships appear odd in a predominantly fatherless world where “the love of many grows cold” and honor for parents is a lost cause. But this heart marks the ultimate manifestation of the
New Testament outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When this power came upon John the Baptist, a spiritual revival ensued as the hearts of the fathers turned to the children and the children’s hearts to the fathers (Mal. 4:6). Without this generational connection and the tuning in of the children to the “wisdom of the just” fathers (Luke 1:17), the world will be saddled with nothing but a
continuous curse. But this is interrupted by a Holy Spirit visitation in the New Testament era, wherever it happens in the world.

Family Discussion Questions:

1. Why is the father so passionate in this appeal to his son? Are we this dedicated to God’s truth and to our children’s training in wisdom? Do wisdom’s teachings appear to us as life-and-death matters?

2. Describe a child in the holistic sense. Assuming that a child is more than an intellect, how would this affect the way we view education?

3. Why is it so important for children to listen carefully to the instruction of their father when doing a family Bible study?

4. What does a New Testament revival look like in family life?