“Train up a child in the way that he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6).
Our children are some of the few earthly assets–transformed by the spiritual investment of time and effort–that we can take with us to heaven. The Scriptures urge us to be serious about training up the children the Lord has given to us. Parents are called to equip themselves for the struggle by holding unflinchingly to the Word of God. The proverb before us has been a treasured promise to many in the arena of child rearing. Many a seasoned believer, disheartened by the parental battle, has fallen back upon it for comfort.
Yet this proverb may be viewed as a two-sided coin–containing a promise and a warning.
Inferentially, we are warned that by the neglect of this precept, if a child is not trained in the way he should go, he will nevertheless be trained, trained by the principles of the secular world, molded by his own selfish and undisciplined desires. This “training” will ingrain in him thought patterns and habits that will turn his desire away from the things of God when he is older. Many a Christian, even those well along in their walk with Christ, have been plagued by the “training” of ungodly thoughts, memories, and experiences instilled in them when younger.
The warning in this proverb should stir the thoughtful parent to more caution in the shaping and protecting of the young minds and lives entrusted into his care. Two ways lie before the child–the way he would go, headlong into a life of sorrow; and the way he should go, a path which leads to “fullness of joy” and “pleasures for evermore.” Worldly pressures and lax permissiveness represent two ends of a cord pulled tightly, choking the spiritual potential out of a young life. The failure to protect and instruct children may lead to irreparable damage.
Scripture is unmistakably clear that raising a child is a full time and solemn responsibility. The careless neglect of a child when he is young will only result in a heart full of sorrow and pain when he is older.
We must never forget that there is also a promise contained in this important proverb. The hopes of two generations rest on it. First, there is the generation influenced during his formative years; and then there is the generation influenced when he is old. When we consider this solemn fact, it should not surprise us to see great emphasis laid on training in godliness. So much in the Christian life and spiritual service hinges on the training one receives in childhood.
The word “train” at the outset arrests our attention as we consider the meaning of this proverb. The Hebrew word translated “train” in our English Bibles is used only three other times in the Old Testament. It is variously translated as “to start up” and “to teach.” But the most accepted meaning of this word among Bible scholars is to “dedicate,” to set apart for a particular purpose or goal.
The same root word is used in its noun form for the feast of Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication.1 Unless we are dedicated to training a child in the principles, truths, and examples of the Scriptures, we leave him utterly helpless to withstand the enemy.
The present-day “Christian” parenting industry does little to equip parents in this training effort. It actually does harm by feeding parents’ fears that if they err in any way with their children, they might seriously damage the child forever. By fueling such concerns, they persuade parents to march lock-step with their psychology-laced programs, and to sign up for their parenting seminars year after year.
All too often, sincere parents become so dependent on so-called parenting “experts” that they are unable or unwilling to think for themselves. Frequently, these programs and seminars produce more confusion and doubt than help for struggling parents. These parents soon begin to regard child-rearing as a minefield strewn with dangers; one wrong step and you risk deep-seated and long-term emotional and psychological damage to your child.
Such parents become dependent on “pop” child-psychology programs that map out their every step, and they refuse to deviate from the plan, including those areas of the program that have no basis in Scripture. They are willing to defy both common sense and biblical principles for the sake of following a popular parenting program. This current trend should be a great concern to us all.
For centuries godly Christians have studiously avoided current fads of the day and sought to use biblical principles of child-training to great benefit. One of the most godly mothers in the annals of Church history must undoubtedly be Susanna Wesley. This mother of John and Charles Wesley, who gave birth to 17 other children while assisting Samuel Wesley in his duties as a minister of the gospel in Epworth, England, would often pray as a young woman, “Lord, make my life count…” Heaven alone will record the full answer to this earnest prayer.
But it was her sons, John and Charles Wesley, along with George Whitefield, who lit the fires that would be called the First Great Awakening in England and in the American colonies. This spiritual revival would be the cause of thousands coming to Christ and the establishment of many churches. If John Wesley and Charles Wesley lit the fire of this great revival, surely Susanna Wesley was used of God to strike the first match by her spiritual rearing of these two men of God.
How did she train up a child in the way he should go? What biblical principles did she use in the raising of her family? Susanna Wesley used the following rules of child training:
(1) Subdue self-will in the child and thus work together with God to save his soul. (2) Teach him to pray as soon as he can speak. (3) Give him nothing he cries for, and only what is good for him if he asks for it politely. (4) To prevent lying, punish no fault that is freely confessed, but never allow a rebellious, sinful act to go unnoticed. (5) Commend and reward good behavior. (6) Strictly observe all promises you have made to your child.2
Parents who have been the most committed and earnest about child training have usually seen the most spiritual blessing. These parents who have been filled with the holy desire to see their children love and reverence God, have made their children’s spiritual training their passion. High on their list of biblical priorities for their children is the reverential fear of God in their lives. Godly reverence is the sacred awe of God’s holiness. It is the respect and humility that results in reverent worship of Almighty God. Godly reverence also involves the proper fear of God’s displeasure. True faith acknowledges God’s right to chasten because of sin. These godly parents have seen the danger of presenting God as always gentle, meek, and mild, to the exclusion of His attributes of justice and righteous anger. The absence of a full presentation of God’s attributes frequently results in a careless and flippant attitude towards God.
C. H. Spurgeon’s godly parents, John and Eliza, were eager to train their son in righteousness and the fear of God. As a young child, they read to him the Christian classic Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. Spurgeon once mentioned to a friend that during his lifetime he had read Pilgrim’s Progress over 100 times, but that his love for this book and Christ first came from his mother’s loving spiritual influence. She would awaken the family by singing hymns every morning, and each evening young Charles would hear her close the day by praying for the salvation of all the children in the family by name.
As a boy, his mother offered him a penny for every Isaac Watts’ hymn that he could memorize and recite perfectly. Soon he had memorized and recited over 100 hymns. Spurgeon later recounted with a smile that his mother reduced his wages from a penny per hymn to a farthing “so not to ruin me by the love of money.” His mother knew that the rich spiritual truths and the skillful phrasing of these hymns would have lasting spiritual value in his life.
Spurgeon recounts the great impact his godly parents and grandparents had on his life, but he writes that the reverential fear of God made the most lasting impression. Later in his life he wrote, “Sin, whatever it might be to other people, became to me an intolerable burden. It was not so much that I feared hell as that I feared sin, and all the while I had a concern for the honor of God’s name.”3
As he neared the end of his course, Spurgeon stated that the person who made the most significant spiritual contribution to his life was his mother, Eliza, and that he longed to be reunited with her. Eliza Spurgeon would doubtless agree with Solomon, that training up a child “in the way he should go” contains a great promise but also a solemn warning. May we be “trainers” of children, that when they are old they will walk in the right way, and that they in turn may become “trainers” themselves of the young lives entrusted into their care.
Endnotes:
1. Robert Alden, Proverbs (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983), p. 160
2. William MacDonald, Believer’s Commentary, Proverbs (Nashville, TN: Nelson Publishers, 1995), p. 847
3. Rod Thomson, Prince of Preachers (Sarasota, FL: Christian Soldiers, 1999), p. 7