Parental Sentiment
The following article was written by Pastor Thomas Irvin.
It's a great reminder of the importance of faithful parenting.
Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Undoubtedly, Proverbs 22:6 is among the most familiar verses in the word of God. It is both encouraging and confusing among Christians based on individual anecdotal experience. The verse places the Christian parent in the long-term position of trainer. Trainers must be faithful, disciplined, and dutiful in preparing their trainees. Of course, we add the complexity of love and concern in the case of a parent as a trainer and a child as a trainee. Our children are not athletes being relentlessly prepared for sport, but they are being prepared for a relentless world. Proverbs 22:6 sets the tone for the parent and child relationship.
If your children are left to worldly evangelists, the world’s modern zeal for confusion will be impressed upon them. The flow of information is increasing rapidly, and the desire to win your child’s heart is incentivized by modern data monetization. That is to say, strong incentive exists to go after your child. Your trainee will be trained by worldly operators who do not have their best spiritual interests in mind.
It can be objectively said that Christians are manifestly failing to train their children in the way they should go. It seems, at best, that many Christian parents split their training between the Bible, education, tablets, smartphones, and television. Upon addicting their children to digital devices, sentiment and guilt trips prevent parents from restructuring the training in the right direction. Due to this ungodly split in the training regiment, if we take the verse literally to mean what it says, we conclude trainers are failing to train the trainees after a biblical sort.
I understand that we would rather find some other excuse for children who have no interest in God or his word, but according to this passage, the answer is a lack of training in THE way they SHOULD go. As a parent myself, I fully understand the implications of this charge. It places guilt and responsibility squarely upon us as the trainers.
Furthermore, the capacity for our children to grow up and live “in the way they should go” depends on our willingness to be faithful to God. The correlation is that the more faithful we are to the Lord, and the more faithful we are to train our children accordingly (the two together provide necessary coherence), the greater the probability our children grow up to do the same. For clarity, I suggest full participation at Church, but halfhearted participation at home will be problematic. The trainer must set the best godly example possible in all areas of life and responsibility.
Our struggle with making necessary life changes comes from our ability to confirm our priors. Or I might include our uncanny ability to assume we are doing right in the matter. We can easily convince ourselves we are likely doing no wrong, or at least we are doing a minimal amount of wrong. It may be helpful to ask yourself what level of wrong you are prepared to transfer from your life to your child’s adulthood. Romans 2 tells us about people who can point out the trouble in the lives of others, but have a supernatural ability to justify the same troubles in their own lives. Will you overlook the problems you allow to develop in your child’s character? If not, now might be the time to train it out of them.
America is rapidly becoming a nation that fears its children. The Lord warned against women and children as oppressors. I am reminded of a friend who home-schools, one day, while driving by an elementary school, and his son asked, “Daddy, is that a prison?” Considering all that takes place there, it may well be preparation for prison. Modern children are trained to be egotistical and self-interested, and Christian children are trained to be some hybrid – a little bit of the world and a little bit of Jesus. This is wholly unacceptable.
Children raised by the world are anxiety-ridden, confused, and violent. Children raised in Christian homes are cold and indifferent and straddle the fence between the Church and the world. Of course, over seventy-five percent of children leave the Church and embrace the world. One undertone that seems to be pulling Christian families away from the way they should go, and in various other directions, is feelings. Parents allow their children to develop the ability to manipulate and guilt trip their way into things parents should protect them from. When the child doesn’t get their way, they throw a fit of varying sorts and intensities, only to have the parent relent. This, of course, establishes two terrible precedents. First, the child recognizes that enough pressure from a tantrum will suffice to get their way. Second, the child gets their “way” rather than the parent “training up the child in THE WAY they should go.”
Our willingness to assume the innocence of a child is an extension of our ability to justify the wrong in our own lives. We begin to think, or worse yet, say aloud that the child is simply innocent and doesn’t understand what they are doing. But, if examined objectively, what has been admitted in that situation is the parent recognizes an area in which the child needs training, and rather than providing the training, the attitude or behavior is excused and thereby embedded into the child’s character.
Contrary to popular belief, children are not born in an eternal state of innocence that can be preserved. From a biblical perspective, they may enjoy a period of innocence, but that innocence is not equated to sinlessness but rather an inability, for a time, to recognize their sin. But Christian parents have been convinced by the world that this brief period of innocence can somehow be preserved into adulthood. We quickly find that innocence has been mistaken for childishness, and the lack of discipline in childhood clearly manifests extensive troubles in adulthood. In a time when vast knowledge and ability are available to us, less has been imparted to children that is useful. They know and can do incredibly useless things; this combination of uselessness and lack of discipline is a recipe for vanity.
Children naturally reproduce the vanity seen on social media. They need to be trained out of this vanity, and eleven or twelve years of compulsory attendance at a school does not equate to training or education. In fact, in today’s educational environment, it may be paramount to child abuse. Set high standards for your children, and then train them to meet them (both temporal and spiritual). But, such training will also require much of the trainer.
I hope my ramblings are helpful. Ultimately, the length to which a parent takes their faithfulness to God and fidelity to train their children is entirely up to them. I will mourn with them if their children are lost to the world. I will not mock or remind of the areas of failure that may have led to such an outcome. But what if we were to search our hearts now, reconsider our failures, and then seek the mind of God to fix them before it is too late?
Brother Thomas Irvin
Pastor: Go Forth Baptist Church - Lucedale, Mississippi
For more info, about Go Forth Baptist Church visit: www.goforthbaptistchurch.com
Pastor Irvin will be one of our guest preachers at our annual Family Camp.
For more info, about Family Camp visit:
https://pilgrimbaptist.church/family-camp/