Train Up A Child

[Standing Firm In Christ]

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

I believe it is pretty much a cut-and-dried statement. Parents are to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

Now, a child, as it gets older may/may not depart from the house. He/she may even go out into the world and experiment with illicit sex/drugs. However, if he was brought up properly, that is, knowing about the way of the Lord, those things will never depart from that person. Even though he/she may be out in sin, that child will never be able to run from his or her awareness that God knows what he/she is involved in. They will not be able to depart from it.

Jeremiah put it this way...

Jeremiah 20:9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

He came to a point where he was just going to act like God didn't exist. Yet the Word that he had preveiously heard and learned would not let him escape the reality of the very existence of God Almighty.

Same with a child brought up in a godly home. He will never be able to depart from that training he received as a youth.

Could it be that that child could die still lost and go to hell? No doubt. But, if he/she had trusted Christ at some point in time prior to his/her rebellion, then like the Prodigal of Luke's Gospel, he/she will eventually come to himself/herself and turn to God and right living.

[trapperhoney]

I agree.  Of course the key to this is in the "training."  Many people think simply taking the child to church (or worse yet, sending them to church) is enough.  I have seen many kids "grow up" in church only to go out into the world.  In Deuteronomy 6 God tells us plainly how to properly train up a child.  The parent has to set the example.  Children can tell when their parent really believes or if they are just going through the motions.  That was the way it was in my home.  My parents didn't just teach me the way to go, they led by example.  Everything in our lives centered around the church.  Decisions made were based on biblical precepts.  My mother took her example for raising us from Moses' mother.  She figured that if she only had a few short years to instill in him such faith, she could do the same since she would have us (hopefully) for many more years. 

God also says that his word will not return void, so the seeds sown will always be there.

[John81]

This is a far more biblically accurate assessment than those who want to claim this verse is a promise rather than a proverb.

There are some who will point to their saved, or at least "good" children and boast of how well they followed Proverbs 22:6. Many of these same folks are very quick to point a condemning finger at those parents who have children which aren't saved, who have gone a bad direction, and declare it's all their fault, telling them if they had applied that one verse their children could be good like their own.

Whatever a child is consistently trained in they will retain throughout their life but it is their choice whether to live by that training or not. Just the other day I recalled a word of instruction from my Dad which he said when I was probably around 10 years old. My Dad was unsaved (unfortunately still is unsaved) but that instruction was good and has stuck with me all these years and I chose to live by it and the extended principles which go along.

The points about the need for parents to example Christ in their lives is so very important. We can tell children one thing every day for 18 years but if they see us living otherwise every day for 18 years what they see will train them more than what we say.

I'm on our churches board of Christian education and one of the problems we have to contend with is the number of parents who don't have their children involved in Sunday school. If the parents won't stay, or come early, for Sunday school, the children won't be there either. There are parents who find it just too burdensome to drive their children to youth group and pick them up afterwards. This is part of the reason we put so much effort into VBS every year. Sometimes VBS is the only opportunity many children have to hear about Christ, to hear the Gospel, to set foot in a church. Some parents send their children to VBS more out of tradition or as a free babysitter than anything spiritual, but thank God for every opportunity to share the Gospel with those children.

Training children right has always been exceedingly important. Perhaps such is even more imperative today with the invasion of the world into so much of our children's lives these days through computers and smart phones, hundreds of cable channels and the cesspool that lurks on the internet. Our children need to receive godly training both through example and instruction.