Proverbs or Promise?

 

Recently I was in a discussion on whether the book of Proverbs was a book of promises, or just good suggestions. The verse, Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it always comes to mind. And although there are merits to both sides, I sometimes think we still come up deficient as to the answer. It is put in the Bible as scripture, and All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: (2 Timothy 3:16) so we should be able to claim the promise. Then there is the argument: “They did everything they could and still their child turned away. He/she must have just been a bad seed.”

Now I am not a Hebrew scholar, nor the son of a scholar, but I find that there are still two mitigating circumstances: Faith, and the actual meaning of Training.

We in Western Christianity seem to think that we have all the answers for the world. “As America goes, so goes Christianity.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact in some scenarios, Christianity might do better without us. We don’t often see God do many mighty works because we don’t need anything. There are very few Christians, at least from my vantage point, who have worn out the floor with fervent prayer. Our families are disconnected; our children roam aimlessly through the morass that is social media.

 Jesus said, … Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Luke 18:8

Where is out faith? We trust in our paychecks, our reputation, the fact that we went to church on Sunday. Yet do we trust God for what we need? Or is it really the fact that we don’t need anything. I seems that most prayer is more about health, or illnesses (or maybe problems that are our own faults) than anything else. Are we claiming the promises of God that HE will provide instead of trusting our own efforts? Every time one of the Patriarchs ran off the rails it was when they thought they could do it themselves. Yes, it’s human nature; no, it’s not faith.

Training and Teaching have become muddled up also. When I think back over my children, I probably did less training than I would have liked. Webster’s defines training as the act, process, or method of one that trains. The key words are process & method. Training is active. It is demonstrative. It is repetitious. It takes active participation. It is not a set of rules. It is not necessarily discipline. It is mom/dad getting off the couch and showing how to act or do. I would like to think I did a decent job training my children. I know I taught them. But as I reflect on their upbringing, there were many times that I defaulted to teaching instead of activity training. “Do as I say, not as I do” will never count as training.

By all means, teach, but train if you can. “Preach the Gospel, if necessary use words” has been attributed to Mother Theresa. Please understand, I am not advocating only “lifestyle evangelism”. But actions do speak louder than words…