A Thought from Proverbs

When reading through the Proverbs, there is one thing that is clear throughout the book: It is written as a father, teaching either his son or his children. This is something that I had overlooked for years, but recently I started reading the Proverbs and it started jumping out to me. Many of the Proverbs are addressed to a son, or children. Since I am reading through a chapter each day, in this first week of November I have seen six of the first seven chapters begin with the address “My son” (1—3 and 5—7). Additionally the remaining chapter is addressed to “my children” (4:1). Many of the other chapters throughout has some sort of address of a father to a child.

Chapter four gives some insight into this. The sage (who many believe to be Solomon) tells his children that the teachings that he is passing down were given to him by his father. He also mentions his mother’s guidance  in verse three, but he makes it clear that his father instructed him. The World Biblical Commentary suggests that this verse implies that the mother taught him the basics in early life, but there came a time when his father stepped in and taught him wisdom.

This shows that the responsibility of teaching the real things about life—learning wisdom, which is to love, fear, and follow God and practical living—falls on the father of the child. This means I have quite a responsibility on my shoulders. This is a theme that is getting much attention lately. With the release of movies like Courageous and countless books that stress the importance of parents, and particularly fathers, there is a focus on being a father who teaches and loves his children.

At first, this doesn’t seem too bad. I love being a father. I love my kids, and I love spending time with them. But teaching them how to be God-fearing men and women may prove to be a harder task. This involves more of an investment. Parenting isn’t just about enjoying playing with my kids. It is a large part about that, but there must be more to it than that. So that leaves two big tasks on my to-do list: 1.) Spending fun leisurely time with my family where we have fun and make memories, and 2.) Spending time investing and teaching my children through teaching and by setting a good example of how to live.