FRIDAY September 20th
Proverbs 1:8-9
‘Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.’
It is always important to take scripture and to understand it in its context and of course who or what is it referring to. And when it comes to the instruction here that is given to a son (or a daughter) from a father and the teaching from a mother, the first thing we would need to ask is about the father and the mother and then that which they are instructing or teaching.
These proverbs are the words of Solomon, the son of David, and in the verse before our text he has said ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction’. and so, the answer we draw from this is that the reference to a mother and father is to parents who themselves ‘fear the LORD’, they are godly, God-fearing parents, thus the instruction they offer, the teaching they give is godly instruction, and godly teaching. Back in the book of Deuteronomy the instruction was given to the children of Israel that they were to take the words that God had instructed them with, and they were to teach them diligently to their children. In 2 Timothy 1:5 Paul says to Timothy ‘I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now I am sure dwells in you as well.’
It would be fair to say that these verses cannot apply to every instruction or teaching, from any and every parent, because for example, there are those of other religions or of no faith at all who would seek to instruct or teach their children that which is opposed to the truth of the word of God.
I am so glad that I had godly parents and grandparents, who played an important part in instructing me and in teaching me godly values because they had learned what it was to fear the LORD.
May God help each one of us that has children or grandchildren, not to neglect our Christian responsibility of giving godly instruction and teaching to them, to instruct them in the ways of the Lord.
We also thank God for every one of the children who attend our fellowship, and I encourage us once again to ensure that we pray for them, that they in turn as they begin to understand something of the gospel will come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray for those who may have been brought up in a Christian home but have fallen away, that the Holy Spirit will bring them to a place of ‘coming to their senses’ and that they will come back to faith and a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray for every family that attends, that the parents especially will have the wisdom that comes from above to help them navigate nurturing a family in the faith in these days in which we find ourselves.
Next week we will start a new series of devotions.