At a recent Annual Parent Meeting, Trinitas father and board member, Pastor Jon Mark Olesky, reminded us of the timely importance of Christian parents educating their children to engage their world. This is the third of three posts containing his comments.
The teaching needed is what is most often called, “wisdom” (Hb. khokmah). Many compromises will occur in Babylon without this wisdom. In the covenantal framework of Proverbs wisdom means skill in godly living. Proverbs, that often-neglected parenting book, the “father” repeatedly call his “son” to “find wisdom” (Prov 3:13), that is because children aren’t born possessing it, rather, “folly is bound up in the heart of a child” (and yes, “the rod of discipline” is needed to remove it!) (Prov 22:15). No, a foolish teenager doesn’t just “grow out of it,” wisdom must be given and received. Our children’s lives depend on it! “The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death” (Prov 13:14). It’s the way a young man avoids “the forbidden woman” (Prov 5 and 7), and that is because “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov 9:10).