(excerpt from Dad's second book, pp.145-149)
For Christian parents this is usually an issue of the highest importance. There has been at times an emphasis on making a child attend many meetings, on Sundays and throughout the week, where the Gospel will be preached and, so the parents hope, the child will come to faith. Some have, no doubt, but many have not succumbed to the repeated pressure to believe expressed in this way and motivated more by fear that they will not believe than by faith that they will. Faith is more caught than taught, though teaching is vital. But to be caught someone else must be living it, and that someone should be the parents themselves. When parents act out of fear that their child will not believe (as evidenced by making them attend many evangelistic meetings or events), they should not be surprised if their children respond to their fear rather than the message they hear. If I preach mumps (faith) but have measles (fear) what is my child going to catch? He is going to pick up more from the spirit out of which I live than from the mere words I repeat.
There is a bigger question which is: Why do we as parents want our children to believe the Word of God if we ourselves do not consider what it says on this very issue of the trans-generational transmission of faith? Faith is built on the Word of God in this as in all areas of life, and so we as parents must ask what the Word of God says about how we are to communicate The Faith out of living faith rather than out of fear.
The first eight chapters of Proverbs deal with a parent relating to his sons (children) in order to communicate a living day-to-day faith in all sorts of practical situations. Obviously the father thinks that not to have a faith that touches all the practical issues and relationships of life is not to have a faith that is worth having! So what does he say about helping our children to the place of faith? Lots! In fact this could be the subject of a book in itself! But we have to summarise the main points here. The first is that this father found his faith by the input of his own father, so he is speaking from his own experience. “Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction....When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, he taught me and said...'Get wisdom...' (4.1-5). This father had received faith through his own father and is now trying to pass that on. Thankfully we can draw from the ways of those who have successfully received and passed on their faith, and we do not have to just stumble through as best we can. I am so thankful for this insight because I was not brought up in an active Christian home, and in fact was discouraged from taking the Bible too seriously as it might affect my mental stability! That contributed to my turning to atheism for a number of years. Yet here we can draw from the life experience of a family where faith was passed on successfully.
When I first read these chapters as a young Christian I found it most frustrating because the father talked a lot about wisdom, but to my mind never came to the point of saying what wisdom actually was. That, I eventually realised, was because I had assumed that wisdom could be defined in terms of content – 'what we are to believe'. I did not see that wisdom is deeper than what we actually believe, it is an attitude of heart towards wisdom. Knowing this directs this father to communicate not doctrine so much as attitude. He is not trying to force certain beliefs, even true beliefs, into his son's mind, he is trying to engender an attitude to truth, wisdom, God and life that is one of seeking not swallowing. In fact it is better to be limited in the communication of content but strong on the encouragement of a heart that seeks, as this is the best way for his son not only to find truth, wisdom and God himself, but to realise that he does not have to have all this on a second-hand basis. The beginning of wisdom is to be hungry for wisdom, because it is a defining quality in how we are meant to live, so we need continually to be seeking for and open to this wisdom as found in God's word.
The father motivates his son in this search by several means. The first is to assure him that wisdom is seeking him! “Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares. How long will you simple ones love your simple ways?” (1.20-22). “Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand;...she cries aloud: 'To you, O men, I call out...'” (8.1-4). “Wisdom has built her house...She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city, 'Let all who are simple come in here!'” (9.1-4). The son learns that he is being sought by wisdom, but immediately after finds out that folly is seeking him also! (9.13-16). How is he to distinguish the voices? Well, the second thing which recurs many times in the father's teaching is that the son needs to set his heart to seek wisdom from the acknowledgement that he is 'simple' – a fact we all need to admit – we start from knowing that we do not know. Both wisdom and folly call to the simple – it is where every human being begins.
The father underlines the importance of seeking: “...if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” (2.3-5). This is the best gift we can give our children, motivating them to seek God, far above what they are to believe about God, important as that is. If they seek God as for silver or gold the content will come easily to them because they will find him; if they take in the content of what we say but never seek God for themselves they will miss the whole heart of the faith.
The father puts a tremendous value on wisdom, far above money as a motivator (3.13-15; 8.10-11; 8.19). He tells his son that getting wisdom or failing to do so is a life-and-death issue (1.32-33; 2.16-21; 4.10; 9.6,18). He affirms that getting wisdom brings many benefits, such as long life, riches, honour, peace and happiness (3.13-18), security, absence of fear, good sleep and poise during panic (3.21-26), wealth, righteousness and justice (8.17-21) and, again, long life (911) among others. Wisdom helps us read nature aright, as a source of discerning what is good (6.6-11); it helps us read human situations and processes aright and learn from them as we saw above (7.6ff). Wisdom will be of very great value for his son's family life (5.1-23; 6.20-29), work life (3.9-10; 6.6-11), even the government of the land (8.15-16).
He precedes and immediately follows the passage on peer group pressure with references to the value of wisdom (1.7,20ff), and he precedes his discussion of relationships with the same thrust - “Say to wisdom, 'You are my sister,'...to preserve you from the loose woman...” (7.1-5). In fact the seeking of wisdom infuses every part of a well lived, satisfying and useful life. No wonder he spends so much time and uses so many different slants on this theme. But in all of this he does not really attempt to define wisdom in terms of doctrinal content – it much more like encouraging his son to get to know a person!
The wisdom he speaks of was written into creation (3.19-20; 8.22-31), it comes from outside us (2.10), and ultimately from God himself (2.5); it is not innate, though simpleness and folly are. We need to seek wisdom. “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom...” (4.7, RSV). This wisdom is so valuable that it is to be highly prized above anything material. “Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost you all you have get understanding” (4.7, NIV). All these encouragements, the list of great benefits, the warnings of death and harm if we fail to find wisdom, and the motivational thrust of all he says is to bring about in his sons a heart that seeks wisdom, truth and God himself. This the key; encourage them to seek for themselves, do not try to force-feed them with what we believe. God is far better at leading them into all truth than we are, and while we have to contribute much by example, instruction, and participation in the life of the family of faith, we need to believe for them, and trust God to do the heart-work in them as they seek him.Willie Patterson
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