Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. This week, we're departing from the lectionary readings, and we're looking at raising children in the faith. And so the Old Testament reading I chose for this Sunday is Proverbs chapter 22, verse six, it's very short, it goes, Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. This is a well known proverb from the book of Proverbs. Like many proverbs, it's an idea of wisdom. It talks about the way the world works. And we know how this works, right? My parents raised me to be a sci fi nut. Every night, we watched some Star Trek The Next Generation, and we got so interested in it, and so good at it in the reruns that we would have competitions to see who could guess the plot of the show first, as we'd entered into it. And it was really exciting if we did it during the star date, Captain flog beginning of the show. And it really set me up to be a sci fi not my whole life. Now, I love it all. All the Sci Fi, spaceships, laser swords, explosions, gotta love it. And I think this is the idea behind proverbs 22, verse six. When you get a child in the habit of doing something more likely than not, when that child grows up, they will not depart from that habit. And this is true for the faith. If we do it pretty seriously. You train a child in following the Christian faith, and that child will grow up in it. And when they're old, the hope and the prayer is that they will not depart from it. But many Christian parents, they decide, oh, we will train the child to go to church every once in a while. And then go, why is my child not a Christian will train the child to see that everything comes first, except for Jesus. And if you've got time left over, then we'll do the things of the church, then we'll pray, then we'll read God's word, then we'll attend divine service. Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. We realize the things that we do are the things that our children learn about. And if you teach them to ignore the habits of the faith, if you teach them that everything else comes first. They'll learn that if we teach them that God comes first, that the salvation of Jesus Christ is more important than all other things. That prayer and the habits of faith come before all of the things. They will learn that and grow in that too. Of course, we know that the Holy Spirit is the one who is truly in charge of whether a child claims the faith or not. But it is a parent's responsibility to make sure that those habits are put into practice as much as possible. That's the end of our proverbs 22. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai