The Contenders

• Apr. 3, 2006 - Proverbs 22:6, Truth vs. Truism

Well, the debates seem to be getting worse as far as content and contender participation.  I'm also not receiving any just plain fun debate ideas.  So, let's step it up a notch and see what we come up with!

 

Old Business:

 

- As we are elevating the debate topics to a more heated realm, I want to remind everyone to read the rules, found in the links section of the sidebar.

 

- I'll say it here again, no flaming or bad language used in comments.  All comments of this nature will be deleted.  If user persists with such comments they will be banned from this blog.  (We haven't received any comments like that, YET!)

 

- Let your friends know about this blog.  The more the merrier!

 

New Business:

 

- If you know of any other good debate websites e-mail them to me for review. 

 

ronandjess has offered this weeks debate idea.  I think it's a good one for our move up to the big time!  Every homeschooler knows it, and it is the basis for our homeschooling. 

 

The Debate

 

Is Proverbs 22:6, "Train a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it," an absolute truth and promise from God or is it a truism?

Post A Comment!

• Apr. 4, 2006 - This is not a promise

Posted by ronandjess
(I'm going to take the side that says no this is not a truth because I want to hear how others defend this.)
God gave us free will and with our children we can only give them the tools they need and then they will have to make their own decisions. They have to go out and party and do their own thing to find their own faith and make it their own. We have no true assurance that our children will continue steadfastly in the Lord. We have to build a good foundation so that when they depart from the truth they can find their way back to the Lord.
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• Apr. 4, 2006 - <i>Untitled Comment</i>

Posted by
It is not meant to be a promise. I believe the verse can also be for the parent. To train up a child in the way he should go. Makes you think about your life. How are you being and example, how are you training yourself.

I believe that a child has his own will. But we as parents need to be in constant prayer for our children, we need to walk the walk. We can’t expect our kids to love and follow God if we are just telling them and not doing. We need to plant the seed and water it daily.
By having our children hide God’s Word in their hearts, so when the enemy comes to seek whom he may devour. Our children can stand firm in the word of God and resist. Because our children do have a will of their own and if they choose not to obey God, we can pray that those scriptures they learned will tug at their heart, because God’s Word will not return void.
I think that as homeschooling parents we have a bit of an advantage because our children are with us 24/7. We are their main influence. Not other kids or adults.

Parenting: the way we parent is a big part. If you are so strict that your child has to ask you before he can pick his nose, then they might want freedom from what we taught them. That is why I believe we as parents need to be constantly looking at ourselves are we showing, grace, kindness and love? Are we correcting wrong thoughts in our children, training them to be Christ like?

Some children will have such a strong will of their own that they will go their own way as adults. I have seen this. I know of a family who loves the Lord and pray for their children. One daughter is a missionary and the other daughter wants to live with her "girlfriend". The parents raised them both in a loving Christian home. But they chose different paths.
I have also seen children stray for a while and return home.

So no it is not a promise, but we can faith in the verse that our children will not depart from God. We can pray it over our children. We can cling to it. God thought it important enough to put it in the Bible, walk on water and believe it. Don’t be afraid to hold onto it.

In Him,
Linda<><


Edited by Homeschooling6 on Apr. 4, 2006 at 7:46 AM
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• Apr. 4, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by humpty
I'm new here. I would like to say that our pastor, a few weeks ago, preached on this topic and the intestering thing he said was that the word "old" in this verse did not mean grown. He said the translation was a word that meant about the age of a teen. I don't know how to look up such things, but that really throws a new light on the verse. If that is the case, most of us are failing or proving the Bible false. I cannot debate one side of this issue because my faith and my hope are in conflict.
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• Apr. 4, 2006 - Proverbs 22:6

Posted by Smokin' Barrel
"...he WILL NOT depart from it." does not seem like a friendly suggestion to me. We are given The gift, the blessing of children, and the responsibility of training them up. We are given 18 years to do this(more than any of Gods creations). God would be playing a cruel joke on mankind to give us children, then give us instruction such as Proverbs 22:6 , and Deuteronomy 11:18-20 and then give no guarantee that guiding them to heaven was possible.
(11:18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
11:19 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
11:20 And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates:)
This is telling us to make the training of our children our lives, not just something done in our spare time, or during "church time".
God's word has unfortunately been dilluted by teachings from those who have failed to properly train up their children, and instead of accepting their own failiers, and teaching others to learn from their mistakes, they attempt to nullify the truth of the Bible and say things like, "This is just a wisdom statement, not a promise." And "You can only plant a foundation, and hope they come back to it", I also hear the argument, " If prov. 22:6 were a promise, how come pastor So&So has ungodly kids?, Prov. 22:6 can't be a promise, otherwise they would not be the way they are". Right?, Sorry, sounds like pastor So&So gave too much to the Church, and too little to the kids. Even good Godly parents can make mistakes. Just because Good Godly people do not produce good Godly kids, don't look at Gods promises as anything less than what they are.
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• Apr. 5, 2006 - David Failed

Posted by ronandjess
David was a man after God's own heart and look how his kids tuned out. Solomon the great and wise king, Absolom who wanted to kill his dad to be king, and Adoinijah who wanted to be rid of his brother (Solomon) to be king. I am sure he did his best, but if a man after God's own heart could not raise Godly children, what makes us think we can?
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• Apr. 5, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by JavaMama
I am going think on this and come back later!
Kelli
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• Apr. 5, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Homeschooling6
I don’t think we as parents fail if our kids turn away when they are grown. I believe we fail if we did not teach them. For my kids to leave our house unprepared then I failed them as a mother. If we are faithful to God's Word we didn't fail.

David might or might not have failed. Their actions (his children) is not evidence on how they were raised.

I looked up old in The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and according to it “old” comes from the Hebrew word Zaqen, a prim. Root; to be old-aged man, be (wax) old (man)

In Him,
Linda<><
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• Apr. 5, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Homeschooling6
I meant to say that David might or might not have failed as a father. I forgot to add the father part ;)
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• Apr. 5, 2006 - Not a promise

Posted by Lazycreek
*Absolute* truths are defined in the character of God. They begin and end with Him. ("I am the way, THE TRUTH and the life..." Jn14:6). The verse in question here relates to human character - both the parents' and the child's. Humanity is incapable of attaining to absolutes in this world.

We have to remember that we don't know the way our child "should" go, in the sense that God defines the life-path. ("Good works prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them," Eph 2:10). The best we can do as parents is show our children how to listen to God, how to obey, and how to repent. It will ultimately be their choice whether they do or not.

The view that we can "train up a child in the way he should go" and equip him with a set of rules to follow for success in his Christian walk is performance-based and rules-based. God is neither. God does have standards, outlined in the Law, but they are unattainable standards of perfection. They are there to convict us of sin and show us our need for grace through Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:10-13, 24).

Rather than a promise, then, I see in this a strong admonition to parents to be completely surrendered to God and to model both righteous living through the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, and brokenness and repentance when we sin - so that our children do know the way in which they should go when (not if) they do fall into sin. At least then, they'll understand their choices and how to make them.
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• Apr. 5, 2006 - Proverbs 22:6

Posted by Smokin Barrel
To address Ronandjess's response, No where does it say how David trained his many children, he was a king who had many wives and many children. It speaks to his relationship with God, not his kids. I would venture to say that he had very little to do with his kids. And Solomon was very wise, yes, but Godly, I don't think so. Solomon couldn't have had much time for his kids seeing how most of his time was spent acquiring riches and giving his evil wives everything they asked for.
We sell ourselves short by saying that we can't, I believe that we insult the integrity of the bible by trying so hard to lessen the meaning of what is in reality a simple verse. There is no proof that this cannot be accomplished, yet we look to bible teachers, elders, preachers, and the faithful concordance to try and prove that it is less than a promise. Maybe to say its a "promise" is not the right way to put it, it is a simple Bible truth. If you do it, this will happen. No one questions salvation like this. It is as simple as "if you obey , you will be saved. Why aren't we saying that this is not a promise? I feel that its because it will hold too many "good christian" parents accountable. To believe this, you have to then believe that you, or others have failed. Where to fail in salvation cannot be proven untill......
We have a responsibility, as parents, especially homeschool parents who actually have a chance of success, we should take the words of Solomon as what they are, words of wisdom, wisdom given to him by God, and applicable still today, and apply them and stop trying to disprove them. God gave us an awesome challenge, take it and then understand the true blessing god has given us through our children
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