Review of Proverbs 22

Chapter 22
"A good name is to be chosen over great wealth; favor is better than silver and gold."  First verse of Chapter 22.  How important are our reputations!  And especially so for us, as Christians, for we bear the name of Christ.  To live in a way that brings no reproach is to be aspired to.  So that even non-believers can look to us and say, "She is a good woman."  That may be the first seed that the Holy Spirit is using to make them start considering a life of belief.  We must guard our reputations. We must strive to live lives worthy of the calling that God has placed on us, lives that please Him and show His love to a waiting world.

What characteristics/ways of living do we see in this chapter that pleases God:

• Alert - sensible - aware of danger
• Humility, bringing with it a fear of God, realizing how powerful and high He is as compared to our weakness and lowliness
• One who guards his life from the thorns and snares of this world
• Generosity - looking out for the poor
• Loving the pure of heart
• Applying our minds to God's knowledge - speaking His truth
• Having confidence in God

One of the most quoted verses of Proverbs is in this chapter?  Can you recite it?  I bet you can..."Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."  This verse has been quoted as a promise to many parent of a wayward child, "Don't worry - you've taught him right - he'll come back."  I've heard many lessons taught on this verse with various applications.  I remember James Dobson speaking on it, and putting the emphasis on the word, he.  Dobson preached that the point was to know your child so well and individually, that you should train him up in the way that he should go...career path, choices that are right for him, etc., and then he would stay on that path because it was right for him.  

I'm not sure...I've seen too many young people who have come from good, Christian homes, depart and never come back.  I don't think this verse is a blanket promise to say that all will return to their grounding.  I'm not sure I fully agree with Dobson either, although I do think we need to know our children intimately and individually and not point them all in the same direction, other than in their spiritual lives...they all must be pointed to Christ!  

Matthew Henry states this, "Train children, not in the way they would go, that of their corrupt hearts, but in the way they should go; in which, if you love them, you would have them go. As soon as possible every child should be led to the knowledge of the Saviour."

And John Gill writes this in regard to the outcome of good training, "and when he is old he will not depart from it; not easily, nor ordinarily; there are exceptions to this observation; but generally, where there is a good education, the impressions of it do not easily wear off, nor do men ordinarily forsake a good way they have been brought up in; and, however, when, being come to years of maturity and understanding, their hearts are seasoned with the grace of God, they are then enabled to put that in practice which before they had only in theory, and so continue in the paths of truth and holiness."

I believe that this verse is, as is the rest of Proverbs, Solomon's best advice...train that child in all the ways that you want for him at the very earliest of ages, implant in them the morals and virtues that are most important to you, teach them of their Savior and of the blood that was shed for their sins, the grace that reaches out to them in love, and the forever after life that is waiting for them.  These things, when taught early and often, will stay with them.  And when they are old, they will reflect and understand more clearly what they were being taught at that very early age.  Not all will return, but the words of truth will never depart from them.