Where is your Bible, dad?

“And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.”
-Proverbs 5:7

We have seen quite a bit of direct address in the Proverbs. This sort of surprised me when I first really read the book. We sort of think of the Proverbs as simply a collection of sayings, mostly by Solomon, almost like if you got a lot of fortunes out of fortune cookies and taped them all on a big piece of paper. When you needed advice for something, you just search the paper for the right subject and read it.

A lot of our commentaries and sermons unwittingly promote this view of the book. Instead of going straight through the book, they will recollect the verses by subject and preach/write on each subject, taking various verses from throughout the book.

I don’t think this is a bad way of doing it, honestly. I’m trying to tackle it verse-by-verse, but I’ve been at this over a year, and I’m barely on chapter 5. At this rate I’m not going to finish for at least another five years. If I were trying to make this into a sermon series that would end in some reasonable amount of time, I don’t know that I wouldn’t try the exact same approach.

But in that, we sometimes lose what this book is about. It’s about a father teaching his kids. Solomon is pleading with his kids to seek the Lord, to follow The Lord, and to continually dwell upon Him.

Solomon urges his son to treasure these words and to keep them in his heart. It is an important request for our day, for more often than not, these words are not remembered, not kept, and not even sought.

But perhaps sadder still, these words are not even taught.

We give our kids all sorts of advice. We talk to them about how they should act, what sort of education they should pursue, if they should be dating yet, the sorts of jobs they should seek, and what they should eat. How much effort do we spend in teaching them about God?

Studies are telling us that most children leave the church once they go off to college. That’s very sad, but if they grew up in a home where Jesus was only important on Sunday morning (except on Super Bowl Sunday, when He wasn’t important at all), where making money takes priority over worship, where prayer is something done only before a meal (and often forgotten even then), is there any wonder the kids don’t think this is important?

You’ve told your kids that they shouldn’t use drugs. Have you told them why sin is worse still?

It is clear what our Heavenly Father thinks is important. He has given us some advice on life and the problems we will face here, but the clear bulk of His teaching has been in regard to our standing with Him, how sin has brought His wrath against us, and how He loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die on our behalf. Jesus didn’t come to tell us how to get a better job or how to pitch a curveball. He came to die upon the Cross, taking our sins upon Himself so that we can have eternal life.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Why is it then that earthly fathers are so easily distracted with their kids’ education, jobs, accomplishments, and relationships?