Wisdom for Parenting, Part 1

Robby Pollard, Lead Pastor

My friend asked me recently what the most difficult part of parenting is. I replied, “Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s the kids.”

If it requires my child to sit still and be quiet, I can’t come.

Every time I say “no” my kid hears, “Ask again, she didn’t understand the question.”

‍“Being a parent is like folding a fitted sheet, no one really knows how.”

How Proverbs work:

Give concentrated truth.

Teach discernment and require it.

Proverbs are usually trustworthy principles, not absolute promises.

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Proverbs 22:6

⁶Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

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Godly parenting is training your child to walk in the paths of wisdom.

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Proverbs 23:12

¹²Apply your heart to instruction and your ear to words of knowledge.

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Get God’s wisdom into your own heart first.

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Deuteronomy 6:4-6

⁴“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

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Get God’s wisdom into your own heart first.

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Parenting is more about the heart of the parent than it is the heart of the child.

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Proverbs 22:15a

¹⁵Folly is bound up in the heart of a child…

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Deuteronomy 6:6-9

⁶And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

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Get God’s wisdom into your own heart first.

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Proverbs 23:12-14

¹²Apply your heart to instruction and your ear to words of knowledge. ¹³Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. ¹⁴If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

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Proverbs 22:15

¹⁵Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

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Parents need to have the loving courage to consistently discipline (train) their kids.

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Proverbs 23:14

¹⁴If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

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Romans 5:12

¹²Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

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Romans 5:17

¹⁷For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

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Done in love, not anger.

Proverbs 3:11-12

¹¹My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, ¹²for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

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Aimed at the heart, not compliance.

Proverbs 4:23

²³Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

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Restorative, not punitive.

Hebrews 12:11

¹¹For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

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Proverbs 23:15

¹⁵My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad.

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Wisdom for parenting:

Godly parenting is training your child to walk in the paths of wisdom.

Get God’s wisdom into your own heart first.

Have the loving courage to consistently discipline (train) your kids.

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