Inigo Montoya Series: Proverbs 22:6 - Raise Up A Child In The Way He Should Go?

Proverbs 22:6 Is Not a Promise of Guaranteed Salvation

Proverbs 22 .6, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. This means if you raise your children to know and fear and love the Lord, then when they are old, they will not depart from those godly ways.

You've got very good arms. He didn't fall? Inconceivable! You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. You keep using that verse. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Why Proverbs Are Principles, Not Warranties

Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen. I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today. I want to thank you so much for joining me for today's podcast. Today, I have the privilege of interviewing Dan Phillips.

Dan is a friend of mine, and he is also the pastor of Copperfield Bible Church. And he has written a book on the book of Proverbs entitled, God's Wisdom in Proverbs. And I could think of no one better to help us with this verse than Dan Phillips.

He is a good friend of mine, just a wonderful guy as well. He has written this book, God's Wisdom in Proverbs, and he has also written another book entitled, The World-Tilting Gospel. So links to both of the books and to Copperfield Bible Church down below in the description.

And if you live in the Houston area and are looking for a good church, I would highly commend to you Copperfield Bible Church. So everything you need to know down there below in the description. And without any further delay, here is my interview with Dan.

So Dan, brother, thank you so very much for joining us today. How are you? I'm just well, thank you.

Praise God, thank God. Very happy to be here with you, brother.

Good, good. Well, it's an honor to have you on the program. I've wanted to do this, as you know, for quite a while, but we're just now getting around to it. Or I should say, I'm just now getting around to it.

But Proverbs 22, 6, Dan, train up a child in the way he should go when he is old. He will not depart from it. That's kind of a loose paraphrase there of the King James. This verse is, I heard this growing up all the time, that as long as you train your child, raise your child up in the right path, then when he is old, he won't depart from that.

He'll stay on the straight and narrow. Is that what this verse means?

I don't believe it's what the verse means, but it certainly is a well-established understanding. And I think people who, like most people, don't read Hebrew are kind of stuck with it because so many good versions of the Bible have that view of the verse.

I think sometimes translators get into a habit with familiar verses. There's some phrases that are so familiar that sometimes perhaps they aren't revisited. So you see that in the King James, train up the child in the way he should go.

And when he is old, he will not depart from it. New King James, train up a child in the way he should go. New American Standard, both the 95 and the 2020, say train up a child in the way he should go.

The Holman Christian Standard Bible, teach a youth about the way he should go. And even the awful NIV, start children off. And so there's that degendering madness of the NIV. Start children off, though it's a singular in Hebrew, on the way they should go.

So the idea is that many people are given is that this is a precious promise. This is a guarantee from God that if we teach our children the right way when they're young, if we teach them the Word of God, send them to Sunday school, read the Bible at home, then it's a guarantee from God that they may sow their wild oats, they may stray, they may go off with the wrong crowd, but eventually they will come back because the verse says, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

And I've heard people say it exactly that way, that, well, you know, little Buford is off on the wrong way, but I know he's going to come back because I've got that promise from God that I'm claiming.

And the sad effect of that, on the one hand, is to give false hope to parents of apostate children that are hopeful and feel like they have a promise from God that no matter what their child is doing right now, no matter how awfully he's going off into darkness, no cause for alarm, no cause for concern, we don't need to warn this child, we don't need to pray that earnestly because it's in the bag, it's guaranteed that training is going to come and turn him around.

So they've got a false hope and they don't evangelize apostate children. On the other hand, there's also, I think, false guilt for parents who reason the other way around because if this is a guarantee that if you raise your child the right way, he'll come back, well, what if your child doesn't come back?

And that's got to be on you. You didn't check the boxes right. You didn't put the right kind of quarter in the machine and turn the knob right because it was guaranteed that you do A, B, and C and D will result.

So if it doesn't result, it must be my fault. Or I guess, really, a parent could say, well, then God didn't deliver on his promise because he said this would happen and this won't happen. So the trouble there, though, is that's both a bad translation and it's a bad approach to Proverbs.

So let's start with the simpler of the two. Proverbs is not a book of warranties. It's not a book of absolute it's not a legal document with guaranteed promises that if we do A, B will always result.

My favorite example is Proverbs 16 .7 that says, When a man's ways are pleasing to Yahweh, even his enemies will be at peace with him. Oh, well, that's wonderful. Then if I walk right with God, then people who are angry with me will come to love me and they'll be reconciled to me.

Well, how does that work out with Jesus? How does that work out with Isaiah or Jeremiah or any of the prophets or most of the sound teachers today? It breaks up on those rocks. But if you take it as a general principle, if you take it as making a pithy point that given the choices of trying to please man and trying to please God, we should always please God first, and God is able to handle all of the relationships in our life as pleases him.

So that's similarly here. If we take this as a guaranteed promise, then we're not reading the book right. That's not the idea of what a proverb is. In my book, I take a long time talking about how to read proverbs.

Not all biblical literature is exactly the same. It's not all a letter. It's not all a narrative. It's not all a promise, and proverbs is its own very unique genre of literature. But then the naughtier thing is the Hebrew text.

So to go back to the familiar King James, train up a child in the way he should go. Almost every part of that is mistaken. For one thing, the word train up is the Hebrew verb hanuk, and we have the word Hanukkah from that.

Now, what is Hanukkah? Hanukkah is the festival for the rededication of the temple by Judas Maccabeus, the rededication. That verb hanuk is only used about five times in the Hebrew Old Testament, I think exactly five, and four of them are of the dedication of a house or the temple.

So here, where does the idea of training come? It's more natural simply to take it as, well, you start out a child, you dedicate a child, you consecrate a child, or better the word is translated youth, na 'ar is a young man.

And then the next words translated in the way he should go, there's no verb there. There's no go. There's no should. Very literally the Hebrew text I'm looking at is, well, extremely literally it's upon the mouth of his way, which means after the standard of his way.

Now, there's no way he should go. It doesn't say right way. It doesn't say way of Yahweh. It doesn't say way of wisdom, way of insight, none of those things. It says after the standard of his way. Now, whose way?

Well, Yahweh is not in the verse. Only the child is in the verse. So if you just read it in the context, and most proverbs are like that, unless they're part of a longer ode, they're just a single verse, and the whole thought's in that verse.

And that's the case here. The whole thought's in this verse. Yahweh's not mentioned. God's not mentioned. Only the child. So if you read the words most naturally, the idea is start out the child after the standard of his way.

That is the way of the child, the way the child chooses. And that goes best with the uses of that word in Proverbs. His way is used like eight times, I think, and every time it's the way that the person chooses.

Like wisdom says, I was set up by God at the beginning of his way, the way Yahweh chooses. Or I've got them put out for me here. Proverbs 19 .3, the folly of man subverts his way. Same word, dako, the way he chooses.

So that makes perfect sense in this verse, except that it's not our traditional understanding of it. But it makes perfect sense to say you start out a child after the measure of his way. Now, is his way a good thing?

Is a child going to choose the right way? I'll never forget a time I was in a church, an unusual little church, and the lady delivered herself of the opinion that the parent's responsibility is just to give the child a nurturing environment and let him find his own way.

Well, I think that that is the idea here, that if you let a child find his own way, there's no and in the next clause. It is even when he grows old, he will not depart from it. So the idea is not if you start him out on the right way, he'll come back to it or he won't ever leave it.

The thought is if you start him out accustomed to getting his own way, then he'll expect to get his own way through his whole life. And what is his way? Is a child basically good inside? Is he going to find the wise and cuddly way?

Proverbs has a few things to say about that. Proverbs 22, 15 says, Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. So the idea is that his most natural way, the way he's going to choose is not going to be the way of God or the way of wisdom.

It takes external force to make him think of that. Now, as to his nature, it takes the grace of God transforming him. But the role of the parent is to teach him God's way and to enforce God's way, to drive it home with godly discipline and training.

I got a lot more to say, but I don't want to let you not get a word in edgewise. Do you have a thought?

No, no, I was, I'm just listening. So it's, it's actually means the opposite of what most people think it means. That's exactly right.

That's exactly right. And the worst thing you can do is to think that all of the, well, this is the false gospel of our age. Follow your heart. Now that child is going to get that unless he's sequestered from all culture.

The false gospel that America preaches from border to border right now is your heart will never steer you wrong. Follow your heart, believe your heart, trust your heart, let your conscience be your guide.

And the idea that what we, everything we've got, everything we needed to know we learned in kindergarten because we're basically good and all the answers are inside of us. And that's exactly the opposite of what the Bible in general and Proverbs particularly says.

Proverbs 12, 15, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice, doesn't follow his own heart. That's the worst thing you can do is follow your heart. We all start out as children and we all start out with folly bound up in our own heart.

So Proverbs 29, 15 also warns the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself. The Hebrew idea is a little more picturesque. A child let loose, a child let loose, bring shame to his mother.

So Solomon could easily have said if he wanted to, to train up. There's lots of pedagogical words in Hebrew. If he wanted to say educate, he didn't. He used the word meaning to dedicate, to start him off, give him his start.

He could easily have said way of wisdom, way of insight, way of Yahweh, right way. There's all sorts of Hebrew expressions that are used. He didn't use any of them. He said his way. So it's the child's way and the child's way is going to be a foolish way apart from the grace of God, teaching that child the wisdom of God.

So what the verse is then is it's not a precious promise. It's a warning. It's saying if you do this, then this is what's going to follow. Proverbs 19, 27 is just exactly like that. Proverbs 19, 27, one that, by the way, Solomon didn't heed to his shame.

Cease listening, my son, to discipline and you will stray from the words of knowledge. Now that verb, cease listening, that is an imperative in form. I mean it's a command in form because it's an ironic proverb.

You could say facetious proverb saying, oh, sure, go ahead and do this, but when you do, this is what's going to happen. And so a number of other verses are like that too. When Elijah says to the Baalists, call out with a loud voice for he's a God, is he really telling them that they ought to worship Baal?

No, he's mocking them. And he's saying, yeah, you do that. You go ahead and practice this paganism of yours and let's see how it goes. Or Jesus, when he uses also an imperative and he says, they ask him, what sign are you doing?

And he says, well, you destroy the temple and I will raise it up in three days. Is he really commanding them to crucify him? No, he's saying when you do this, this is what's going to follow. And other verses are similar.

So this is really, when you take it in the context of the book, which univocally warns against following our way and points us to learning God's way, when you put in that context, the context where children are born, well, like I like to say, children are born not knowing anything, not understanding anything.

That's why God gives them parents and commands them to honor them. So child left to his own way is never going to leave it because within himself are the keys to shale, to the keys to the judgment of God ultimately, if he's left to his own way.

But the parents are there to teach him the word of God and lead him in the word of God, pray for him, and urge him to the wisdom and the grace of God. So again, just to wrap up, the warning is don't start off a child accustomed to getting his own way.

Don't have a child-led house. Instead, train him up in the way of God, teach him the way of God, as you see in the first nine chapters. The first nine chapters are like just a model of this. This is how you do this.

And then chapters 10 and following are a bunch of short proverbs.

Maturity, Parenting, and the Folly of Follow-Your-Heart Religion

Yes, yeah. And you have a quote in here on this verse. You say, maturity does not deliver from this path. In other words, the path that the child, by his nature, wants to go on. Maturity does not deliver from this path.

It only hardens one in it. That's right.

That's right. This is like what we say to the evolutionists, and their answer to everything is we say, how could this possibly happen? They say, well, billions of years. Well, time is not a force. Time is a space within which things happen.

Time doesn't actually do anything. And the child age, he just gets more and more set in his own way, apart from the grace of God. Yeah.

Absolutely. That's a good point. Right. Right. Well, I've talked to a number of parents over the years, people that I've met, emails that I get, and they tell me that they did their best to raise their children in the right way, teach them the things of the Lord, and go to church and all that.

But once they grew up, left home, went to college, started their own lives, they apostatized. They went off in their they departed from the faith. And based on a wrong understanding of Proverbs 22 .6, they blame themselves for this.

Well, I must have done something wrong. It's just a trouble bird in the place on parents. It is.

It is, and I see that so often, and I probably always say something when I can, the idea that there is a formula to parenting. Any more than there's a formula to being a pastor or a formula to being an evangelist.

There is a formula in terms of what God calls us to do, but the thing is we do it out of faith and out of faithfulness, but not because it has a guaranteed result, except for the result of pleasing God and bringing glory to God.

But I so often see in fact, in my book, I quote a source that says basically if you use this approach to child rearing, your child's going to be saved. Yes. Boom. So where is that in the Bible? I mean, I want to know that formula, whether as a parent or a pastor or anything.

There is nothing in the Bible that explains how we can get other people to believe anything or do anything or be anything. We don't have that power. That power rests with God alone. So like Proverbs 20 .12, I believe it is, says that the seeing eye and the hearing ear, Yahweh has made both of them, and it means more than just your eyeball and your sense of hearing.

It means that spiritual sight and hearing is something God does, something Yahweh does in us. So we have our role to play, but only when God uses it does it have fruition in another person's life. So parenting and pastoring are the most parallel things I can think of.

I think there's no exact analogy for either, except maybe being a farmer. But you were called to just give yourself and let yourself be broken and give yourself unreservedly, serving God, doing what he calls us to do, but not because it's guaranteed to work in our terms.

And I'm afraid many books would lead parents into it just exactly that way. I'm going to do this because if I do this, my child will turn out right. Well, the only thing you can say for certain is if you do this out of faith, by the grace of God, God will be pleased and God will be glorified.

But then it's between God and that person. Just as a pastor has to say, I'm called to preach the word. I'm not called to make people believe the word. That's right. I don't have that power. And we're called to give the gospel to other people.

We're not called to win souls. We're in the sense of making them believe or bringing them to regeneration. Charles Finney, to the contrary, notwithstanding, right? Right. And Finney and evangelists. I saw an evangelism book where a guy explains exactly the tone of voice to use, and he says, at this point, put your hand on the man's shoulder and look him in the eye and say this to him.

That's how to lead someone to Christ. Well, you might lead him to a decision, but you're not going to lead him to Christ. Exactly. God uses his word, but it's the grace of God. And it's the same with parenting.

Yep, that's right. That's right. We're called to obey God and then trust him for the results. And sometimes that obedience results in fruit that we would like to see and desire, and sometimes it doesn't.

But we obey God and we trust him with the results.

Yeah, and I don't think any child understands how hard and painful it is to be a parent until it becomes a parent. Yeah. And then, like many of us, probably wishes he could go back and do it all over and not give his parents so much pain.

I've certainly had that wish. Same, same.

What’s Inside God's Wisdom in Proverbs

Yeah. Well, Dan, so tell us a little bit about this book. God's Wisdom in Proverbs. That's a handsome cover. It is a handsome cover. It truly is. But what's inside of it? What's that? But what's inside of it?

Yeah, yeah. Tell us what's inside of it. I've got all kinds of marks on mine. But tell us, what is God's Wisdom in Proverbs?

Well, first I want to say it's not a commentary. Many people who enjoy the book call it a commentary, and all this kind of makes me wince because then I've also seen people complain. This isn't a commentary.

Well, I don't say it's a commentary. It's not. It's an introduction to Proverbs, and it's a series of studies in Proverbs. So the first part of the book talks about what a proverb is and how to read Proverbs.

We make it, like we talked about earlier, we make a terrible mistake if we read Proverbs like we're reading Romans or Galatians or like we're reading a narrative in 1 Kings. It's not that. It's a, let's see, how did I put it?

It's a, it conveys pithy points and principles and not precious particular promises. It conveys pithy points and principles, not precious particular promises. So it's Hebrew poetry, which takes its own way of reading.

It's challenging, but it's not impossible. I give some principles for how to read that and how to understand it, how to apply it. I set it in the context of the Bible in terms of biblical theology and the importance of seeing Solomon as the responsible author for the book.

So it starts off with introductions, and then it has a whole chapter devoted to the central idea of the book, which is the fear of Yahweh. So I have a whole chapter devoted to discussing what the Bible means by the fear of Yahweh because that's what's called an inclusio to the book.

Proverbs 1 -7 says the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and understanding. And at the end of that first collection, 9 -10, that's repeated. And then it's repeated at the very end in chapter 31 about the godly woman, that charm is deceitful, beauty is fleeting.

But a woman who fears Yahweh, that's what you want to seek. That's the one who's going to be blessed. And so the fear of Yahweh is the central core to the book, and it's about how to live in the fear of Yahweh, the practical understanding and application of living in a God-fearing way.

So that chapter is devoted to that. And then after that, we do various studies on big topics in Proverbs, such as friendship. There's a chapter on marriage. There's a chapter on raising children, training children, on work.

Particularly commend the chapter on marriage to single people because the best thing you can do as a single person is to understand what marriage is. You want to understand that before you get married.

You don't want to get married and then figure out what marriage is about. The best thing to know is what God means by marriage and what's in marriage. And actually when you read it that way, the book of Proverbs has a lot of wisdom to guide people as to who would be a good sort of person to marry and who would be the wrong sort of person to marry, the foolish or wise choice in marriage.

And then there are a number of appendices, one of which is about this verse, Proverbs 22 .6. There's like 26 pages in the appendix on this one verse. And then about the authorship of Proverbs and about preaching Proverbs and whatnot.

So it's just meant to be kind of a one-stop in how to read Proverbs and some particular studies in Proverbs topics. Yeah. Okay.

Good deal. Well, I commend that book to our viewers here. And you are the author of another book, The World-Tilting Gospel. So tell us about that.

The World-Tilting Gospel and the Old Testament Foundation of Salvation

I think I am. You think you are? That was probably, I think that was first written. World-Tilting Gospel, I really, I love, well, I love that book. I don't know how that sounds to say that. It was born of just a thrilling insight and idea that coalesced a lot of ideas that had been going on in my head.

I was in a conference, and I heard David Wells speaking, and he was talking about our age in which we've lost completely biblical vision and we've morphed morals to character and personal choices and values.

We don't have a weighty God outside of us bearing down on us with his holiness and his absolute truth. It's a matter of finding ourselves and expressing ourselves, and everything has become relativized.

And so he says, therefore, we're left with a gospel that presents a Savior offering a salvation we don't need from a sin we don't believe in. So that's why the gospel falls emptily on the people of this age because their whole worldview just diffuses it, makes it irrelevant.

And then he made this point. He said that's why the Bible begins with Genesis 1 -1 and not John 3 -16. That absolutely, that just set fireworks off in my brain. These are things I've been thinking about, and they all came together when I heard David Wells say that.

And I conceived of writing a book that presented the gospel in the framework of the whole biblical worldview, starting from creation to fall to redemption, opening up the person of Christ, the work of Christ, and presenting the gospel as being just the greatest and best news ever from the gloriously wise and gracious God, who out of sheer mercy devised an astonishing plan to save sinners and sent Christ Jesus into the world to save sinners.

So it basically does that, and the spoiler alert is that I reveal in the end that basically my structure is 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul presents the gospel, reminds the Corinthians of the gospel, and he keeps saying, according to the scriptures, according to the scriptures, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that's the whole thing there.

It's only meaningful to us if we understand who God is according to the scriptures, who we are according to the scriptures, who Christ is according to the scriptures, and what the meaning of his death was according to the scriptures.

So that's what that book is meant to do, and to do it in popular terms that basically anybody who is interested in learning it can read. It's not technical, not specialist. It's just written in plain terms.

Yes. Excellent. All right. Good deal. So you don't share Andy Stanley's belief that we should unhitch from the Old Testament? You know I don't.

No, as a matter of fact, I don't. I don't know. There's a lot of contenders for worst advice ever, aren't there? And that would certainly be in the crowd. But, no, you can do that, or you can be a Christian.

There you go. But you can't do that and be a Christian because we claim to be following a Lord who put everything in the context of the Old Testament and who said to the people who were surprised to see him resurrected, didn't you hear what I said about the scriptures?

Don't you know what the scriptures said? And he was referring to the Old Testament. He wasn't referring just to the Gospel of John primarily. So, yeah, no, we can't. That's right. No, in fact, that's an excellent point really, Justin, and that's part of the point of the world-tilting gospel is that we've got to start with the understanding of the Old Testament.

I mean if we don't look at the world as created and defined by God, then we're off on the wrong foot from the outset. And that leads you to transgenderism and so forth and so on, the idea that really I'm the creator of the universe and I'm free to assign my meaning to everything.

And how do you have that worldview and end up with any meaningful idea of sin or salvation? And so on the one hand, of course, the intent is this is supposed to be very liberating because, well, I am as God, as I think one said at some point, and so I'm free to make all my own definitions and so forth.

And so in the fantasy of my own mind, I'm delivered and I'm free and I'm fine, but it doesn't change reality, just like those poor sad souls who get themselves disfigured and ruined by surgeons to try to be women.

They don't end up women. They end up as really wrecked up men or really wrecked up women who don't end up being men. You can't change God's reality, and so we also can't give ourselves a creature's salvation.

The only way to real salvation is to see the word and the truth of God and to see what impact it has on us and God's way of salvation from the real peril we have, which is sin. Yes, amen. Amen. Well said.

Well said, Dan. Praise the Lord. Well, Dan, before we close, you are not only an author, but you are especially a pastor. You are the pastor of Copperfield Bible Church. So take our last minute or two here and tell us a little bit about your church and maybe there's some folks watching us in Houston and are unaware of your church, but they're looking for a church.

Copperfield Bible Church and a Call to Find a Gospel-Centered Church

Well, we would love to have you come, and you would love to meet the folks here. This is a dear church that's been ministering since 1934, which in American terms is a long time. You go to Europe, and it's not that long.

But it's had a gospel ministry since 1934 and just a group of dear people. My wife and I, my family and I were out in California, and we both had good jobs, and our family was out there, and this church reached out to us to talk to us and flew us out here to interview us.

And it was going to be a hard sell to leave everything and come here, but we just fell in love with these people right off. It was like a long-lost family. Justin, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's hard to find a church that is really serious about studying and doing the Word of God and loves people. Churches often tend to be very strong on relationship or very strong on doctrine, but not both.

But we met in this church just a God-made blend of both, people here who really truly did want to hear and do the Word of God and really truly did love each other. I mean, one of my major imperatives when I came out was don't mess it up because this is what God had already been doing in this group.

And so that's what we have here. We have a group of people centered around the Lord Jesus Christ who love Christ, love his gospel, and the teaching and doing of the Word of God is what we do. It's right in the name, right in the middle, Copperfield Bible Church, and that's what people get.

Now, they're not going to find a Walmart. They're not going to find people. Sadly, it's another thing that David Wells talks about. People are looking for supermarkets. They're looking for a church where everything's already there and there's no commitment and nothing.

In fact, to put it another way, there's none of the virtues and graces the New Testament calls us to needed. You just go and everything's there. So we're not a 5 ,000-person church, and we never will be.

We're a church of people who are concerned together about knowing the Lord, walking together after the Lord, serving the Lord, glorifying the Lord, showing his glory and trusting him and walking his ways together.

So, yeah, I would love to have anybody in the area to come and join us, build with us, walk with the Lord with us.

Good, good, great. Well, one of the joys that God has given me is in his providence, there's been a number of people I've been able to, just because of my travels, I've been able to direct to good churches.

And so even though I've not been yet at your church in person, Lord willing, I'll have that opportunity. But I do know you and I are friends. And folks, Dan is a phenomenal expositor of Scripture, and he's just a really nice guy.

So if you're in the Houston area and you're looking for a good church, but you haven't yet found one, then I would come into you Copperfield Bible Church there in Houston. All the links will be down below there in the description, links to God's wisdom in Proverbs, the world tilting gospel, as well as Copperfield Bible Church.

You'll find all of that below. So, Dan, brother, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks.

It was my joy. And yes, we do have to get you out of here sometime. I would love it. I sure would. I would love it.

All right. Okay, dear ones, well, I hope this has been helpful for you and maybe cleared up a verse that is often misunderstood and, in fact, misquoted. So thank you very much for watching. Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all.