“Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding. (1)” The relationship between parent and child is echoed through the first nine chapters of Proverbs as if the Father were standing on the roof of a tall building and shouting into empty streets (1:8, 10, 15, 20, 2:1, 3:1, 11, 21, 4:1, 10, 20, 5:1, 6:1, 20, 7:1, 24, 8:32) The younger generation does not listen to the wisdom of generations before, and generations before give conflicting messages to the young when their lives do not follow the wisdom they came to know. So here is a great example of when the younger generation obeys the wisdom of generations before. God the perfect Father of all gives sound life direction (2).
Solomon in his later years remembered how he was when he was his childrens’ age (3). His father, David taught him what would be best (4). “Get wisdom, get understanding” (5). So when his father, David died Solomon went to the Lord and asked the Lord God for a gift as his father instructed, “Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead these people…” (1 Chronicles 1:10) Thus, when Solomon obeyed his father David, he conducted the wisest act in his entire life.
Solomon personifies wisdom here. Wisdom is a wise mother. She protects and watches over her children (6) Therefore, older women should be reverent in the way they live, not slanderers or addicted to much wine, but good. (Titus 3:3) Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, busy about the well-being of their family, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands. (Titus 2:4) Fathers are not to exasperate nor embitter their children or they will become discouraged. Instead, they are to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4; Colossians 3:21)
Since parents want their children to succeed in life, then we need to show them in deed more than word what it means to live by faith and obedience in the Lord Jesus. If what we teach is wisdom, then we need to show them that we believe it is wisdom by living according to the Bible. Shout into the streets with our acts (8,9).
