“My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (Proverbs 3: 11-12 KJV)
As I reviewed Proverbs chapter 3, I thought about how busy Solomon must have been at the time he wrote the most of Proverbs. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubine. That's a lot of women, y'all! This number doesn't even include the rest of the people under his rule. Solomon built the temple that his father, King David envisioned. For him to set aside time to teach his son to fear the Lord is commendable. But, then again, isn't this what parents are supposed to be doing with their children, instructing them in the love and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4)? Instead, our kids are often running wild in the streets with pants sagging.
With the economy the way it is, people are stressed -- working two jobs, or longer hours on one job, or stressed with bills mounting as they search for work. Should that be an excuse for parents not training up their kids? We are hearing more and more cases of child neglect, adults doing unimaginable things to children, babies even. Parents are letting television babysit their children and teach them about sex, violence and immorality while they teach them nothing at all about who God is. I think Justin Bieber caused such a stir with his "God-Jesus" comments partly because many people were not expecting "Jesus" to come out of his young mouth. Chalk that up to some good parenting somewhere along the way, the kind that, in the spirit of Solomon, made a way out of no way to teach their child to fear the Lord! So, why aren't parents training up their kids, providing a good education and insisting they go to school, correcting them when they need it, and teaching them about who God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit is?
I posted an article on this blog on July 7th about a black baptist conference held Lubbock Texas. The link is below. The speaker, Rev. Michael Evans made these comments:
ReplyDeleteI agree. The church needs to do much more to reach young people. In many churches, the absence of young people is scary. There is no doubt about that. The world is reaching our children everyday on television, in the movies, on the radio, and yes, on Facebook and other social media sites. Young people are being exposed to sex, immorality, crime and drugs at extremely young ages. Too many children act like grown adults and it is sad. They know how to make babies, but they know nothing about how to raise them because they are still babies themselves. So, yes, the church needs to reach young people.
But once the church reaches them, the church needs to teach them. The church is not a social club. It should not be a place that just has activities for activities sake. The church should be just as radical, if not more radical, in "training up a child" as it is in reaching a child. The church needs to offer Bible Bowls and debates in scripture in such a way where young people will get it, and will not be afraid to speak to the Jehovah's Witness at their door, nor too timid to give a sound defense for the faith. The church should be just as radical in training up children in their culture so that they not only know whose they are in Christ Jesus, but who they are as a people. The church needs to be just as radical in "training up a child" in reading, writing, math, techonology, and the sciences so that our children, African American children, are able to compete with the best and the brightest from any culture anywhere.
Black Baptists should engage changing culture, says conference workshop | Lubbock Online | Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Link: http://lubbockonline.com/faith/2011-07-06/black-baptists-should-engage-changing-culture-says-conference-workshop#.ThcpD4Mdua8.blogger