4 Hear, O sons, a father's instruction,
and be attentive, that you may gain insight,
2 for I give you good precepts;
do not forsake my teaching.
3 When I was a son with my father,
tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,
4 he taught me and said to me,
“Let your heart hold fast my words;
keep my commandments, and live.
5 Get wisdom; get insight;
do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
6 Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.
8 Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honour you if you embrace her.
9 She will place on your head a graceful garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”
Even a cursory reading of these verses gives a clear impression of the greatness of the thought they express, and this is underlined in a closer study of them. Three genera- tions are mentioned in 1,3, children, father and grandparents, and this bears witness to what may be called the entail of grace. God blesses to the third and fourth generation, when parents fulfil their vows and their stewardship in faithfulness and love. In this sense, parents lay the foundation of many generations in the way they bring up their children. This should be an enormous encouragement to us, as well as a challenge. One thinks of some prominent families in the Christian Church, such as the Booth family, or Hudson Taylor's, in which this principle has been abundantly displayed. Here, the writer, who is now a father himself, is passing on the same instruction to his own son as he himself received when a boy. It is said that you do not know whether you have been a good parent until you see how your children set about bringing up theirs. If they follow a different pattern, they are passing a vote of no confidence in how you brought up them. That is something worth thinking about. At all events, there is a man who was so conscious that his father brought him up in the right way that he can think of no higher or better way of instructing his own son. The emphasis in this instruction is, interestingly, very positive - not that there are no negatives involved (cf 3:27-31). It is a love of good things that is being inculcated, and this is done by parental example and, by love. The father's enthusiasm for the things he commends, and his sincerity, are very obvious: he is given over to them himself. Here is the secret: if the things of God are a reality in a par- ent's life, if they really shine through in the down-to-earth situations of the home, so that the true, spiritual life is natural, easy and free, children will recognise the reality, and re- spond and learn by that example to love as their father loves.