Proverbs 4:3-4a

"When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, he taught me..."

This is not an instruction, but a memory. Yet, it speaks volumes about the significance, focus, and responsibility of fatherly instruction. Taken with the first two verses of this chapter, we find an apparently fruitful, multi-generational commitment by fathers to teaching their children in the way of wisdom. The Psalmist heard these things from his own father and now, having applied the same to his own life, instructs his son--3 generations of instructed people.

Scripture consistently lays the responsibility for child-training upon the shoulders of fathers (see Eph. 6:4; Deut. 6:4-8). This is not to the exclusion of mothers (the Proverbs direct us often to our mothers' teaching) but as head of the home, the burden and responsibility for this task before God belongs to the father. Many men excel in teaching their child to throw a ball or fix a car, but instruction in the fear of the Lord and His way of wisdom must be primary. Wisdom is said to make for long life, to protect from injury, to bring honor, and to be life itself. Oh, the things a child misses when a father drops the ball on this.