Episode Details

Prayer

Merciful God, I praise and thank you for this new day of life that you have given to me. Please help me today to extol your praises in every way. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I trust you, my Lord and my King. In every thing, I trust your all-sufficient wisdom. As I turn my eyes to you, as I listen to your voice again now, Lord Jesus, please pardon my iniquity, and speak to me in the power of your Holy Spirit. Please renew my mind, and give me a heart of wisdom. Lord, I am never far from peril. Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.

Reading

Proverbs 1:8-9.

“Hear, my son, your father's instruction,and forsake not your mother's teaching,for they are a graceful garland for your headand pendants for your neck.”

Meditation

God uses means to give wisdom, and particularly he uses parents in the life of the young. We all have people over us, however, and so it’s important to realise that blessing comes with submission. Children often don’t want to submit to their parents, and often we don’t want to submit to those in authority over us later in life either. But Proverbs 1:8-9 lays out the fact that blessing comes with submission: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”

The first thing to see is that there’s a metaphor here in the text. Firstly, Solomon uses the image of a “graceful garland”. This is talking about something like a crown that will beautify your head in particular. Proverbs 4:9 makes this clear when it says that wisdom will “place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.” The image of “pendants” is similar, there will be a beautiful and precious necklace to go with the crown. The garland and the pendant are separate images, but they point to and symbolise the same thing: beauty of character. As a garland and necklace is beautiful on those who wear it, so godly and wise instruction from parents spiritually beautifies those who receive it.

True beauty is the adornment of inward spiritual graces. 1 Peter 3:4 says “let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.” In other words, as you have a teachable spirit, you will receive wisdom, and as you receive wisdom you will be adorned with true beauty of character.

Consider the Prodigal Son in his disgrace. He did not heed instruction, and his life turned ugly. But consider the Lord Jesus, the perfect Son. As he obeyed the instruction of his Father, he showed himself to be perfectly beautiful in character, and beautifying to all who love and follow him. So there’s an incentive here, do you want to be an ugly person? Or a beautiful person? The answer to that question depends upon whether or not you will be a teachable person. Ultimately the submission and instruction that these verses speak to is the instruction of our Heavenly Father, and perhaps secondarily the teaching we receive from Mother Kirk (the Church). Christ has, after all, given teachers in the Church for our instruction. All instruction from earthly parents and authorities that is of value ultimately flows down from the Lord.

Be ye doers of the word…

Let’s consider a couple of applications that flow out of this. Firstly – pray for your children. The children in our families and churches will not be able to obey this commandment unless God regenerates their hearts. Think of Solomon, Solomon said these words: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your h