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Parenting by the Book

Proverbs   Study
Study 53

STUDY 53

Text: Proverbs 6
30 June 2002

Dear Parents,

THE SUBJECT OF “FRIENDSHIP”
We need to teach our children many important lessons of life. The lessons we teach them may even be called “lessons of survival”.

Children need to learn that to do well in life they must have the support of both family and friends. One cannot do without the family. Yet family is not enough. To succeed in life, one needs to have good and solid friends.

WISDOM IN CHOOSING FRIENDS
One of the hardest things to do in life is the ability to choose friends wisely. Let us consider this text that teaches us how children can be guided in the choice of friends.

My son, if you become surety for your friend,
If you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger,
You are snared by the words of your mouth;
You are taken by the words of your mouth.

Proverbs 6:1-2

What lessons are being emphasized in this text?

1. A person may have mistaken a stranger for a friend
There are people whom you think you know as a friend. In actual fact, the acquaintance is no more than a stranger. How important it is for us to teach our children how to distinguish between “friends” and “strangers”.

2. A person may be ensnared by unwisely making promises
Sometimes, promises are made too hastily. Promises made unwisely can prove most detrimental. Crooked people have been known to ensnare unsuspecting people in the name of friendship. Fortunes have been lost because surety was given ill-advisedly.

DUE DILIGENCE IN CHECKING OUT A FRIENDSHIP
It is important that great care be taken in ascertaining the worth of a friendship. The wise words found in this text goes a long way to teach a person how he must check out a friendship.

So do this, my son, and deliver yourself;
For you have come into the hand of your ‘friend’:
Go and humble yourself;
Plead with your ‘friend’.
Give no sleep to your eyes,
Nor slumber to your eyelids.
Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
And like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

Proverbs 6:3-5

The message is clear. Get out of a bad friendship! It is like a snare!

Prayerfully,
Pastor Charlie

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