With five children between the ages of 19 and 8, my wife, Julia, and I are nearly two decades into our journey as parents. When you add two dogs, two cats, and an “Alexa” to the mix, the kitchen often feels like feeding time at a zoo, in the middle of a nightclub. Yet beneath the busy and often chaotic place we call home, Julia and I have experienced and developed a current of underlying peace.

Years ago, we came to acknowledge that while it’s right and wise to do what we can to position our children for future faithfulness, who they become isn’t ultimately in our control. We’re responsible for the home environment they grow up in, not who they turn out to be as grown-ups. We’ve found great peace as parents by focusing on the current callings God has given us rather than trying to grasp unguaranteed outcomes.

Though it’s been nearly fifteen years, I can distinctly remember how this perspective shift altered the way we talked about our home life. Our conversations quickly moved away from what our children were not doing (which is what we used to focus on) toward the many things that we, as the parents, could be doing. It may sound silly, but our parenting discussions finally began to be centered more on the parents!

In addition to changing our conversations, this new outlook resulted in significant shifts in the way we parented. After doing an honest evaluation of our home environment, we clearly saw we had work to do. We gathered scriptures that spoke to either parenting or family, and then we landed on Proverbs 22:6 as our starting point:

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Three Subtle, Significant Shifts

While the verse was familiar to us, the reality was more foreign. In fact, if the verse were translated like we parented, it would have said, “Tell up a child in the way he shouldn’t go, and tomorrow he will obey.” If that sounds familiar to you, I have good news: there’s a better way. The internal peace we experience now has been directly connected to the following three shifts in our parenting:

train up, not tell up
should go, not shouldn’t go
old, not young

It’s worth mentioning that while there’s some ambiguity in the original Hebrew, these three shifts aren’t limited to this text. Parents should feel free to embrace the call to train up our children in the way they should go, with a long-term view, because these are established biblical themes that each have wide support beyond this passage. We happen to love Proverbs 22:6 (at least as it’s worded in the ESV) because it beautifully and concisely captures these three wise shifts.

Train, Not Tell

Our first parenting shift was to embrace our role as trainers, not merely tellers. Our tell-up mindset was clearly seen in common refrains like, “How many times have I told you . . .” or “Don’t make me have to tell you again.”

“Our first parenting shift was to embrace our role as trainers, not merely tellers.”

For the record, it’s true that we had told them the same things repeatedly. What changed was the way we responded in these moments. As tellers, we used to get irritated at their lack of listening, but as trainers, we learned to push through and seek creative ways to stimulate their minds and hearts. We found that most (not all, but definitely most) of what we were quick to label as disobedience or indifference was greatly affected by a little more effort from the instructors.

As Christian parents, while a training mindset may feel new, the model has been firmly established through the life and ministry of Jesus. Consider, for instance, how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. He didn’t merely tell them, “Go pray,” and then repeatedly demean them when they didn’t. Rather, the master trainer modeled a life of prayer (Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16), taught them why we pray (Matthew 7:7–11; Mark 9:29), showed them how to pray (Luke 11:2–4), and then sought to keep them going (Luke 18:1). Imagine the impact in our homes if we were to replace our culture of telling with a culture marked by that kind of training.

As a result of this one shift, we went from mainly reacting to far more often initiating toward our kids. More than that, we committed to not discipline our children for things we hadn’t trained them in yet. Admittedly, this commitment resulted in some awkward moments in public, when we observed a kid’s behavior and looked at each other with enlarged eyes, as if to say, “How have we never taught them about this at home!” As we shifted the focus toward training, though, the underlying message to our children was clear: we are with you and for you in your journey to maturity.

Should Go, Not Shouldn’t Go

It’s not a surprise that one of the first words a toddler learns to say is no. Sadly, many homes are dominated with parents repeatedly telling children what not to do. On multiple occasions, I’ve sat with fathers of adult children who tearfully lament their children’s decisions, saying, “I don’t get it; they were raised knowing what not to do.” Unfortunately, according to the apostle Paul, merely arming our children with an impressive collection of do not’s will not prepare them well for what lies ahead (Colossians 2:21–23).

The vision to train in the way they should go is more than semantics. It’s a way of parenting that reflects the very heart of our heavenly Father, a heart that can be traced back to the garden of Eden. Contrary to popular memory, God’s first words were not, “Do not eat from that tree.” Before God gave that vital no, he first gave a far bigger yes: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden” (Genesis 2:16). Our heavenly Father makes clear the way we should go so that when he does say no (which he does), we can be confident it’s to preserve us for life, not prevent us from life.

The subtle shift to intentionally focus on a positive vision led us to identify a big family YES: “The Bradner Family Creed.” Our creed (shared below) highlighted seven values we were committed to pursuing as a family. With these established and communicated, we embraced our role as the lead trainers who were constantly on the lookout for ways to model, teach, and celebrate the family living out our creed. Sixteen years later, we can confirm that it’s much more enjoyable to give your energy and effort toward a family yes than it is to be constantly telling kids no.

Old, Not Young

The final shift was found in the last part of verse 6: “when he is old he will not depart from it.” Imagining our children as adults has helped us play the long game in our parenting. It guards against unknowingly winning today’s battle at the expense of losing the war. We desire to parent now in such a way that our children want to engage with us when they no longer have to.

“We desire to parent in such a way that our children want to engage with us when they no longer have to.”

The long game may last for decades, but it begins now while our children are young. We didn’t want to wait until they left the house to create an environment they would want to return to. This desire shaped how we spoke to them — especially what we wanted them to hear most and least. If our kids were to hear us say the words, “How many times have I told you . . .” our hope is that it would be followed with something like, “. . . how much I love you and consider it a privilege to be your parent?” These are the kinds of words we want them to hear most.

Some might read this and conclude that we’ve adopted some parent-as-buddy relationship. No, we haven’t lost sight of our authority and responsibility to correct and exhort. We’re intentionally aiming to position ourselves for a lifetime of that kind of ministry. Henry Drummond captures the long-game perspective so well: “You will find that the people who influence you are the people who believe in you.”

The long game also shaped what we desire them to hear least. While the quick response “That’s not what we believe/think/do in this family” may save a few minutes in the moment, it robs parenting in the long run. Children who are always merely told how to think and what to believe — without thoughtful conversation — will eventually stop engaging those topics. While the Christian parent has the privilege of teaching what is right, that doesn’t mean we should do it like the fool, who “takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion” (Proverbs 18:2).

“I’d love to hear more about why you think that” may take more time in the moment, but it will also bear much greater fruit in the years ahead. I’m certain that our adult children value our thoughts and perspective more today because they grew up in a home that valued theirs.

Our Best Investments

Looking back, it’s nearly impossible to quantify the impact of these three parenting shifts, but it’s been enormous. Parenting is hard, and so is being a child. Instead of shouldering anxiety today about who our children become as grown-ups, let’s give our best energy to creating a God-honoring and life-giving environment for them now. Sometimes the most transformative, enduring outcomes are a result of a few subtle shifts in perspective.

Bradner Family Creed (Est. 2006)We honor God.Every person matters.We are so thankful.We don’t speak “winese.”Can I help you with that?We give our best.We celebrate!

God planted the first vineyard, and God engineered the first grape. He knew precisely what would happen when that little unassuming ball was harvested, crushed, fermented, stirred, and pressed. He knew how it would make man feel — glad (Psalm 104:14–15). He knew he would serve it — not water, not milk, not just juice — in the church’s most important meals together (Matthew 26:27).

Before sounding the warnings, it’s good to remember that God loves good wine and still pours it for his children to enjoy, but his love is not young and naïve. His prophet warns, “Wine is a traitor” — notice, not excessive wine, but wine, the everyday alcohol of the day — “Wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples” (Habakkuk 2:5). As arrogant and ruthless as Hitler and as greedy as death, have we reckoned with the tyrant many of us thoughtlessly sip between bites?

Who Suffers Without Cause?

While it’s harder than we might expect to find encouragement toward alcohol in Scripture, it’s not at all hard to find warnings about its abuses.

Moses once describes it as “the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps” (Deuteronomy 32:33). In Psalm 75, it’s a picture of God’s wrath (Psalm 75:8). Those who bow to their next drink will never see the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9–10; Galatians 5:21). And if anyone claims to be a brother while abusing alcohol without repentance, he’s to be cut off from the church — for the sake of his soul. “I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is [a] drunkard . . . not even to eat with such a one” (1 Corinthians 5:11). The warnings are as serious as they are numerous.

One passage in particular, Proverbs 23:29–35, not only warns about the judgment that will fall on drunkenness, but about the spiritual dangers of this kind of drinking.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow?     Who has strife? Who has complaining?Who has wounds without cause?     Who has redness of eyes?Those who tarry long over wine;     those who go to try mixed wine. (Proverbs 23:29–30)

The wise man goes on to explain his woes and sorrows, his wounds and miseries. A healthy, godly use of alcohol remains vigilant against at least these five great dangers of alcohol (all results of excessive drinking): confusion, perversion, instability, paralysis, and futility.

Confusion

Your eyes will see strange things. . . . (Proverbs 23:33)

The first hazard of drunkenness is confusion. Abusing alcohol will make you see strange things, robbing you of the ability to perceive reality. You will see things that are not there, or you’ll see things that are there but not as they are. Like the man on the side of the road, you won’t be able to walk straight, much less in a manner worthy of God (Colossians 1:10).

“Drunkenness blurs life-and-death distinctions and muddies the precious promises and commands of God.”

We see this danger when God says to Aaron and the priests, “Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations” (Leviticus 10:8–9). Why would God forbid the priests from drinking alcohol? Because they, more than anyone else, needed to see reality clearly enough to guard the people against danger, especially spiritual danger, and lead them to what’s true, beautiful, and holy. “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses” (Leviticus 10:10–11).

Drunkenness, then and now, blurs life-and-death distinctions and muddies the precious promises and commands of God.

Perversion

Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. (Proverbs 23:33)

Scripture repeatedly ties drunkenness to immorality, especially sexual immorality (see Hosea 4:10–11; Joel 3:2–3). In the verses immediately before ours, the wise father says,

My son, give me your heart,     and let your eyes observe my ways.For a prostitute is a deep pit;     an adulteress is a narrow well.She lies in wait like a robber     and increases the traitors among mankind.Who has woe? Who has sorrow? . . . (Proverbs 23:26–29)

Why move so quickly, and without any transition, from prostitutes to wine glasses? Because the latter so often leads to the former. Excessive alcohol exaggerates the pleasures of sin and obscures its costs and consequences. Drunkenness makes a deadly pit look like a well, a bloodthirsty thief like a trustworthy friend, a forbidden woman like a secret stream of delight.

So what’s the warning? Alcohol draws perversity out of a man. He says things he never would have said sober. He does things he never would have done otherwise. Drunkenness undid righteous Noah after God delivered him through the flood: “He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent” (Genesis 9:21). Alcohol fooled Lot into incest (Genesis 19:32). When Nabal rejected David and left his men hungry, what fueled his foolishness? “Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk” (1 Samuel 25:36). Alcohol does not spark perversion where it is not (Matthew 15:11), but it can stoke secret sin into a raging, devastating flame.

Instability

You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast. (Proverbs 23:34)

The image here comes close to the confusion of verse 33, but carries a unique warning. If the former was the inability to discern holy from unholy, real from unreal, this picture emphasizes incapacitation. Alcohol leaves a man asleep while he lies in grave peril, in situations where his alertness really matters. He even falls asleep in the crow’s nest, where the winds and waves would be felt most. He’s utterly, dreadfully unaware of danger.

In this way, alcohol is not only a danger to a man, but to everyone who depends on him. While he sleeps in the storms at sea, he imperils everyone else in the boat — and he leaves anything he might have done to someone else. When he’s needed most, he’s unavailable. Bottle after bottle, he makes himself a burden to those for whom he’s called to protect and provide.

Worse than that, alcohol often makes a man a terror to those he loves. Another proverb says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). This is the very antithesis of Jesus, who calmed the seas for those he loved. When the storm comes, this man creates even more chaos. He creates storms where there was none. Instead of a stable refuge, he becomes volatile, unpredictable.

Paralysis

“They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it.” (Proverbs 23:35)

Of the five, this may be the most frightening. Drunkenness numbs a man to reality, and specifically to all that threatens him. His senses have been so dulled that he cannot even feel when someone beats him. He’s hurt but cannot feel hurt, which means he cannot detect danger anymore.

That’s what pain does — it alerts us to some threat and calls us to act. If we’re drunk, we sleep through the alarm. “Watch yourselves,” Jesus warns, “lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap” (Luke 21:34). He teaches the lesson with far more horrifying pictures. He says that when the wicked servant drinks with drunkards,

the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:50–51)

The horror is in how quickly they’ll fall from the comforts of drunkenness into the agony of judgment. If proverbs will not sober them, the weeping will.

Futility

“When shall I awake? I must have another drink.” (Proverbs 23:35)

Does any single picture better portray the futility and insanity of drunkenness? The drunk person looks for satisfaction in his glass, but searches and searches and never finds the bottom. No matter how much he drinks, his thirst is never quenched. Consumption consumes him.

“The drunk person looks for satisfaction in his glass, but searches and searches and never finds the bottom.”

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes was well-acquainted with strong drink. “I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine. . . . Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:3–11). No amount of alcohol could quench the craving inside of him. And yet millions keep pouring, keep binging, keep striving after wind.

The prophet Isaiah had seen alcohol ruin souls. He says of Israel’s leaders, “They are shepherds who have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each to his own gain, one and all. ‘Come,’ they say, ‘let me get wine; let us fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be like this day, great beyond measure’” (Isaiah 56:11–12). They ask life of wine because they’re fools, because they stubbornly drink at dry wells. And they’re parched souls burned any who followed them. Drunkenness is a well without water, a marathon without a finish line, a curse that will not lift.

Drinking on Empty

None of this, of course, negates the profound and spiritual goodness of wine. Again, the Lord’s Supper teaches us that this is not a drink for the shadows, but for the rooftops. Like so many of the best gifts of God, though, wine is all the more dangerous for having been infused with so much potential for good.

And, as is also true about the best gifts, wisdom over the glass will mean more than heeding warnings. It will mean being so satisfied at another, deeper well that we can enjoy wine without becoming its slaves. “Do not get drunk with wine,” the apostle Paul warns, “for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). In other words, if you do decide to drink, don’t drink on an empty soul. The best way to guard against the serious dangers of alcohol is to fill ourselves with God — to drink daily and deeply from his words, to entrust him with our fears and burdens through prayer, to thank him for the new and unique expressions of his kindness, to bury our lives and gifts and joys among his people, to sing together of our love for him. In hearts like these, drunkenness can’t get in the front door, much less find a seat at the bar.

Ironically, people who live like this, whose lives are gladly and regularly soaked in God, not only avoid the awful and destructive curses of drunkenness, but they also might get to actually and more fully enjoy some good wine.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast on this Monday. Today in our Bible reading, we read Jeremiah 23–25 together. It included a beautiful new-covenant text that one listener wants you to explain more. The listener is Matthew. He wrote, “Pastor John, hello to you. I find myself often in debates with friends and family over Calvinism and Arminianism. They’re all Arminian. I try to represent the other side with clarity and charity.

“One of the arguments that I come back to repeatedly is about free will and what I see in Jeremiah 24:7: ‘I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.’ What I see in this text is that, of course, we all have free will, the ability for our hearts to do and believe what we most desire. So, what we need are new desires that want the right things. God must act to give us new desires or we are hopeless. This is sovereign grace in the miracle of regeneration. How much of your discussions over free will centers on this fact, that we all have free will, and we all need a new heart, a new will?”

First, let me commend Matthew for defining what he means by free will. That’s really unusual. I appreciate it very much, because in most discussions people use the phrase as though it were clear, when in fact most people have very different views of what free will means. He has defined it, so I can answer his question with more precision.

Defining ‘Free Will’

He says that free will is “the ability for our hearts to do and believe what we most desire.” That’s a pretty shrewd and careful definition. Freedom of the will, he says, is the freedom “to do and believe what we most desire.” And I think that if we are going to affirm the existence of free will among fallen people like us, that’s the definition we need to use, because it answers the question of how people can be free whom the Bible says are dead in trespasses (Ephesians 2:5), slaves of sin (Romans 6:20), under the dominion of sin (Romans 3:9), blind to spiritual reality (2 Corinthians 4:4), hardened against God (Ephesians 4:18), and unable to submit to God (Romans 8:7).

“God knows how to govern all things, including the human will, in such a way that we are truly responsible.”

So, given Matthew’s definition of freedom, such dead, enslaved, dominated, blind, hard, impotent people have freedom of the will, because it means that they are free to do and believe what they most desire — namely, sin. That’s what they’re free to do. And I would agree that if we’re going to maintain that the will is free, that is the definition we should use. So, to speak of free will then is to speak of a will that is free to do and believe what it most desires — but is not free to desire God above all else.

What Arminians Want

What I have found, therefore, is that most people who reject Calvinistic or Reformed understandings of human depravity and sovereign grace — which is required to bring a dead, hard, blind person to saving faith — is that this definition of free will is not acceptable to them. It’s not acceptable because it still leaves a person unable to provide the decisive thing that leads to conversion — namely, the strongest desire to trust Christ. It leaves a person in the bondage of their strongest desires, which are against God.

Saying that a person is free to do what he most desires, but he’s not free to create desires for God, does not give the Arminian what he wants. And what’s that? A fair definition of what the Arminian requires is free will defined as the power of decisive self-determination. In other words, what the Arminian requires is that, at the precise point of conversion, where saving faith comes into being, it is man and not God that at that point provides the decisive and effective influence. That’s what the Arminian must have to make his views work. Whatever influences God may give prior to that point — call them “prevenient grace,” which is what the Arminian wants to call all the illuminating, freeing grace of God — the Arminian insists that the final, decisive creation of the strongest effective desire for Christ must be self-determined, human-determined, not God-determined.

So, Matthew asks me, “How much of your discussions over free will centers on the fact that we all have free will, and we all need a new heart and a new will?” My answer now is that I don’t usually start with Matthew’s definition of free will. It may be helpful in some discussions to define free will that way, but I find that it is most illuminating, most convicting, most clarifying to start with the definition of free will that Arminians really do need in order for their views to make sense — namely, the definition that free will is the power of decisive self-determination (or I sometimes use the phrase “ultimate self-determination”). With this definition, then, it appears that Arminians believe in such free will and Calvinists do not believe in such free will. I certainly do not believe there is such a thing as human free will defined as decisive self-determination.

Bound to Sovereign Grace

At this point in my conversations, what proves to be most clarifying is two things.

First is the abundance of biblical texts that describe the bondage of the will and the necessity of sovereign grace to bring a person out of spiritual deadness into life and faith. For example, in Ephesians 2:5–6, Paul does not say that when we were spiritually dead God gave us a kind of halfway regeneration where we now, in that new halfway state of life, provide ourselves the decisive, self-determining act of faith — the act of producing the strongest desire for Jesus that pushes us over the line to believe. What Paul says is that while we were dead, God not only made us alive but also raised us up with Christ and seated “us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” In other words, God’s action is decisive — all the way from death through spiritual resurrection to our firm, saved position in the presence of God in Christ. There are many texts that teach the same thing concerning sovereign grace. That’s the first thing.

“Without God’s sovereign grace, we would be utterly hopeless in the bondage of our spiritually dead hearts.”

The other thing that I find clarifying and helpful in conversations with folks is to point out that free will, understood as the power of ultimate or decisive self-determination, is not taught anywhere in the Bible. Not a single verse, not a single text teaches that there is such a thing as the power of ultimate human self-determination. So, where does that idea come from that we must have ultimate self-determination? It comes from a philosophical presupposition that people bring to the Bible. The philosophical presupposition is that if we don’t have ultimate self-determination, we cannot be held accountable for our own beliefs and actions before God. Well, the Bible simply does not affirm that presupposition.

The Bible teaches that God has ways we do not understand and that he knows how to govern all things, including the human will, in such a way that we are truly responsible, truly accountable — and he, at the same time, is truly sovereign. And oh, we should be thankful for this sovereign grace, because without it, we would be utterly hopeless in the bondage of our spiritually dead hearts.

So, if you find yourself — and I’m speaking to those of you who are listening right now — if you find yourself unable to love God, unable to trust Christ, don’t despair. Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). Resolve to seek him, come to him. Look to his suffering for the worst of sinners, and ask God for the grace to see and savor Christ.