I like to emphasize that your verse says, “The way HE should go,” and that the way for one child may not be the way for another. Patrick’s way may lead to a rarefied academic career, while Anoreth is a sailor and Sally is likely to marry pretty young and have lots of children.
“Patrick’s way may lead to a rarefied academic career, while Anoreth is a sailor and Sally is likely to marry pretty young and have lots of children.”
Ooops! You’ve strayed too close to a passion of mine, so be forewarned that I usually get verbose and excitable right about now. :)
Yes, your son might well be headed to a life as an academic — and we need good conservative ones. But a gifted scholar doesn’t have to be in a university.
You can tell by my screenname that I’m a pastor, but I do not believe that being a pastor should have ever been a “profession.” That goes back to the earliest centuries of the Church. We have replaced the need for every believer to learn and to pass on what they know, and have given it to an anointed few who are supposed to do it because that’s their job. We professionalized the “Ministry” and therefore took it out of the hands of the “laypeople.” We are left with two groups of people — “clergy” who know things, and “laypeople” who don’t. And the laypeople don’t know things because the clergy never expected them to retain what they were taught.
We, both the Church and America, need brilliant scholars. We need thinkers. We need teachers who want to pass on knowledge of the Bible, American history and conservative scholarship. But we don’t necessarily need them to be stuck in a university or a pulpit. We need them in every aspect of life.
We need scholars as authors. We need scholars as entrepreneurs. We need scholars in the media. We need scholars in finance and education. We need scholars in the pews and scholars in the pulpits. Passionate, logical, committed with minds on fire.
We also need scholars as sailors and scholars who “marry pretty young and have lots of children.”
I think life is bigger than “I am this” or “I am that.”
That being said, someday when I have kids and they grow up and go off to college, I’ll have to warn them to be careful if they get a Greek professor named Patrick. I’ve heard he’s rather tough. :)