Formation, Influence, and Grace

Teach our children, even if it doesn’t guarantee faith?

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

—Proverbs 22:6, ESV

The proverb emerges from Israel’s wisdom tradition, a collection of observations about how life generally works under God’s ordering of creation. Solomon offers guidance for parents navigating the formation of children—not mechanical guarantees, but patterns observed in the fear of the Lord. The verse sits within a broader context of warnings against folly and commendations of wisdom, teaching that early formation tends to establish trajectories that endure. Yet the very chapter that contains this hopeful proverb also warns that “folly is bound up in the heart of a child” (Proverbs 22:15), acknowledging something deeper than mere training can address. The tension emerges immediately: parents shape, yet something in the child resists. Formation influences, yet it does not control. The proverb speaks to direction and tendency, not to ironclad outcomes—a distinction that matters profoundly when Christian parents ask the question many carry quietly in their hearts.

Does a Raising a Child in the Knowledge of God Ensure Faith?

If raising a child in the knowledge of God does not guarantee that child will embrace faith, then why does Scripture command such instruction so emphatically? The question troubles parents who teach diligently yet watch children drift. It confuses those who assume godly parenting produces godly children as reliably as good soil produces good crops. Yet Scripture never presents parental instruction as a mechanism that ensures regeneration. Instead, it grounds the command in something more fundamental: the worthiness of God to be known, the responsibility of parents to obey, and the ordinary means through which divine grace often—though not always—awakens faith. To understand what Scripture actually promises, we must examine what it says about formation, influence, and the sovereign work of God in giving faith.

The Command to Teach: Grounded in God’s Worthiness, Not Guaranteed Outcomes

When Moses addresses Israel on the plains of Moab, preparing the second generation to enter Canaan, he anchors parental instruction in the character of God Himself. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Immediately following this declaration—the Shema, Israel’s great confession of God’s singular worthiness—comes the command: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). The instruction flows directly from who God is, not from what such teaching will produce.

Notice the structure: God’s oneness and worthiness establish the foundation. Love for God follows as the appropriate response. Teaching children emerges as the natural outworking of that love—parents saturating daily life with the words of God because these are the words that matter most. Moses never says, “Teach your children so they will certainly believe.” He says, “Teach your children because these are the words of the LORD.” The distinction reshapes everything. Obedience becomes its own reason, anchored in God’s character rather than in predicted results.

Paul echoes this pattern in his instruction to the Ephesian church. Within the household codes that govern family relationships, he commands fathers: “Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). The Greek terms here carry weight. Discipline—paideia (παιδεία)—encompasses the entire process of child-rearing, including correction, training, and formation. Instruction—nouthesia (νουθεσία)—refers specifically to verbal teaching, warning, and admonition. Together they describe comprehensive formation in the truth of God, shaped by both word and practice, correction and encouragement. Yet Paul grounds this command not in promises of certain faith, but in the household’s relationship to Christ. Children are to obey “in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1); fathers are to raise them “of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). The entire framework assumes God’s authority and the family’s accountability to Him—not a transactional system where faithful input guarantees faithful output.

This matters tremendously for parents who feel they have failed when children reject the faith. If the command to teach were grounded in guaranteed results, then every child’s unbelief would indict the parents. But Scripture never builds that case. Instead, it presents parental instruction as stewardship of truth—faithfulness to what God has revealed, regardless of whether the child ultimately embraces it. Parents teach because God is worthy of being known. They disciple because God has entrusted these children to them. They shape character and habit because God commands it. Faith, however, remains God’s work to give.

Formation Is Real: The Soil Where Gospel Seed Falls

Yet acknowledging that parents cannot regenerate hearts does not mean their influence is negligible. Scripture consistently affirms that upbringing shapes trajectory, forms habits, and establishes the environment where faith may take root. The Hebrew verb translated “train up” in Proverbs 22:6 is chanak (חָנַךְ), a term that carries the sense of dedicating, inaugurating, or initiating. It appears elsewhere in contexts of dedicating buildings or beginning ventures—establishing something on a particular course. The proverb observes that children initiated into a way of life tend to continue in that direction. It speaks to formation, not determinism. Training creates momentum, establishes patterns, and inclines the will toward certain paths. This is not guarantee but genuine influence.

The psalmist understands this when he recounts Israel’s history and God’s command to preserve the testimony of His works. “He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Psalm 78:5-7). Notice the progression: parents teach, children know, and knowing leads to hope set in God. The connection between teaching and faith is organic, not mechanical. God uses the ordinary means of instruction to cultivate an environment where hope in Him can flourish. The testimony passed down creates the conditions where children encounter the character and works of God—where they see His faithfulness demonstrated across generations, His power attested, His commands made plain.

Paul acknowledges this when he commends Timothy’s formation. “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:14-15). Timothy’s early exposure to Scripture—taught by his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois (2 Timothy 1:5)—made him “wise for salvation.” The sacred writings acquainted him with God’s character, promises, and redemptive plan. That formation mattered. It shaped his understanding, prepared his heart, and positioned him to recognize Christ when the gospel came. Yet even here, Paul notes that the Scriptures make wise “for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”—faith still required, and faith still given by God rather than generated by human teaching alone.

Could it be that the difference lies not in whether formation influences, but in what formation can and cannot accomplish? A child raised in the knowledge of God is placed in the stream of truth, wisdom, and the ordinary means through which God awakens faith. Such a child hears Scripture read, sees prayer modeled, observes the people of God gathering for worship, witnesses faith expressed in daily decisions. This is not neutral soil. It is soil enriched with truth, turned over by instruction, watered by example. When the seed of the gospel falls there, it falls into ground that has been prepared to receive it.

Contrast this with a child raised in atheism, where the soil is hardened by the suppression of truth. Paul writes that those who reject God “became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Romans 1:21-23). This exchange shapes everything—not just isolated beliefs, but entire patterns of thought, affection, and worship. A child discipled into unbelief is discipled into self-reference, into the suppression of what can be known about God, into the worship of created things rather than the Creator. That formation, too, has power. It, too, shapes trajectory. But it shapes toward darkness rather than light, futility rather than wisdom.

Scripture is clear: upbringing shapes the soil in which the gospel seed falls. Parents cultivate through teaching, warning, example, and prayer. They prepare ground, remove stones of falsehood, enrich understanding with truth. But soil preparation is not regeneration. And here the tension deepens.

Only God Gives Faith: The Spirit Who Blows Where He Wills

Jesus states the principle plainly when teaching Nicodemus about the new birth. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Spirit’s work in regeneration cannot be predicted, controlled, or engineered by human effort. Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel steeped in the Scriptures and trained in the law, cannot understand this sovereign work. Jesus rebukes his confusion: “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” (John 3:10). The new birth comes from above, not from below. It is God’s work, not man’s achievement. The Spirit blows where He wishes—and that “where” includes both the children of believing parents and the children of unbelievers, both those raised in truth and those raised in error, both the diligently taught and the utterly ignorant.

Jesus reinforces this sovereignty when addressing the crowds who seek Him for bread rather than for truth. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44). The verb translated “draws”—helkō (ἑλκύω)—carries the force of pulling or dragging, suggesting that apart from this divine initiative, no one moves toward Christ. The Father draws; the Son receives; the resurrection is guaranteed. Human effort, including parental instruction, exists entirely within this framework of divine sovereignty. Parents can teach, warn, model, and pray. They can prepare the soil with diligence and faithfulness. But only God can resurrect the heart.

Paul confronts this reality when defending God’s sovereign choice. After tracing God’s elective purposes through Jacob and Esau—chosen before birth, before any works good or bad—he anticipates the objection: “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:16). Faith does not arise from the strength of human determination or the excellence of human effort. It arises from divine mercy. God has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens (Romans 9:18). This is not arbitrariness but sovereignty—God working all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11), choosing to save sinners who deserve only judgment, and doing so in ways that display both His justice and His mercy.

The prophet Ezekiel records God’s promise of what only He can accomplish: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). The initiative belongs entirely to God. He removes the heart of stone—that settled resistance to His truth, that deadness toward His glory. He gives the new heart—responsive, alive, capable of delighting in His law. He puts the new spirit within—His own Spirit, bearing witness with the human spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:16). This is regeneration, and it cannot be produced through parenting technique, educational method, or environmental advantage. It is God’s work alone.

This is why Israel’s history contains both faithful parents with rebellious children and unbelieving households where the gospel suddenly breaks in. Joshua gathers all Israel at Shechem and recounts God’s faithfulness, then challenges them: “Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness” (Joshua 24:14). The people respond with confident commitment. Yet the very next generation, raised by those who made such vows, abandons the covenant. “And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). How does this happen? How do children of faithful parents become strangers to the God their parents served? The text does not explain the mechanism—it simply records the tragedy, demonstrating that upbringing influences but does not determine.

Conversely, the gospel erupts into households with no prior connection to Israel’s covenant. Cornelius, a Gentile centurion, receives the Holy Spirit while Peter is still speaking (Acts 10:44). Lydia, a seller of purple goods from Thyatira, hears Paul speak, and “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14). No mention of godly upbringing, no record of early instruction in the law. God simply opens the heart. The Spirit blows where He wills. Faith comes as gift, not as inheritance, not as the predictable outcome of faithful parenting.

Does this mean formation doesn’t matter? Does it render parental instruction meaningless if God alone gives faith? Not at all. It means we hold two truths simultaneously: upbringing genuinely influences, and grace alone regenerates. Parents plant and water. God gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). Both realities stand, and neither diminishes the other.

Why Teach If Teaching Doesn’t Guarantee Faith?

The question assumes that meaningful action requires predictable results. It assumes that if we cannot control the outcome, the effort loses its value. But Scripture provides reasons for teaching children about God that rest on firmer ground than guarantees.

First, because God commands it. When Moses instructs Israel to teach their children diligently, when Paul commands fathers to bring children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, obedience itself becomes the sufficient reason. We do not obey only when we can see the end from the beginning. We obey because God’s authority over us is absolute and His wisdom infinitely exceeds ours. Could it be that God commands parental instruction not primarily because of what it produces in children, but because of what it cultivates in parents—a recognition of their utter dependence on Him, a daily rehearsal of His character and works, a humility that acknowledges they can prepare but not regenerate?

Second, because God uses means. Though faith is His gift and regeneration His work alone, He ordinarily gives that gift and accomplishes that work through the proclamation of His word. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Teaching, Scripture, prayer, and example are not alternative routes to salvation apart from grace—they are the channels through which grace characteristically flows. When parents teach children the Scriptures, they are placing those children in the path where God has promised to work. They are providing the means through which the Spirit testifies to Christ, convicts of sin, and awakens faith. The means do not control God, but God has chosen to work through means. Parental instruction is one of those means.

Third, because formation matters even apart from regeneration. A child shaped by truth learns wisdom that protects from folly. A child instructed in God’s law gains understanding of righteousness, even if the heart remains unregenerate. A child who hears Scripture regularly becomes acquainted with a vocabulary, a framework, and a worldview that can serve the gospel when—if—God grants faith. Proverbs repeatedly contrasts the outcomes of wisdom and folly, showing that even natural consequences favor those who walk in understanding. Is it possible that God intends formation to have value in common grace as well as in saving grace? That children raised in truth benefit from wisdom’s protection even before experiencing wisdom’s source?

Fourth, because hope rests in God, not in technique. When parents recognize that they cannot engineer their children’s salvation, they are freed from crushing burdens. They can teach boldly without anxiety. They can pray earnestly without manipulation. They can trust deeply without requiring certain outcomes. The parent who believes salvation depends on perfect parenting lives in perpetual fear of failure. The parent who knows salvation depends on God alone lives in restful obedience—faithful to teach, confident in God’s sovereignty, hopeful in His mercy. This is not resignation but liberation, not fatalism but freedom.

Returning to Solomon’s proverb, we see the wisdom embedded in his careful language. “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). The Hebrew chanak speaks to dedication, to setting a trajectory, to initiating a journey. The proverb observes that formation in wisdom tends to endure, that children inaugurated into the fear of the Lord often walk that path throughout their lives. It speaks to influence, to probability, to the general patterns God has woven into His created order. Yet it does not promise inevitability. The very chapter that records this hopeful observation also acknowledges the folly bound in the child’s heart—that deeper resistance requiring more than training can address.

Perhaps this is why Scripture holds these truths together without resolving the tension. Parents are responsible for instruction. God is responsible for regeneration. The first does not replace the second, and the second does not nullify the first. Both truths matter. Both truths comfort. Both truths keep us humble before the God who commands our obedience yet reserves salvation as His own work to accomplish.

A God-centered upbringing does not guarantee faith. But it remains the God-ordained means of pointing children toward the One who can save them. And for the parent who walks in reverence before the Lord, who teaches diligently what has been revealed, who prays earnestly for mercy, and who trusts deeply in sovereign grace, that is reason enough. The formation we provide prepares the soil. The faith we long for comes as gift. And the God who commands both our teaching and our trust is worthy of being obeyed—whatever outcomes He, in His perfect wisdom and mercy, chooses to bring.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​