God’s Word for You
Proverbs 10:1 Wise and foolish sons
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, August 29, 2026
From time to time I have stepped away from continuous devotions on a book of the Bible so that we can meditate on other parts of the Scriptures. Today, we begin a look at some Proverbs.
10:1 The proverbs of Solomon.
The first nine chapters of Proverbs are a long discourse about the superiority of Wisdom. Wisdom in Proverbs and throughout most of the Bible is godly wisdom, wisdom which is based on knowing who our Savior is and what he has done for us. From Solomon’s point of view, true wisdom was what Christ would do when he came, and therefore in many of his passages, “Wisdom” and “Christ” are interchangeable. Beginning in chapter 10, Solomon continues to talk about wisdom in a practical way of giving advice to people who are already believers.
A wise son makes his father glad,
but a foolish son makes his mother sad.
We don’t learn a lot about how we are saved from Proverbs. Rather, we learn about what the life of a believer is like because we are saved. Perhaps the most obvious example is found in our parents. If our Christian parents are pleased with us, our Heavenly Father is probably pleased, as well. This simple touchstone is a way to gauge how we are walking in life. Am I bringing grief to my earthly parents? Am I also grieving my Lord?
The verb samach only occurs in two of the usual Hebrew conjugations. Here the versatile piel stem makes the verb causative. For “to rejoice” is a plain term, but to “make someone rejoice” tells a deeper story. Here the wise son has made his parents glad.
In what way? A son might bring joy with some heroic or financial victory, or by bringing home an excellent choice in a wife. Or it might simply be by remaining faithful to the Lord. And of all the prayers that parents need to be saying for their children, this one is more urgent than any others: “Keep my child’s faith secure, O Lord. Do whatever must be done. Protect him from the attacks of the devil, preserve him in the arms of the church, burden him with crosses if you must to keep his attention focused on you and on your forgiveness, but preserve my child’s faith.”
And then, be the parent that your child needs. If your parents came up short in some way, do not take out your revenge on your child. Do not work out that trauma on your own dear son or daughter. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Instead, heap burning coals on the heads of those who were never there for you by being there so obviously for your own family. Go to whatever lengths you must to bring them your love and care.
For while Solomon says that a wise son makes his father glad, we also must understand that a wise son is nurtured and instructed in such wisdom by loving parents who teach him, watch over him, and support him. They must do everything they can to teach him not to be foolish. This will involve discipline, but also explanation. There is no lesson so useless as the one that is nothing but “Do it over” with no guidance, no compassion, no Christian love. For that is neither teaching nor rebuking nor correcting nor training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). It is nothing but bullying, and a good parent must stand as far away from being a bully as from any other violation of the commandments.
For if we expect that our children “revere their parents as God’s representatives” (Large Catechism, Fourth Commandment §108), then let us realize how insurmountable our task is to be such representatives to them. Let us look to Christ for forgiveness in every one of our failings, so that we sooner forgive our children for theirs.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.