Description The Fear of the Lord Is the Beginning of Knowledge The Bible is the most remarkable specialized book on raising children. From Genesis to Revelation, God's will for child-rearing is recorded in great detail. God desires that children receive blessing for a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 5:10), and He wants that blessing to be passed on through the channel of "child-rearing." Unfortunately, there are so many parents who have a burning interest in raising their children well, reading many books on parenting, yet never read the Bible. Even though the blessing of child-rearing overflows within Scripture, they fail to claim that blessing as their own. If we were to summarize the countless verses in the Bible about raising children into a single verse, it would be Proverbs 1:7: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." This is precisely what is meant by the principle of "the fear of the Lord as the foundation of knowledge." The core of this principle is that "the fear of the Lord" and "the foundation of knowledge" are not separate, but deeply connected. (...omitted...) The Bible says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Faith and academics, faith and scholarship, are connected. God is not anti-intellectual. He does not want our children to remain ignorant. God, who created all knowledge, does not want His children to be estranged from that knowledge. God truly desires that our children become wise, discerning, and become "the foundation of knowledge" themselves. Do you truly want your children to become "the foundation of knowledge"? Then the answer is clear: teach them to fear the Lord. Parents who wish for their children to be wise must stake everything on "the fear of the Lord." This is the teaching of Scripture, and the testimony of countless people throughout history. The Bible presents two representative examples of teaching the fear of the Lord — one a success, and one a failure. The success story is Abraham's raising of his son. Abraham practiced teaching the fear of the Lord to Isaac, the son born to him at the age of one hundred. The climax of that teaching came on Mount Moriah, at the moment Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice. What do you suppose Isaac learned in that moment? Through his father Abraham, who obeyed God even to the point of offering up his own son, Isaac must have learned deep in his bones what it truly means to fear the Lord. At that moment, the angel of the Lord said to Abraham, "Now I know that you fear God" (Genesis 22:12). The failure story is Eli's raising of his sons. Eli was a priest, yet he failed in raising his children — he failed in teaching them to fear the Lord. The problem with Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, was not a matter of IQ or which school they attended. Their problem was that they despised the Lord's offerings and slept with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting — in short, they did not fear the Lord. Being a priest does not automatically guarantee success in raising one's children. The fact that Eli, though an excellent priest, failed in raising his own sons should serve as a warning today to pastors and church leaders alike regarding the raising of their children. What did the man of God say to Eli? "You honor your sons more than me" (1 Samuel 2:29). In the end, Eli loved his two sons more than he loved God, and so he failed in teaching them to fear the Lord. God says, "Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained" (1 Samuel 2:30). — From Part 1, "The Principle of the Fear of the Lord as the Foundation of Knowledge"