Posted on 10/19/2021 12:00:37 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping” (Proverbs 19:13).
“A foolish son is the calamity of his father,” how would you feel if you sunk a fortune into a thing and it turned out to be a dud? That is a calamity. A waste of time, a waste of money, and a waste of effort. One can put a lot of work into the rearing of a child, and yet that child turns out to a fool. I wish it were possible to say, “Do this and do this, and every one of your children will turn out to be perfect.” Sadly, it just isn’t going to happen.
You can be just as good with them as you can, just as kind, just as compassionate as one can be, and use proper correction in their formative years, and still end up with one the will rebel and shame you.
It isn’t something that can be easily understood, although generally when you raise them right they will turn out right, but at the same time each of us has a free will and will ultimately do what we personally want to do—whether to rebel or to obey the Lord. It is a great misfortune and a calamity to have a child turn out to be a fool.
“. . . and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping,” you ever see a rock worn away by the process of erosion? This is exactly what a contentious wife will do to her family. She just kind of wears everybody down and destroys everyone’s patience with her.
One fellow said, “Everything little thing will set my wife off,” and the other man said, “Not my wife, she is a self-starter.” Another guy put on his wife’s tombstone: “Here lies my wife, here let her lie. She is at rest, and so am I!”
Now, if we wonder why the son turned out to be foolish, and the fact that this contentious woman is mentioned in the same verse—one has to wonder at the connection.
A contentious wife will question, discuss, debate, or oppose most anything. She presumes her ideas are at least as good as his. She constantly talks back. She is proud, stubborn, and self-righteous. She cannot follow; she must lead. She asks too many questions, makes too many suggestions, and does not cheerfully obey. She loves to correct her husband, who never gets facts just right. But she will seldom accept correction herself. She always has a reason why tonight is not a good night! Or why the next morning is not night!
The continual dropping here is a very rainy day. You cannot stop it; it keeps on dropping. You cannot stop her noise and resistance. These are not pleasant raindrops on a secure roof; they are the irritating drops of a leaking roof that destroy tranquility and peace. Any man who has tried to sleep near a leaking faucet understands perfectly. She is torture! The foolish son may be cast out; the contentious wife must be endured. The foolish son is in his room; the contentious wife is in your bed! O take me, precious death!
Therefore, let every man take great care how he marries and how his sons marry. Young fools do not know how to judge women, so fathers must help them, lest they are consigned to fifty years with this woman. Fathers, by the very nature of the relationship, you have more experience in marriage to a woman than your son has in the ignorance and folly of childhood and youth. You have been married longer than he has been alive!
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There are three passages that say that exact same thing.
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