Take the proverb: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6)
Wooden literalism takes that statement as a fact, or actually an absolute promise. A LOT of parents of wayward offspring have suffered a tremendous amount of guilt from such an interpretation...thinking that if their child as an adult has chosen to walk away from the Lord, this verse is stating unequivocally it is THEIR fault.
However, the book of Proverbs, having the genre of Wisdom literature, and being proverbs, or truisms, means that the original writer (Solomon) did NOT intend to be writing a promise, nor did his original readers understand it that way.... rather these are truisms, or an "all things being equal, then..." statements. Many such proverbs also speak of wealth and prosperity too....and the (heretical) "health and wealth" gospel is built on a general ignorance on the nature of proverbs and Wisdom literature genre in the Bible.
It is no accident either that amidst the most narrow, back-woods fundamentalist churches, wooden literalistic interpretation (ignorantly ignoring the genre...and therefore the author's original intent) is the norm, along with concomitant dispensational theology.
Take the proverb: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6)
Wooden literalism takes that statement as a fact, or actually an absolute promise. A LOT of parents of wayward offspring have suffered a tremendous amount of guilt from such an interpretation...thinking that if their child as an adult has chosen to walk away from the Lord, this verse is stating unequivocally it is THEIR fault.
I have heard such rationalized UnBiblical tripe all my adult life. First from many Pastors and then from many psychologist colleagues and professors.
In 63 years of watching parenting closely and the results closely, I have
AN EXCEPTION to that Scripture.
Never have.
In every case of the dozen or so cases where Pastors or professors or others asserted a given family was an exception, it only took me 3-5 minutes or less to ask a handful of questions sufficient to find out where the parenting was lacking.
Usually, in some key ways at some critical times to critical intensities, the parents had over emphasized "spare the rod and spoil the child" and
UTTERLY IGNORED "Provoke not your children to wrath."
And in many cases, the public personna of the parents was presumed to be the family personna which usually was quite different in harsh, hypocritical or worse ways.
I have NEVER found Scripture to prove untrue. Certainly not in this case either.
Interpreting Scriptrue literally where at all remotely possible is good horse sense and Holy Spirit fostered wisdom.
NOT doing so is ignorance and idiocy--usually combined horribly to the point where they stinketh.