If I Train Up My Child, Will He Depart?

(Proverbs 22:6) Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. 

I believe every word of Scripture is true, which is to say that I believe it is divinely inspired. It has taken me some time before I could come to the point where I can accept the different genre's of the Bible. The first time I crossed this type of thing is when I heard a preacher say that the verse quoted above is generally true. I thought "what!" "Is the statement true or false preacher man?" But he was merely indicating what I have come to understand about some of the statements in the book of Proverbs.

Some of the literary features that the ESV study Bible points out are as follows..
1. Proverbs is a collection of anthology of individual proverbs.
2. A proverb is a concise, memorable statement of two or three lines.
3. A proverb works by making comparisons, leaving the reader to work out how the proverb applies to different situations.
4. A proverb often supplies a contradiction.
5. Proverbs of necessity focus on consequences, and raises the question of whether they are "promises."

Point 5 gets at the question I often had when I read the above verse, wondering whether this was a promise or not. The ESV continues point 5 by saying..."Proverbs by nature deal with general truths, and are not meant to cover every conceivable situation...The competent reader knows that the force of the proverb is not statistical, but behavioral..to urge due caution. In biblical proverbs, the consequences generally make God's basic attitude clear, and thus commend or discourage behavior."

If you and I accept that some proverbs are generally true, and not absolute promises; does that give us the right to disobey the first part of the statement (train up a child in the way he should go)? Should our obedience to God depend on the consequent outcomes of other human beings?

Ephesians 6:44 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 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. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates

Deuteronomy 4:9 “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children—

Timothy is an example of a boy who was trained in the way in which he should go, and when he was older, he did not depart. How do you know O parent, whether you have a future Timothy growing up right under your noses?

2 Timothy 3:14-15 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 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.

Train up your children in the way in which they should go. Paul, who was speaking to Timothy in the verse quoted above, surely had hope in the God of Proverbs 22:6, for his statement is basically the same.