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Top X July 9, 2025 Devotional

by David Joynt on July 09, 2025


PROVERBS 22:6 | 6 Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.

 

Yesterday we talked about honoring our connections to parents and previous generations of spiritual pioneers, acknowledging the debt we owe to saints, martyrs, and apostles. They founded churches and schools, developed creeds, endured persecution and suffering, and created traditions and patterns of worship, mission and justice-seeking.

There is a self-interest also in practicing “elder care.” Life is a circle, and as we care for our aging parents, we are teaching our children how to value and care for us. Someday we will need their support and love too.

 

Have you had to care for parents or older relatives? How did it affect you?

 

 

Gracious God,

May I keep the fifth command in real and tangible ways. Help me bless the elders in my family and community.

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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