Does your daughter draw attention to herself by noisy silliness?  Does your son get easily flattered and distracted by popularity?  Such tendencies certainly are normal, but these seemingly harmless attributes can expose your children to serious moral danger if left untrained by biblical teaching.  Furthermore, the security of your children’s future marriage relationships can be impaired if you indulge your daughters and sons in experiences of emotional bonding which stem from these attractions. 

            Often as parents it is easy to make a significant error of judgment when we focus on the “innocent” enjoyment a child may gain by an experience.  We often fail to discern whether or not the experience is appropriate with respect to lifelong patterns we are establishing.  Certainly, many childish manifestations appear to be innocent and sweet to experience; but are they appropriate?  In short, any action, desire or feeling which shows a singular kind of attention that is appropriate for marriage is inappropriate for any other relationship.  Such affections may be sweet, but they are stolen; stolen from their proper future expression to the spouse not yet revealed.

            A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.  For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city,   To call passengers who go right on their ways:   Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him,   Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.   But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.  Prov. 9:13 -18 

            Here we have a clear biblical teaching on stolen affections.  If examined carefully, we will discover that God’s purposeful deposit to the woman in Genesis 3:16 (the desire for her husband), if left untrained, can make victims out of both our young ladies and our young men.  Only prudent parenting can bring forth the beauty and purity of our young people untarnished as a happy product of the grace of God.  Prudent training is the key to personal virtue just as surely as its lack will lead to the self-victimization of our children to themselves. 

            First, some definitions.  A foolish  woman is clamorous; foolish  as in silly or stupid, and clamorous  as to make a loud sound.  She is simple, and knoweth nothing.  The word simple in this verse is pethayûwth (peth-ah-yooth’)  in the Hebrew and means silly, as in an ability to flatter, allure, entice, seduct, etc. Webster defines it as consisting of one thing, uncombined with anything else.  Know  means to ascertain by seeing, to discern, to perceive, and nothing  means emphatically, no, nothing at all.  What is being said in verse 13?  A foolish  woman is one who noisily draws attention to herself:  she is silly so as to flatter and allure (as if male affection equals the single value of all life--see verses 14-18).  She cannot ascertain wisdom by her own observation  and as a result she knows nothing at all of wisdom or discretion.

            Two more words are worthy of attention.  Verse 17 describes her logic: “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”               To her, the core values of life are determined practically by what can be done under the protection of disguise or covert privacy. That which no one knows cannot hurt anyone.  This concept applied to thievery is enlightening: who could ever fault a kiss stolen in secret?  This demonstrates how little the simple can know by their own insight.  “[They] know not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.”

            The stupidity of the simple is demonstrated for us in verses 14 - 16.  “For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city,  To call passengers who go right on their ways:  Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, stolen waters are sweet…”.   The undisciplined feminine desire to be desired becomes a reckless guided missile that cunningly seeks its target and destroys both the woman and the man together.  The woman is a predator and a victim of her own desire, not seeing her own destruction.  The man is a victim as a sucker in a scam, believing the appearance of what is offered as free and clear of consequence. 

We parents are stupid also if we fail to understand.  The moral failure of our children is going to arise first from the inward predatory nature of their own foolishness, which came bound up in their heart at birth.  (Prov. 22:15) 

            Predators generally catch prey that is vulnerable because it is astray from the protection and safety of the group.  Satan , the roaring lion, also seeks those that he may devour the same way.  When a child is left to himself, he can only consider the way that seems right to him; he is not able to discern that the end of his understanding is the way of death. 

            What is the doctrine of the stolen affections?  The Scripture teaches that a foolish woman noisily draws attention to herself, often repeating loud words.  She is silly with an ability to seduct, entice and flatter as if that is the only purpose of her whole person.  She has no ability to discern wisdom or prudence in her actions by her own observations.  Consequentially, she is a thief of her singular affections and she depends on a false feeling of protection (by disguise and secrecy) to condone her stealing, and to attract her prey.  In the end, she victimizes herself and reduces every male victim to her kind of stupidity, and so brings them to the depths of hell.

            What can we teach our child-ren so as to avoid this destruction at their own hands?  Prudence! It is the false appearance of no consequence that entices one into sins of the flesh.  Such appearance of safety is irrefutable to the natural reprobate mind (Rom. 1:22) and therein lies the death trap.  (Note how most modern efforts to curb the problems associated with this foolishness of immoral ingratiation are focused on improving the deceptive veil of safety and protection from the consequences rather than the cause.) 

            Our young men need to develop a keen alertness to the danger of the strange woman by being able recognize her odious manner, and by fleeing before there can be the least entanglement in the tentacle of her alluring flattery.   God helping us, we must make a surface judgment of inner motive based upon the least appearance of feminine silliness no matter what the occasion or the medium. This is the role of the protector, over comer and spiritual head; we as parents (fathers) and our sons as future husbands/fathers-in-training! 

            Our dear daughters need to seek proper covering and protection from the loss and destruction that stolen affections can bring upon themselves (and their future spouse).   The affection of a husband is not all there is to marriage or life.  The woman’s feminine gift is given exclusively for contributing to the dynamics of the marriage relationship.  Thus, it needs to be preserved and protected from thieves of every sort and in every manner.  Developing a meek and quiet spirit (1Pet.3), avoiding the vanity of beauty and seeing past the deceitfulness of favor (Prov.31) will go a long way toward happily protecting and preserving her wholly and entirely a virgin.

            Learning prudence by understanding the gift of feminine creation, and its Divine adjustments at The Fall, will help to bring her desires under the control of her will.   She will be able to use the energy from them to preserve her feelings for their proper future expression.  Walking in family relationships (especially with her dad), and family-like relationships, with all purity, is absolutely essential before  she even begins to think about a husband.

            Two other character qualities are imperative for both our young men and our dear young ladies.  Developing an abhorrence for stealing of the tiniest sort and avoiding indulgence in secret imaginings and unaccountable privacy.  Paul taught that working with our hands diligently so that we might have an excess to give him that has need corrects the thief.  Secrecy should be eliminated with a proper understanding of the accountability we have before God. (The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. Prov.15:3). 

            These con-siderations are essential if we are to preserve our children from lifelong scars of stolen affections.  It is time that we be done with the mindless pacification of our children’s carnal natures and lay hold of them by the grace of God for the glory of His purposes in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

“Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.  A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.” Prov. 18:1-2   

Will we be wise or fools?