Proverbs 29.21
“Whoever pampers his servant from childhood will in the end find him his heir.”
The Hebrew word for “pampers” in this verse occurs only once in the Old Testament, and it means to “to indulge, treat delicately, treat another with extreme or excessive care and attention.” Thus, the first part of the proverb speaks about a lord of a household who pampers his servants.
He indulges them. He doesn’t train them to be good servants. He doesn’t train them to be diligent workers. Instead, he pampers them, indulges them, spoils them.
If the lord of the household wanted good servants to work on his farm, he had to train them, not indulge and pamper them. If the lord of the household wanted good servants to help his wife with the household chores, then the servants had to be trained, not pampered.
Pampering is the opposite of good training.
However, it goes beyond training for a disciplined work ethic. There is a character issue here. The Hebrew word also suggests that the untrained, pampered servant will become “unmanageable, a moral character that is deficient to proper order, a grief and sorrow because of the pampering.”
Whether it is a farm, family, factory, or a fellowship … people need to be trained and held accountable to a disciplined work ethic. This is the responsibility of a leader. To fail to train people, or to fail to hold people accountable, is to fail to lead. If you permit it, you promote it.
Trust God and do the work of a leader.
