SHOULD NOT THE OLD TEACH THE YOUNG?

Wisdom has always ruled that the young should be taught by the old. Plato’s Republic prepares the guardians of the state until they are well passed the middle years. The ancient Jews viewed children as the most important part of their community and their education their most sacred task. Since the knowledge they taught was deposited mostly in memory rather than books, the aged, who had stored up knowledge like a cistern, were the trusted teachers.

The Jewish synagogue was not a “house of worship” but a house of instruction, and it was the seasoned teacher who taught “the wisdom of the ancients.” Even the Christ was schooled in the synagogue, sitting at the feet of his elders, and the God of heaven waited until he was “over 30” or something like that, and had grown in wisdom and stature, before He sent him out as a teacher (Lk. 2:52).

It was in the synagogue that the budding teacher did his “practice teaching” under the guidance of his elders. The synagogues were small and numerous, with as many as 480 in Jerusalem alone. Since there were seven readers for every Sabbath lesson the youth had opportunity to develop. We can see the growing Jesus and then Jesus as a man in his 20’s reading again and again in his home congregation in Nazareth, sometimes no doubt with attending remarks, not only on the Sabbath but on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well. There was nothing unusual, therefore, in his appearance before his home synagogue once he began his ministry, which ended in an uproar (Lk. 4:16-30). The uproar was caused over the interpretation that he gave the messianic text in Isaiah, applying it to himself. He probably had not confronted his elders like that before, but he was now a teacher, called of God, an itinerant rabbi interpreting the law, which he did not do as a young reader.

The early church followed the way of the synagogue, their assemblies being teaching situations. It was centuries before the church had edifices known as houses of worship. For the first several decades their only Bible was the Old Testament. In it they read: “Hear, a sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight” (Pro. 4:1). The verses that follow show how the author of the proverbs had been taught by his father in his youth. The center for this teaching was the home as well as the synagogue. Referring to the statutes that God had given, they read in Deut. 6:7: “Teach them diligently to your children, and 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 up.”

One Jewish king, a son of wise Solomon, lives in infamy because “he forsook the counsel which the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him” (l Kgs. 12:8). Our youth today do not need the wisdom of those they have grown up with as much as the wisdom of those seasoned by long years of study, such as referred to in Titus 2:3-4: “Bid the older women likewise to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children.” And God, the great shepherd of us all, has given His church under-shepherds in the form of elders who are “apt to teach” to watch after the sheep. It is apparent that lambs are not to be watched after by other lambs!

I realize that in our youth-oriented culture, the age of the face lift, it is hardly appropriate to speak in behalf of age and experience. Few there are these days who would agree with the poet Goldsmith when he said: “I love everything that’s old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines,” or with Joseph Campbell when he penned: “As a white candle in a holy place, so is the beauty of an aged face.”

Yet there must be many who agree with me, especially among the young. I noted with interest that 19,000 young people crowded into Madison Square Garden to hear the pope, and a perennial complaint of those who go to the big universities is that they are too often taught by grad students and junior profs rather than by the older, seasoned profs, who are often immersed in research. I wrote a reference letter recently for a university student who is eager to get into a special program for an elect few, to be taught by a renowned visiting professor whose hair has long since blossomed into gray. I visited years ago with W. E. Garrison at the University of Houston who was still teaching in his 90’s after retiring from Chicago, and he had plenty of students in his classes.

My rather extensive acquaintance with high schools through the years indicates that the teachers in most demand are often those who have been at their posts for decades. Those right out of college often have to prove themselves to the students. It is also true that there is hardly “a generation gap” when it comes to scout leaders, camp directors, coaches, and those who ride herd on hiking and skiing jaunts.

The older leading and teaching the younger is a tradition sanctified by history and Scripture alike, and yet trends among our churches appear to ignore this when it comes to teaching our youth. The so-called “youth minister” is very much with us, and much of the spiritual education of our young people is turned over to someone who is often but a kid himself. The church presumes that the youth will no longer listen to the old, who are now those “over 30” and up, so a youth is imported to do what the home and church have done all these centuries.

It should strike us as amiss that any Body of believers would have to import someone to teach and entertain their youth, and it is often the case that there is more entertaining than teaching, with no little coddling involved in some cases. A case could be made for the claim that only affluent churches and spoiled kids gave place to the youth minister. In my meanderings among the churches I hear it said of the youth, They want a minister of their own! But I am persuaded that it is not spoiled kids as much as it is spoiled parents. What gave birth to the youth minister is the simple fact that the older ones do not really want to be the Body of Christ, which is to function by “the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph. 4:16).

It says each part is to “work properly,” and this makes for Body growth. By committed service the church “build itself up in love,” by being joined and knit together. In every church there are those who can take the kids on hay rides and to the Pizza parlors and teach them about Jesus all the way. If it is true that “they don’t want any of us doing it,” which I also hear, then they are spoiled, but I am persuaded that our youth will respond to older leadership within the church that points them to Jesus and to serious Bible study. Such a ministry should have outreach, with the kids touching lives that hurt (such as visits to hospitals, shut-ins, nursing homes) rather than always being self-serving.

If we will really believe in our young people, assuming that they want to be spiritual and Biblically literate, and prepare that kind of table before them, they will respond. If they experiment with dope, goof off with the most worldly in school, and get involved in heavy petting and sex, it may be because parents and church have too superficial a religion. I am not talking about being strict necessarily, but in making religion vital. The church and parents alike are to be more concerned with what our kids need rather than with what they want. And a church must learn to meet its needs through mutual ministry and commitment rather than by importation. The best way to have a church of spectators is to hire out all the ministries. Has God called us to sit in church and put money into a basket?

The youth minister is not likely to go away, but that is not my point anyway. He has as much a place in the system we have created as any other kind of minister. I believe, in the light of Scripture, that every believer is to be a minster, and that we should mutually build up the Body, with the shepherd-elders exercising the oversight. If we import ministers (we should really be exporting them into all the world!) it should be for community evangelism and outreach. I would assign the youth minister to service among children and the very aged in the community. Think of the children that no church ever reaches, who can be seen playing in their yards as you drive to church. And the very old in all sorts of places are the forgotten ones who need to be with youth, not so much to be taught as to be loved. They are the ones we should coddle for Jesus’ sake.

While there is a sense in which everybody is to teach everyone else, the young the old as well as the old the young, the divine order is to be respected. The elders are to teach the church, the young women are to be taught by the older women, etc. When a church, or any substantial part of it, is generally taught by youth, it appears to this editor at least to be a satire upon all that the wisdom of the ages says to us. I think of this when I see a youth barely out of college in the pulpit of our churches, assigned the role of minister and principal teacher of hundreds, while grey-haired elders and seasoned teachers twice or thrice his age are made spectators. --- the Editor

 

Our bound volume for 1979 will be ready later in the year. You need not order if you are on our list to receive it. Four other bound volumes are still available: The Restoration Mind (1971-72) at 4.95; The Word Abused (1975-76) at 5.95; Principles of Unity and Fellowship (1977) at 5.50; The Ancient Order (1978) at 5.50. The next issue of this journal will be September, 1980. We do not publish in July or August.