“We’ve made my son
an elder at the church now,” commented the interim pastor
apologetically at a cause where I was the visiting speaker. “He
should be on duty tonight, but I’m afraid he always turns up late.”
A quarter of an hour after the service had begun, a man in his
twenties slunk into the back pew, took no active part in the
proceedings and seemed quite disengaged from what was happening.
Clearly this was the pastor’s son. He had nothing to contribute to
the conversation after the service. If he said anything at all, it
had nothing spiritual about it.
I came away from the
scene disillusioned and with a poor impression of the set-up at that
place. If the young man had any faith to speak of, it looked as
though it had been borrowed from his father. He gave no sign of
having a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was
an elder! Surely this was a dismal reflection on both church and
pastor. The pastor was not a strong enough character to challenge his
son, and the church members had not queried the son’s promotion for
fear of offending the father.
In my time I’ve been
privileged to meet a number of keen high-profile Christians and their
families. Some children grow up a credit to their parents. Not only
do they follow their good examples, but they have a lively faith of
their own which they can pass on. Some children, alas, disappoint
their active Christian parents by rebelling against the faith
altogether. Others, lacking what their parents have, aim to please
and show willing. They deserve some credit for staying
under the Christian banner when their peers ridicule their stand. Yet
there is a huge gulf between agreeing to uphold a Christian family
tradition and having your own life-changing meeting with the Saviour.
Recently the
ever-useful Our Daily Bread notes reflected on the career of King
Joash of Judah – a lesser-known monarch, ninth in succession to the
great King David. His career started well. He had a wise counsellor
by his side – his own uncle, Jehoiada, the chief priest. Cindy Hess
Kasper comments,
“But once his uncle was no longer there to teach
and lead by example, Joash fell away and his life ended badly … It
seems that the roots of his faith did not run very deep. He even
began to worship idols. Perhaps Joash’s ‘faith’ had been more
his uncle’s than his own.
“Others can teach us
the principles of their faith, but each of us must come individually
to a lasting and personal faith in Christ.”
I sometimes tried to
sing to my congregations an old gospel song that puts the point
plainly and challengingly. There are variations on the words, but the
chorus of the version I know goes:
"You've got to walk that lonesome valley; You've got to walk it by yourself. There's no-one here can walk it for you; You've got to walk it by yourself” (Traditional).
To
grow up in a Christian home is surely a great blessing. In most cases
you are surrounded by wholesome talk, mild manners, love and
encouragement. Differences are settled by reasoned discussion, not
aggression. There is even a strand of Christian thought which argues
that the faith of parents transmits itself to the children. They
absorb the Christian way, so to speak, with their mother’s milk.
The apostle Paul congratulates his pupil Timothy on having faithful
forebears:
“I
have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your
grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now
lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5, NIV).
Further,
he called Timothy his spiritual son. He had commissioned him to
Christian work by the laying on of hands. Yet, valuable though all of
this was, Timothy needed to take ownership of his faith for himself:
“For
this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is
in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a
spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of
self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:6,7).
If
you’ve had a good start in life, praise God. But that doesn’t
excuse you from responsibility for your own good continuation and
good ending.
