Youth, while not prominent in the Biblical record, are far from absent. Joseph, when only 17, was sold into slavery and abandoned by his own brothers. Yet he lived for God, and did not yield to temptation, although victimized again and again. He even forgave his brothers years later. David was under 20 when he fought Goliath. Even the great judge Samuel overlooked this shepherd boy, but God saw in him the making of a king.
Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in their teen years when ripped from their homes and taken to Babylon to be indoctrinated at the order of the pagan king. Scholars note they likely began their spiritual stand at about the age of middle schoolers in our day. Josiah became king at 8, began major reforms at 16, and led a great revival a few years later. Timothy was told by Paul that although he was considered a youth, he was to be an example to the church.
Today churches often unwittingly treat youth like fourth graders more than young adults. Too many adults act as though teens are really just children finishing up childhood, needing entertainment more than enlightenment. I would argue that youth are young adults moving into adulthood, who need to be trained, mentored, and encouraged to live for God.
My colleague at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, New Testament professor David Alan Black, argues that biblically there are three stages to one's life:
1. Childhood/pre-adulthood (ages 1-12)
2. Emerging Adulthood (ages 12-30)
3. Senior Adulthood (ages 30-death)
He notes that these stages can be seen in the life of Jesus (Luke 2:41-52; 3:23; and the remainder of the Gospel, respectively), and in the persons John describes in his first epistle ("little children," "young people," and "fathers"). The transitions are significant: puberty at age 12, and the move to responsible adulthood at about age 30.
The Old Testament denotes other categories. For example, in the Pentateuch, men 20 and older were fit for war (see Numbers 26), and only those 20 and older could give an offering (Exodus 30:14). While these and other distinctives are found in the Old Covenant, Black's argument stands, particularly his emphasis on the fact that the Bible knows nothing of the separate place of the teen years and the concomitant understanding of adolescence so prevalent in American culture, including within the church.
Myths about youth
The rise of the concept of adolescence in my view has led our culture, both in the church and outside, to become systematically organized to fabricate two myths about youth. First, it encourages teen-agers to behave like grade school children instead of young adults. Second, it perpetuates the notion that the teen-age years of necessity must expect rebellion, sarcasm, narcissism, and general evildoing.
"Sowing wild oats" has become a popular term for what is expected of youth, including churched youth, during their young adult days. Certainly hormonal changes and rapid maturation over a brief time opens the opportunity for such behavior if left unchecked. But that is my point: We must not let the bar of expectation be set so lowly.
Increasingly, voices are sounding a challenge to the notion of adolescent behavior. Soon after the Columbine tragedy, Time magazine featured a back page article calling into question the way society as a whole has treated young people in recent generations.
Lance Morrow observes:
Humans. . . have turned the long stretch from puberty to autonomy into a suspended state of simultaneous overindulgence and neglect. American adolescence tends to be disconnected from the adult world and from the functioning expectation . . .of entering that world and assuming a responsible place there. The word adolescence means, literally, growing up. No growing up occurs if there is nothing to grow up to. Without the adult connection, adolescence becomes a neverland, a Mall of Lost Children. . . .
Morrow noted the week before that Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, suggested in a New York Times op-ed piece, "The American High School is obsolete and should be abolished." He added, "At 16, young Americans are prepared to be taken seriously . . . They need to enter a world where they are not in a lunchroom only with their peers."
Morrow then offers a fascinating opinion coming from the mainstream, secular media:
Maybe we should abolish adolescence altogether. Not the biological part, . . .We are stuck with that. But it would be nice if we could get rid of the cultural mess we have made of the teen-age years. Having deprived children of an innocent childhood, the least we would do is rescue them from an adolescence corrupted by every sleazy, violent and commercially lucrative fantasy that untrammeled adult venality, high-horsing on the First Amendment, can conceive.
He notes how in 1951 J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, "one of the founding documents of American adolescence," described Holden Caulfield, a young man who was expelled from a prep school. After donning a red hat, a kid asked whether it were a deer shooting hat. Squinting as if aiming to shoot, Caulfield replied, "This is a people shooting hat. I shoot people in it." A generation later, life has imitated life.
Black's summation of the result of this is telling:
It is my conviction that the social theory of adolescence undermines both the Christian understanding of human nature and the way in which Christians analyze moral thought. It underscores the modern disinclination to treat a person as responsible for his or her actions. When we assert the "fact" that children are to act like children rather than like adults, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Challenge them
Youth ministry that treats youth like children will resemble a YMCA-like activities organization. Youth ministry that treats youth as young adults ready to be challenged to live for God, to be a David or a Joseph, will give much attention to building biblical truth and character in the lives of students.
The first recorded words spoken by Jesus in the Gospels came when he was only 12. What were the words of this young Messiah? "I must be about my Father's business." Not a bad thing to teach youth today stepping from childhood to the road of adulthood.
Alvin L. Reid is Professor of Evangelism at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., where he also serves as the founding Bailey Smith Chair of Evangelism. He and his wife, Michelle, both Alabama natives, have two children, Joshua and Hannah.
Reid earned a Ph.D. in evangelism from Southwestern Seminary and has previously served as a church pastor or staff member in Texas and Alabama. He regularly is called to speak at churches or conferences across the United States.
Reid writes on evangelism, spiritual awakening and church growth. His most recent book is "Light the Fire: Raising Up a Generation to Live Radically for Jesus." His book "The Radically Unchurched: Who They Are and How to Reach Them" is scheduled for release this year by Kregel Publications.
Sources for this article:
Taken from "Raising the Bar: Student Ministry in the New Millennium," faculty lecture by Alvin L. Reid. The entire lecture is available at www.alvinreid.com.
David Alan Black, The Myth of Adolescence (Yorba Linda, California: Davidson Press, 1998).
Ibid., 6.
Lance Morrow, "The Boys and the Bees: The Shootings Are One More Argument for Abolishing Adolescence," Time (May 31, 1999), 110.
Black, Myth of Adolescence,17.
