Accurate Transmission

Did you have a mentor? Someone you looked up to? Maybe it was someone who was the wise professor whom you could turn to for advice. Maybe it was the grandfather type when you were missing that role in your life. Maybe it was the old soul with whom you shared a love of music and art. But it was someone you could turn to. Someone who would guide you. And someone whose views you began to adopt as your own because you trusted them to lead you. Many, if not all of us, have or had someone like that in our lives. Someone who was there in our formative years. The question is, who is that younger person in our lives? The one that looks to us for the answers.

When we figure out who that is, whether it be our kids, grandkids, students, or young entrepreneurs, we are still left with a very serious question. What are we teaching the next generation? What are the lessons we are giving them? And it’s not always with our words. Our actions and the things we spend most of our time on speaks volumes to our kids and the generation that is emerging. Is it to work, work, work? Is it the influence of social media? Which political party is the right one? The world culture around us continues to shift. What is right is often hidden behind an agenda and it has a direct impact on the believers and leaders of tomorrow. However, that’s not the truth that we see in Scripture. As far back as when Moses received the law from God on Mount Sinai, we read and hear the truth of our responsibility to the next generation. Moses heard all that God directed him to tell the people of Israel. Moses passed it on saying, The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NIV).

This message would be passed down from generation to generation for over 1400 years until Jesus spoke them to be the greatest commandment. It was, and is, a message that needed to be transmitted with clarity and urgency. It’s a message that goes ahead of every other thing present in our world. But the question remains, are we teaching it to the next generation with the same urgency as those who came before us? Are we mentoring and raising a generation who can see past societal pressures and the newest trends? Are we discipling in our homes the way that Moses instructed the people of Israel? That above all things, we are to love God with all of our being. Jesus would take it further to say we are also to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39).

The faith of the next generation depends on how we disciple them. How we mentor them. Are we doing all we can to effectively raise a generation of believers who will carry the accurate transmission of the gospel onto the next?