And The Truth Parents and Pastors Must Know
There is a battle today, even if it is invisible or of which we are naively unsuspecting, over who teenagers are and what we should expect from them. Specifically there is an attack on the biblical truth of young adulthood. We are obligated to fight for the glory of Christ and must do so even in His work in the lives of our young people.
We urgently need to remember Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 10,
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…
The word arguments in verse five refers to thoughts, ideas, speculations, and philosophies that are the ideological forts in which men barricade themselves against God and the gospel. Our culture has built a stronghold of lies around teenagers that intends to defend their irresponsibility. We excuse their immaturity and rebellion by diagnosing them as slaves of their hormones rather than slaves of sin. The prescription is typically medicine, not the Messiah. But these arguments and rationalizations are raised against the knowledge of God must be destroyed by Scripture.
We are responsible to fight against the false opinions of the culture, not through politics but by preaching. Not only that, we are also responsible to avoid thinking and living like the culture ourselves.
Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
I’m afraid that the ideas (and excuses) of adolescence have infiltrated our minds with subtlety and success. We are unaware and unprepared for the enemy who is undercover in our barracks. We diligently need to detect and examine our assumptions about adolescence, whatever they are. All of us have them, whoever we are. Sadly, many of us in the church have bought the lies the world has sold us.
Tomorrow we’ll begin to bust the myth and expose the lies of adolescence.
6 Comments
Hey Sean, James from FBC. Just reading your post and getting some truth from it.
You said, “We excuse their immaturity and rebellion by diagnosing them as slaves of their hormones rather than slaves of sin. The prescription is typically medicine, not the Messiah.”
I love that. Lately in our College group at Faith Bible we have been watching the DVD’s from your Reformation Seminar last summer. Last week we were watching Christ Alone. You brought this same point up in that DVD. It is sad that even us as Followers of Christ often get caught up in focusing on the World and how they will explain things. Instead of the Word Of God.
Well thats my comment James
Good to hear from you, James! Thanks for stopping by the void and for the reminder to be focused on the Word not the world.
What a great post! We cannot be reminded enough of this battle we are in and the war that rages. Thinking about the lies our culture has built around teenagers, it seems like we are into our second or third generation of this. The result is adults who are well into their forties and fifties who still make excuses about their irresponsibilities. In other words, this is a lesson for all of life!
Sean Well said. I don’t know if you’ve thought about it but you should consider putting this and all you’ve written on it in book form. “Busting the myth” might sound a little cheesy for a title but it’s a start to prod our thinking. Thanks for unashamedly proclaiming the truth. Greg
Sean,
In reference to:
“We excuse their immaturity and rebellion by diagnosing them as slaves of their hormones rather than slaves of sin. The prescription is typically medicine, not the Messiah. But these arguments and rationalizations are raised against the knowledge of God must be destroyed by Scripture.
We are responsible to fight against the false opinions of the culture, not through politics but by preaching. Not only that, we are also responsible to avoid thinking and living like the culture ourselves.”
THANK YOU! Our family has been fighting this thinking for YEARS at our previous church, with the response usually being something to the effect of: “Who are YOU to contradict the diagnosis and prescription of a MEDICAL DOCTOR?!”, or, “That’s just YOUR interpretation of the Bible.” It seemed that every time we turned around we’d learn that someone else had been diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, bi-polar disorder, depression, you name it and they were being medicated for it!
With no support anywhere, even from the church leadership, some of whom were deeply entrenched in psychological thinking, it was very discouraging.
It is a joy to now be a part of a fellowship of believers who recognize the dangers of following the tide of man’s wisdom and who diligently look to God’s Word “to detect and examine our assumptions” and who recognize it (God’s Word) as the final authority regarding what is Truth and what is not.
Here here! We want a book! We want a book!
Can’t you hear the crowds chanting for you, Sean.
We want a book! We want a book!