Wisdom for the Young (Part Two)

Part of the problem that confronts young people today is that they—and frankly, all of society—have a devilish misconception of what is fun. It is no joke: What most people consider to be fun stems from a Satan-inspired viewpoint. Etymologically, fun derives from an older English word that means "to hoax, to play a trick on, to deceive." This original word once meant "to fool," and it was also used in the noun form, "a fool." When people play tricks on others, they think the reactions they get are funny. Thus, the modern concept of fun began with deception and humiliation resulting in amusement.

Fun did not come to mean "amusement," "gaiety," or "enjoyment" until the eighteenth century, suggesting that the prevalence of "having fun" is a fairly recent phenomena. In those tougher times—when child mortality was high, life spans were low, and life was hard and dangerous in general—people were more serious as a rule because life was so severe. In more modern times, having overcome many of these problems, society has elevated the concept of "fun" to its current levels. Now people want to have fun all the time and think they deserve it.

Each individual has a different idea of what is fun. Some people consider playing chess or backgammon to be fun. Others feel that playing video games is fun. Many think that actually playing a sport is fun. We all know someone who must believe talking is great fun. To others, their idea of fun is reading a book, watching television or movies, or enjoying a visit with family and friends. People have all kinds of different notions about fun.

Many of today's youth believe that fun must have an edge; it needs to be, not only be amusing, but also be risky, dangerous, even potentially lethal. It is astonishing to realize what some young people consider to be fun—activities that more mature people would consider to be wild, riotous, hazardous, and downright foolish. Their version of fun often begins with alcohol and illicit sex and gets worse—far worse—from there. It descends into dangerous "pranks," illegal activities, and perversions of all kinds. (See "The Century of the Child," in the November 1999 issue of Forerunner, particularly the inset article, "America's Lost Children," for an example.)

Too many of today's young people end up as addicts, either to alcohol or to drugs. Far too many young women resort to abortion, and they sometimes undergo multiple abortions (around one million abortions are performed each year in the United States). A frighteningly high percentage of them wind up with a sexually transmitted disease or three (in America, more than 19 million new cases of sexual disease are reported each year, and half of these occur to young people). About five percent of them begin their adult years with criminal records. Yet, while they were doing all of these things, they thought that they were having fun.

For many teens in the world, this is the current idea of fun. It is not a good and wholesome activity that is amusing or enjoyable, but behavior that is exciting and risky, often containing an edge of rebellion. Certainly, this is not everyone's idea of fun, but as Solomon says about mankind's insatiable desires for more, "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing" (Ecclesiastes 1:8). When one kind of fun loses its edge, a more extreme form takes its place.

Solomon also writes, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him" (Proverbs 22:15). A child's tendency is toward foolish behavior because he does not have the wisdom or the experience to know what is good and right for him to do. Thus, God instructs parents to correct their children, to drive this foolish behavior out of them, and to teach them wisdom, the right and proper way to live. If they are left to themselves, undisciplined, they will likely intensify their foolishness until it becomes extreme and dangerous.

Proverbs 29:15 provides another warning: "The rod and rebuke give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother." Of course, it shames his father too, but it usually affects a child's mother more grievously. Mothers tend to feel the disgrace of their children's dishonorable behavior acutely, whereas a father is more apt to react in anger. Foolish behavior that leads to trouble and shame is frequently what results when unruly young people conceptualize and enact what they in their immaturity think is fun.

Ministers use Proverbs 29:18 in many situations, but it relates directly to the behavior of youth: "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but happy is he who keeps the law." The first half of this verse could be paraphrased as, "When people do not have a godly vision to work toward, they run wild." This applies to everybody, of course, but it applies in spades to young people because they have not developed the internal restraints that the more mature have. Unrestraint surfaces more quickly in a child, especially if he does not have a set of rules to follow and a goal to work toward. His behavior is likely to be chaotic. It is the parents' job to place restraints on a youth's unruly nature and to guide him in the narrow way (Matthew 7:13-14), so that he grows into a happy, functioning adult in society—and, beyond that, into a well-loved and wise member of God's Family, the ultimate goal.

Notice, however, the last half of this verse: "Happy is he who keeps the law." Solomon shows us the most beneficial way to bring to pass true human happiness—true fun, real joy: by getting our children to understand and keep the law. The word happy really means "blessed." As a result of keeping the law, we will be blessed. If children keep their parents' law as well as God's law, they will truly be happy.

However, most young people think that keeping the law—doing what is right—is "uncool," "square," "boring," and "nerdy." This is another of those devilish misconceptions. In this age, virtuous young people are paragons, heroes! God certainly does not consider those who do well to be weird or strange. To the contrary, they are "the apple of His eye" because they please Him.

Unfortunately, a young person in this world is constantly beset by negative peer pressure, and one who worries about what his thrill-seeking peers think of him probably will not do what God says. He is too worried about "being cool" and fitting into his clique. Peer-pressure has always been difficult for the young people in God's church to face. Five days a week, many of them are in public school where they have "friends" that they want to impress—and his cool friends are the ones that urge him to go to the game on Friday night. His most popular friends push him to go to the party at a friend's house where the parents have gone away for the weekend. It always seems to be members of the in-crowd who drink and smoke.

Yet, God says, "You will be happy if you keep the law." Parents need to impress on their children that this world's notion of fun is misguided at the very least. Young people need to be taught from an early age that the first thing they should want is to please God, and that they can do this if they also please their parents (Exodus 20:12). In this way, they can learn a more godly idea of fun.

Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part One)

In the United States, marriage has been under assault for many years, at least for the last five or six decades. We could perhaps pinpoint the publication of the Kinsey Report in the early 1950s as a starting point of the major offensive against marriage. Very quickly after that, the sexual revolution lurched into full swing, launching the era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. While we tend to confine this to the 1960s, that era has never really ended but only transformed over the years. Millions are using their "sexual freedom" to dally with multiple partners before marriage—and continuing the practice even after saying, "I do."

On January 1, 1970, California's no-fault divorce law went into effect, and before long many other states followed suit, easing divorce. In the same decade, feminism reared its head in two major efforts: the legalization of abortion and the push for an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. Abortion—of which there are about a million performed each year—made the consequences of illicit sexual activity easier to avoid.

The next decade saw the onset of AIDS, early on traced to perverse sexual activity among homosexuals, and the rise of the homosexual movement, which has pursued such goals as homosexual rights, hate-crimes legislation, and most recently, homosexual "marriage." Along with AIDS, gonorrhea, and syphilis, at least 25 new sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)—some of which are viral like AIDS—have ravaged many who have participated in the "sexual revolution." Modern medicine cannot really "cure" any of these, only make the symptoms more bearable (although antibiotics can kill Chlamydia and gonorrhea, scars and sometimes infertility may result). These diseases have reached pandemic proportions, as 15.3 million new STD infections happen each year, including over three million in teens.

All of this so-called progress has its effect on marriage. In addition, we cannot forget that potentially huge problems are inherent simply in two different people trying to create a life together. One that should not be minimized is each mate's unique set of sins and weaknesses that must be overcome. Everyone has "baggage," and when a man and a woman try to make a marriage work, they must be prepared to deal with such potential "skeletons in the closet" and their aftermaths.

As the end draws near, those who are married as well as those who desire to be married seem to have the deck stacked against them. Even in good times, marriage has its difficulties. There always seems to be communication problems because men and women do not communicate the same way. Men and women also typically approach life differently—men have a tendency to act first and think later, while women often let their emotions lead. The diverse backgrounds of the bride and groom can set up another possible obstacle, not to mention in-law problems, and when children arrive on the scene, childrearing problems. The inability to harmonize such differences makes many marriages unstable and prone to collapse. Marriage is not an easy proposition.

Marriage is a complex social institution, but it is an important, even vital, part of most people's lives. Although God has not commanded everyone to marry, the greater part of us do. Yet, not everyone is suited to marriage. Jesus teaches in Matthew 19:12 that "there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs [decided not to marry] for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it." Paul echoes this in I Corinthians 7:8, 32: "But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am. . . . He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord." As Jesus says, remaining unmarried is fine if one can master his sexual drive and devote himself to God's work. God is able to work out a person's salvation without the aid of the marriage environment.

However, for the majority of us, the route of marriage is the one we are most likely to take. And, after baptism, the decision to marry is the most important decision we can make, one we should consider most deeply, not only before we make such a sacred vow, but as we go through it. In fact, the marriage vow is merely the beginning of a process of refinement and growth that will not only bind husband and wife more closely, but also enhance the development of holy, righteous, godly character.

Notice Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." In this one verse appears several important, foundational points that relate to marriage. The first is that God created both men and women in His own image.

Before God, a man and a woman are equal, meaning that both have the same potential: to be transformed into the image of God and inherit His Kingdom. Marriage, then, is a union of equals before God. However, Scripture clearly shows that God placed husbands in the position of authority—he is, as has been said, first among equals. Yet, though they are equal in potential, they may or may not be equal in many areas of mental and physical abilities, and they are certainly not the same in emotional makeup or strength. It is evident that men and women have different natural inclinations, skills, and abilities—all the while not making one better than the other.

Being fashioned after God's own body and mind implies that both have human equivalents of God's abilities, desires, goals, preferences, etc. While creating Adam and Eve, God took many of His qualities and distributed them between the male and the female human. Clearly, humanity's God-like qualities are not as excellent as His, since there is a great gulf between what God is and what humanity is, but we have human-level counterparts of what God Himself possesses. As Herbert Armstrong often said, we are made after the God-kind.

This fact makes the relationships that we undertake with others quite important. Genesis 1:27 indicates that we are no longer dealing with just physical associations. In his first mention of mankind in the Bible, God begins by putting man's existence on a spiritual plane by letting us know that He made us in His image. Our relationships, then, also have a God-plane quality to them, suggesting that we need to take them very seriously.

Why? Because the goal of every human being, whether he or she realizes it or not, is to be just like God. Male and female, created in God's image, are on the same track to the same place. So, the relationship between a man and his wife assumes a very spiritual and imperative quality.

In Part Two, we will see that Jesus' teaching on marriage begins in the same place.

Why Bother With Fathers?

American singer/songwriter Billy Joel, 60, is getting divorced—again. He and his third wife, former Top Chef host Katie Lee, 27, are splitting after five years of marriage. The reasons for their divorce—some say infidelity, some say their age difference—are unclear, but Joel’s daughter, Alexa Ray, 23, says that she knew that the couple was having problems, so the breakup came as no surprise to her.

In providing background for the story, the entertainment pages of various media outlets invariably list Joel’s marital résumé. For instance, The Miami-Herald reports typically, “It's the third marriage for Joel, 60, who was first married to his business manager, Elizabeth Weber, and then to model Christie Brinkley, with whom he has his only daughter, Alexa Ray.” What unfortunately immediately came to mind—totally unbidden—was the thought of a horse pedigree: “Secretariat, son of Bold Ruler, out of Somethingroyal.”

It was one of those instant associations that often provide insight—if not only to one’s own mental state—to the world as it really is. First impressions can be frequently spot on because they are flash evaluations uncolored by subsequent rationalizations, also known as second guesses. At that moment, a person sees things as they are presented right then. In this case, that so many Americans live in yours-mine-and-ours households—not to mention single-parent households due to the dual family scourges of illegitimacy and divorce—is fleetingly reminiscent of the temporary liaisons between studs and brood mares.

While this may seem offensive, it has biblical backing, believe it or not. In Jeremiah 13:27, God castigates Judah, particularly the royal family: “I have seen your adulteries and your lustful neighing, the lewdness of your harlotry, your abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you still not be made clean?” Jeremiah seems to be fond of this image, as he uses it again in Jeremiah 5:8: “They were like well-fed lusty stallions; every one neighed after his neighbor’s wife.” Clearly, God is portraying people—who should know better—following their base drives like brute animals.

As steeped in Judeo-Christian values as it is, America is a nation that should know better, yet for at least three generations, the sanctity of marriage has steadily declined among its people until today, when divorce is routine and illegitimacy is commonplace. Back in my grandfather’s day, divorce was still shameful, and most families did not want their sons or daughters marrying a divorced person. However, as society secularized, divorce lost its stigma until no-fault divorce laws swept across the nation. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 20% of marriages are disrupted after five years and one-third of marriages after ten years. As of 2005, the current divorce rate is 3.6 per 1,000 population, while the marriage rate is 7.5 per 1,000, meaning that half of marriages end in divorce.

Further, only in six states—Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah—can someone sue for damages on the basis of alienation of affection in cases of adultery. Most states have recognized that adultery is so commonplace today that a person entering a marriage should expect it to be corrupted by an outside sexual liaison. Caveat emptor now applies to the marriage transaction too.

Another worrying trend is that of women opting for single-motherhood, much as the fictional Murphy Brown did in the sitcom of the same name during the 1991-92 season. It is bad enough when women in their late thirties or early forties, seeing their window of childbearing closing fast, decide to have a child without the benefit of marriage (a category that has grown by 145% since 1980). But it is far worse when young women begin to make the same “lifestyle choice” in their early-to-mid twenties. These days, about 40% of live births in this nation are to single mothers, and in about half of these cases, the mothers are entirely on their own. How many of these young mothers are single mothers by choice is difficult to quantify, but a September 17, 2008, article in The Guardian (U.K.) reports that, there as in this country, “a growing number of young women are now turning to artificial insemination and embracing single motherhood.”

In all of these situations, the disposable factor seems to be the father. Society’s definition of fatherhood seems to be dwindling toward the idea of sperm donation and little more. The father might be replaced—or not, depending on the whim of the mother. As one of the young British women in The Guardian article commented about her daughter, “I think there are some children who grow up perfectly well without male role models—and she has got my father, my brother and my nephew.” Who needs a husband and a father? Any man, whatever the relation, will do.

God did not create the family to work this way. He is very clear in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Here, He establishes the marriage relationship as the basis of the family. He declares in Malachi 2:16 that He hates divorce, a statement echoed by Jesus’ teaching on divorce in Matthew 19:6-9.

In the seventh commandment, God forbids sexual activity outside of marriage (Exodus 20:14). Later, in such places as Deuteronomy 23:2, He places the stigma on illegitimacy: “One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD.” He wanted His people to be a nation of whole families because they produced the best products for the benefit of the nation. It is clear from the situation before the Flood that men taking “wives for themselves of all whom they chose” did not produce a cohesive, peaceful society (Genesis 6:2).

This desire for stable families is codified in the fifth of the Ten Commandments: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). Like mothers, fathers are a vital part of the equation whose sum is a well-rounded, secure individual. True, not all fathers are good fathers, and God makes provisions for such cases in His principles on divorce, but more often than not, a father in the home creates a better environment for the raising of children than a home that lacks one. And the more the home’s father and mother love each other and expand their love to their children, the better the environment becomes.

Here in the United States, this Sunday is Father’s Day. As we honor our fathers and husbands, take a moment to consider their importance to the family and to society. It is hoped that it will heighten our gratitude, not only for our human fathers, but our Father in heaven, who really does know best.