The Best Hamburgers in Town
Categories: Church of Christ Bulletin Articles Tags: Bible Lessons on YouthThe Christian is to live a well-ordered life. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). As time goes on, we are all the more convinced that balance is the key to successful living for the Lord. Balance is the key for elders, as they take care that material and financial considerations not overshadow their spiritual functions. Balance is the key for preachers, that social and administrative duties not overshadow their study and teaching responsibilities. And balance is the key for the individual child of God, that the business of daily temporal concerns not overshadow his obligations as a faithful and working member of the body of Christ.
In this area, we need to realize that true balance cannot be obtained through the use of a crutch. In fact, as regards one’s physical health, a crutch is needed only when one has lost his natural balance. He may lean on something for support, but he is not ideally balanced by using the crutch, and all the more is his position a dangerous one if the crutch is defective. Judah was once told by the king of Assyria, at a time when Assyria was making demands upon God’s people, not to count on help from the Pharaoh of Egypt, for he was a “bruised reed…on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it” (II Kings 18:21; Isaiah 36:6). To the Assyrian king, Egypt’s ruler was a defective crutch!
We have been losing many of our young people in recent years as most readers know. Through the avenues of indifference and worldliness, then unwise and unscriptural marriages, then through outright apostasy, many “brought up in the church” have been lost. When this fact finally comes home, many congregations have rushed in with a support – a crutch which is in itself defective. The “solution” provided by many congregations is a full program of entertainment, a special youth worker or minister, a variety of games and, in some places, the establishing of a “junior church.” Brethren, surely we know that faith cannot be propped up with these!
This writer has been in the kingdom for thirty-one years, and he is sure that those who have been in God’s family much longer than this can testify to the same truths. To this good day, we have never heard anyone state that he believes the Bible to be the inspired Word of God because his boyhood congregations had a pizza supper every Thursday night. No one has ever stated, to my knowledge, that he was saved from leaving the church and joining a denomination because the home congregation served “the best hamburgers in town”! And where is that adult who, as a teenager, was firmly and unshakably convinced that instrumental music in worship is sinful because the local church provided a full schedule of monopoly, scrabble, billiards and ping pong? Our Lord pointed out the danger of the defective crutch, in that some sought him because they had eaten of the loaves and fishes (John 6:26). Do we really think that the answer to the spiritual needs of our young is a full week of food and fun?
Now, no one will surely take this article as a criticism of Christian fellowship, for that is important to all, regardless of age. The adults of the congregations can, through their homes and through their love for their young people, help provide so much of the proper fellowship in the proper environment. But we need to bear in mind that the drift away from the faith on the part of our youth indicates a need for spiritual help, and the area demanding attention is the mind, not the stomach! Take heed to the teaching program of the church, and to those involved in the teaching, and to the homes from which these youngsters come! Here is the area of concern! We need to bear in mind that Solomon warned that the young are to remember God (Ecclesiastes 12:1). In that context, he warned about keeping God’s commands and of the judgment to come (Ecclesiastes 11:9; 12:13, 14).
Let every elder, preacher, Bible school teacher, parent and all members of the church recognize that the answer is faith, not “the best hamburgers in town”!
[This article first appeared in “First Century Christian,” March 1977]
CHRISTIAN WORKER, March 1989