Investing in the Next Generation: Biblical Examples of Teaching the Next Generation

During the last few weeks we’ve been talking about the importance of investing in others. In particular we’ve been talking about investing in the next generation. We’ve read through several verses in Deuteronomy chapter 6, as God led Moses to share his command to the Israelites about teaching their children about Him and His words. if you haven’t been able to read those articles yet, take time to go back and and check them out on the website. Today we’re going to talk a little bit more about what it means to invest in the next generation. We see examples of this throughout Scripture. At first glance examples of parents or other people teaching children in the Bible may not jump to mind, however if you look close enough there are several examples.

First, let’s start with a pretty well-known figure in the Bible. Let’s talk for a moment about Moses. When you think of Moses you may think of the parting of the red Sea, the 10 Commandments, or the plagues in Egypt. Moses was a great man of faith and a great leader of the nation of Israel. How did he get to be that way though?

Of course, we can point back to God calling him as he stood listening at the burning bush. Yet how did he know that it was God? God told him, but did he know who God was? He grew up in Pharaoh’s house, but in Exodus 3:3-6 we see this:

“So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said also, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”

Clearly what God was saying Moses recognized in some way. How would he have learned about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, let alone God, while being raised by Pharaoh’s daughter.
To find the answer to that maybe we need to go back more to the beginning of the story of Moses. When Pharaoh’s daughter found baby Moses in the basket in the Nile, a young Hebrew girl named Miriam happened to be nearby and offered to find a nurse to care for the baby. Of course Miriam “happened” to be near because she had been watching over the basket and young Moses. So Moses’s mother, was paid to take Moses and nurse him. During that time, this would have been for a period of a few years. So although Moses grew up as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, his early, formative preschool years were spent in the house of his Hebrew parents. Parents who clearly taught him and shared with him about God and their faith. The Bible doesn’t describe that teaching for us, but his recognition of what God was saying when he encountered Him in the burning bush certainly suggests that his parents did their jobs teaching him in the limited amount of time they had.

Moses isn’t the only one who seems to have been taught by his parents. In 1 Samuel we see Hannah and eventually her young son, Samuel, who would grow up to be a godly and faithful leader. Although Hannah followed through on her pledge to God and brought Samuel to live with Eli the priest, she raised young Samuel in the first years of his life and seems to have laid a foundation of God‘s commands. Samuel was a much more faithful servant of God than Eli’s own sons were. It would also appear that Hannah’s commitment to the Lord was not just giving her son back to Him, but teaching her son about Him in ways that Eli neglected to do with his sons.

While both of those examples require us to presume that the parents were teaching their children our final one does not. The apostle Paul worked with several different coworkers along his many journeys. One of those was a young man with a Greek father whose name was Timothy. Timothy and his faith were frequently recognized by Paul, and in 2 Timothy 1:5 he says about Timothy:

“For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well.”

Timothy was someone that Paul trusted to work with these churches that he had planted. He not just trusted him, but he encouraged him. Timothy clearly was who he was because of the influence of his mother and his grandmother. They were faithful to teach him about the Lord. He was ready to be taught and serve alongside Paul because his mother and grandmother had first taught him.

While these aren’t the only examples in scripture of people teaching their children, I believe they are some pretty powerful ones. Between these examples that God has given to us and Jesus‘s words to the disciples about the importance of not hindering children from entering the kingdom of God, we see a consistent pattern of God‘s design for faith to be passed down to the next generation. So what does that look like for you? Who is the next generation in your life? It might be your family members or it might be others that God has placed in your life or is calling you to reach out to. Whoever it is, there is a next generation that you are called to invest in. There many different ways to do that, but we need to be faithful to actually do it. God has blessed us with a relationship with Him. We aren’t to hoard that blessing. We need to share it, with others.