I AM quite sure that we often make a great mistake in our treatment of young Christians. As soon as ever they are converted we put them to work, and expect them to engage in Christian warfare. This is not God’s order. We have a beautiful Model of the various stages of growth in Christian life, in the first epistle to the Thessalonians.
Chapter 1 gives us Birth. “Ye turned to God from idols, to serve... and to wait.” This was conversion. They passed from death unto life, and became “babes” in Christ.
Chapter 2 shows us Nursery days. Those young believers needed tending and care, and the great apostle to the Gentiles says, “We were gentle as a nurse.” In another place, how solicitous he was as to their diet, and he was full of maternal anxiety as to whether they needed “milk” or “meat.”
Chapter 3 speaks of standing. “Now we live,” says Paul “if ye stand fast in the Lord,” the equivalent of which is “My greatest ambition is that you should be able to stand alone.” It is the mothering instinct again in Paul, so anxious and so proud when the moment comes for her child to stand alone.
Chapter 4 Walking. “We exhort you how you ought to walk.” How perfectly natural is the development of life, first standing, and now walking.
Chapter 5 Fighting. And not until this last chapter dose Paul mention warfare, and then he introduces the armor that is necessary for fighting. Verse 24 ends with victory. “Who also will do it.”
Have patience brethren with young Christians, and don’t hurry them along. They don’t know everything at first. They must not fight till they are out of the nursery. They’ll need strength in their feet before they can walk, and they’ll need plenty of “strong meat” before they can fight.
J. H. (Notes of address)