Young

When Joseph dreamed of his brothers bowing down to him, he was 17 years old (Genesis 37:2). It wasn’t too much later that the jealous brothers plotted first to kill him, then to abandon him, and finally decided on selling him as a slave. He was a slave for years, and endured additional years of unjust imprisonment. Pretty young, to have to go through such trauma. It wasn’t until later that he came to realize it was all part of God’s plan to save life (45:5) and God was working through him all along.

There are others who were quite young when God asked them to carry a load that might daunt any of us.

Isaac was a “lad” or “boy” when he went with his father Abraham to be sacrificed (Genesis 22). We don’t know his age, but he was old enough to ask intelligent questions about what was going on, and strong enough to carry the wood for the offering—it takes quite a bit of wood to consume an animal sacrifice. He is sometimes depicted as a child, but I think a teen is more likely. The Hebrew word for “boy” or “lad” refers to someone from early childhood to adolescence. (It’s also used for a servant of any age, but that wouldn’t apply here.) Isaac would have been capable of physically resisting being tied up and put onto the wood. Instead, he was willing to be the sacrifice. As the text says, father and son “went both of them together.”

When David fought Goliath, he was a “youth”. It’s the same word applied to Isaac. The depictions of David as a child are absurd. In the context he’s also described as “a valiant man,” so he would seem to be just coming to manhood. Besides, when he tried on Saul’s armor, he didn’t reject it as being too big—the problem was he wasn’t trained in its use. Recall that Saul was “head and shoulders taller” than anyone else, so that armor had to be pretty big. David was a strong, fit, late-teen. And he was utterly confident the Lord was with him in facing the giant, highly trained, heavily armed warrior.

Rebekah was a beautiful young woman. The feminine version of the same word is applied to her. In that culture, she would have married young, in her mid to late teens. But she was not married or even spoken for, when Abraham’s servant arrived to seek a wife for Isaac. This young woman was being asked to leave her family, go marry someone she’d never met, a long way off—and she immediately agreed, because she was convinced the hand of the Lord was behind it.

Daniel was still alive at end of the prophesied 70 years of captivity, meaning he had to be quite young when he was taken captive, probably no more (and maybe less) than his mid-teens, considering the role Nebuchadnezzar mandated. From the very start, young as he must have been, he was very forthright in his devotion to the God of Israel.

When called by God, Jeremiah at first declined on account of his youth (same word again, Jeremiah 1:6-7.) God responded that he wasn’t too young, and Jeremiah accepted the role of the most hated and detested person in the kingdom, telling kings, priests and people that they and the nation were doomed.

Esther was a candidate for the Persian queenship, not only as a maiden but specifically as a young virgin (Esther 2:2). Again, most likely mid to late teens. She was called upon, and accepted the job, to put her life on the line to save her people.

Mary, once again an unmarried young woman, likely in her teens, was asked to be the mother and the first, most important influence in the life of the Messiah. Her response: “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

Jesus himself was a serious Bible student by age 12. He was 30 when he began his ministry, not a teen but not an elder either, and there were some who didn’t want to listen to him because of his relative youth (John 8:57).

.John Mark had an apparently subordinate role “assisting” Paul & Barnabas, and was probably Barnabas’s nephew, probably fairly young. He had some difficulty in the beginning, but with some additional mentoring he ended up an important helper in Paul’s work.

Timothy must have been really young when he started helping Paul, because years later Paul wrote him, “Don’t let anyone despise your youth.” (1 Timothy 1:12). At this stage he had an important role in holding together the church in Ephesus.

Hope you’re still with me, and haven’t given up with a “so what?” yet. I think there are two points to all of this. The first and most obvious is aimed at teens: There is a lot you can do, if you’re willing, and if you trust your God to provide the development you need. The second comes out explicitly in Timothy’s case. Those of us who are well past our teens need to be very careful not to despise the youth of these young servants who want to work for the Lord. Instead, they need our encouragement, our mentoring, our working with them in their lack of experience. They bring energy and eagerness that is motivating to all of us, and after all they are the future leaders we need.

God bless them, and bless the rest of us through them.

Love, Paul