Not a Clue
A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.
Luke 6:40 (ESV)
When I came across this verse recently, I was reminded of a time when I was still in college, attending a retreat for a Christian men's club to which I belonged. At the retreat, the chaplain for our group spoke on the topic of personal excellence and challenged us to become the man we would want our sons to emulate. It was a great thought for me to ponder as a young, inexperienced, ill-prepared Christian man because it was a thought that was filled with vision.
The picture for us given by the chaplain was one of whole-life discipleship. Our future sons would be patterning themselves after us one day, and we really needed to hear that our own Christian walks would be the basis for our sons' walks. They would copy us and share, to a degree, in our strengths and weaknesses, so there was no time like the present to confess our weaknesses and seek repentance.
When I think about that group of men who heard such a visionary message, I have to wonder how many of those men were themselves sons of fathers with such vision. How many of those men were trained and discipled by their fathers in a specific and focused fashion? How many of those men had been sent out by their fathers to college because they had reached the point of maturity to be ready to start their own families?
It seems unlikely that any of us were. After all, our culture seems bound to the idea that higher education must happen in the University or College. Our children, we are told, must leave their homes and live the "college life" on their own so that they can learn how to live in the "real world". This however is so dangerous to our children because hardly any of them are ready to handle the world when we send them away. Rarely, if ever, are children ready to withstand the barrage of immature, self-centered, atheistic, immoral, and close-minded institutions that we call Universities or Colleges.
Before my son leaves my house, he will need to complete his training and be ready to start a family. That means he must be have completed an intensive liberal arts education, completed enough vocational training to earn a living that can support a family, completed enough theological training to disciple his future wife and children, and prove that he is mature enough to wield the responsibility of being a husband and father. He will know what it means to be a man, and he will be so well versed that he can withstand the attacks our culture will launch at his worldview.
When I remember the group of men at that retreat, I really don't think any of us were ready to be out from under the discipleship of our fathers. So many of us didn't have a clue about what it meant to be a husband or father, yet there we were, listening to one of our peers teach us. By the grace of God, a nugget of visionary truth made it through, but I doubt any of us knew what to really do with it. It really is sad to think about such a promising group of men who went largely untrained before they were sent out to be husbands and fathers. I can only wonder what kind of family dynamics have been formed in the families touched by that group of men. Will the pattern of sending our children out as sheep to the wolves repeat itself? I sure hope not.
In thinking about Luke 6:40 and how it applies here, I am reminded that when fathers don't take the lead in discipling their children, their peers will. And, as Luke 6:40 says, the students will become like the teacher in the end.
Fathers, who do you want teaching your children? If the answer isn't yourself, then your children will follow along with someone else's children and become whatever the children think is best. What is the result? You have just lost the hearts of your children, and the influence in their lives. Try being a parent when that happens! You really can't be, and you've lost all influence in who your child grows up to be.