“I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father.”
I rejoiced greatly
John’s joy comes from the fact that the woman’s children, to whom he wrote 2nd John, walked in the truth.
that I have found some of your children
False teachers made inroads into the Christian community, but some believers walked according to the truth of God’s revelation, His Word. Second-generation Christians often wane from the faithful passion of their parents.
Ephesus was a great center for learning. It was the seat of philosophy, science, and medicine. Some children of Christian parents may have fallen from the faith because of this schooling. Others came to Ephesus for business because it was a prosperous seaport. The city had active nightlife, and crime was rampant throughout. Pagan religions dominated the landscape. Many reasons explain why some children fell from the faith in Ephesus.
PRINCIPLE:
Children, even in adulthood, generally do not spiritually rise above their parents’ level.
APPLICATION:
Parental responsibility goes beyond intellectual, social, and physical care. Children need moral and spiritual direction. It is no excuse to say that my children do not like church or the youth group. God commands parents to guide their children responsibly while they are under their care. Children may not like that you require them to come home at a reasonable hour, but you make that standard anyway. They may not want to go to school, but you send them anyway. You say, “If I place high standards for my children, they may rebel against me.” That is a possibility, but there is a much greater possibility that if you do not provide high standards for them, they will rebel against you and the Lord.
Pr 22: 6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.”
We can claim the promise that “he will not depart from it.” That means that if we inculcate Christian values in our children, those values will never leave them. No amount of travel in the world will erase that training. They may rebel against the Lord, but they will always carry Christian values with them.
You may ask, “Where did I make my mistake with my children? Why did they go astray?” In some cases, there may be no answers to that question. In other cases, there are. Some parents set their children’s values by living out their own. If their primary value is acquiring possessions, their children will pick that up. If the Lord is second, then their children will put God second or third in their lives.
Your daughter will be just like you, mother. Your son will be just like you, father. They will have the same attitudes as you do toward the Bible, toward God, and toward life’s values. They will talk like you and walk like you. If you become inebriated, they will become drunkards as well. If you don’t read the Bible and apply it to your life, they won’t either. Water seldom rises higher than its source. There are exceptions, but we are presenting the general pattern here.
It breaks some parents’ hearts to find that their children no longer walk in the truth. The Lord is secondary and trivialized in their lives.
