“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. There was active nightlife, and crime was rampant throughout the city. Pagan religions dominated the landscape. There were many reasons why some children fell from the faith in Ephesus.
PRINCIPLE:
Children, even in their adulthood, generally do not rise above the level of their parents spiritually.
APPLICATION:
Parental responsibility goes beyond the intellectual, social, and physical care of children. 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. All of the excursions in the world will not eradicate 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 the values of their children by living out their own values. 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 hold the same attitudes as you do toward the Bible, toward God, toward values in life. They will talk like you, and they will 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 will not do so, either. Water seldom rises higher than its source. There are exceptions to this, but we are presenting the general pattern here.
It breaks the hearts of some parents to find that their children no longer walk in the truth. The Lord is secondary and trivialized in their lives.
