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This article addresses a fundamental deficit in our churches, the pressing need for true discipleship. That is, older, godly Christians one-on-one with younger, inexperienced Christians.
But what churches typically offer is a Sunday service, a mid-week service, and small groups. These are not discipleship.
The result of our failure to disciple is that the sheep remain sheep all their lives. Nothing is demanded from them except their polite attendance on Sunday, and that their tithe check clears.
This should not be.
This should not be.
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Like chronological snobbery, the West’s tendency to exile its old into homes with names ending with the word Acres is well-documented, not to mention indicting. However that isn’t the focus of this article. Instead I want to hone in on the Christian Church, where experience suggests that we do something similar with our senior saints. This is undoubtedly an expression of chronological snobbery, just in a way we don’t usually recognise. Ironically, someone like myself regularly regales others with the significance of reading old books, yet I’ve spent precious little time learning from older believers. The homogenous unit principle has much to answer for here. But it’s too easy to blame unbiblical church models when we should be honestly facing up to the fact that we’ve absorbed the West’s indifference towards the aged and by extension older saints.
A Brief Corrective From Titus
In his letter to Titus, Paul addresses both older men and women, before turning to the young. “Older men,” he writes, “are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness” (Titus 2:2). Though someone like Chrysostom argued that older men typically lack these traits, we must once again resist blaming someone else for our generational prejudice.
The continued siloing of members is part of the problem.
Surely these older men are meant to serve as models to those who’re more junior in the faith—after all, both groups are explicitly exhorted to be “self-controlled” (Titus 2:2, 6). The thing is, in order to observe mature faith one must be acquainted with older saints. I doubt Paul had the occasional testimony at a men’s breakfast in mind. What the New Testament envisions for local churches is intergenerational discipleship, which isn’t narrowly defined as teaching.
This much is made clearer in Paul’s instructions to “older women,” who “are to be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good” (Titus 2:3). They are both to train younger women (Titus 2:4), and set them a mature model of the faith (Titus 2:5).
Commenting on these verses, William Mounce doesn’t think a formal function is in view but “personal, one-to-one teaching.” Again, local churches should be places where believers are learning from one another—not only their pastor or Bible study leader. Furthermore, while the creation of homogenous ministries might be helpful in this regard, the continued siloing of members is also part of the problem. We’ve all belonged to churches where we know as much about the senior’s group as the early church knew about the Gnostics. This shouldn’t be the case.
What’s to Be Done?
Firstly, many of us—including myself—need to admit that we aren’t convinced older saints have anything to offer. If we believed that they did, we would have prioritised getting to know and learning from them. So we must reckon with this arrogant iteration of chronological snobbery. Generational prejudice has no place among God’s people (James 2:1, 9). Furthermore, God has created a diverse body so that we might benefit from each other’s gifts. That diversity includes those who’re further along the road than ourselves.
Secondly, then, we should resist the homogenous unit principle, both formally and informally. Naturally, we gravitate towards those who’re like us. Often after Sunday worship I’ll have conversations with other young parents, the men I play football with, or the literati. This pull is unavoidable; only that shouldn’t mean avoiding older believers.
Finally, to the older saints now, you should aspire to become more like Christ, setting an example for younger believers. And maybe, though I say this very tentatively, you also need to check your chronological snobbery and reach out to those younger than yourself.
“How Are They to Believe in Him of Whom They’ve Never Heard?”
There’s a wonderful passage in Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly, which provides a fitting set-up for my conclusion of this article. He writes, “When you look at the glorious older saints in your church, how do you think they got there? Sound doctrine, yes. Resolute obedience, without a doubt. Suffering without becoming cynical, for sure. But maybe another reason, maybe the deepest reason, is that they have, over time, been won over in their deepest affections to a gentle Saviour … Perhaps they have simply tasted, over many years, the surprise of a Christ for whom their very sins draw him in rather than push him away. Maybe they have not only known that Jesus loved them, but felt it.” But we’ll never know until we’ve asked them.
Graham Heslop serves as the Editor in Chief for The Gospel Coalition Africa, while lecturing theology part-time. You can read Graham’s theological musings at Rekindle, but his more strait-laced writing can be found at TGC. He and his wife Lynsay-Anne have one son, Teddy; they’re members of their local church, The Union Chapel.
(...)
Like chronological snobbery, the West’s tendency to exile its old into homes with names ending with the word Acres is well-documented, not to mention indicting. However that isn’t the focus of this article. Instead I want to hone in on the Christian Church, where experience suggests that we do something similar with our senior saints. This is undoubtedly an expression of chronological snobbery, just in a way we don’t usually recognise. Ironically, someone like myself regularly regales others with the significance of reading old books, yet I’ve spent precious little time learning from older believers. The homogenous unit principle has much to answer for here. But it’s too easy to blame unbiblical church models when we should be honestly facing up to the fact that we’ve absorbed the West’s indifference towards the aged and by extension older saints.
A Brief Corrective From Titus
In his letter to Titus, Paul addresses both older men and women, before turning to the young. “Older men,” he writes, “are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness” (Titus 2:2). Though someone like Chrysostom argued that older men typically lack these traits, we must once again resist blaming someone else for our generational prejudice.
The continued siloing of members is part of the problem.
Surely these older men are meant to serve as models to those who’re more junior in the faith—after all, both groups are explicitly exhorted to be “self-controlled” (Titus 2:2, 6). The thing is, in order to observe mature faith one must be acquainted with older saints. I doubt Paul had the occasional testimony at a men’s breakfast in mind. What the New Testament envisions for local churches is intergenerational discipleship, which isn’t narrowly defined as teaching.
This much is made clearer in Paul’s instructions to “older women,” who “are to be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good” (Titus 2:3). They are both to train younger women (Titus 2:4), and set them a mature model of the faith (Titus 2:5).
Commenting on these verses, William Mounce doesn’t think a formal function is in view but “personal, one-to-one teaching.” Again, local churches should be places where believers are learning from one another—not only their pastor or Bible study leader. Furthermore, while the creation of homogenous ministries might be helpful in this regard, the continued siloing of members is also part of the problem. We’ve all belonged to churches where we know as much about the senior’s group as the early church knew about the Gnostics. This shouldn’t be the case.
What’s to Be Done?
Firstly, many of us—including myself—need to admit that we aren’t convinced older saints have anything to offer. If we believed that they did, we would have prioritised getting to know and learning from them. So we must reckon with this arrogant iteration of chronological snobbery. Generational prejudice has no place among God’s people (James 2:1, 9). Furthermore, God has created a diverse body so that we might benefit from each other’s gifts. That diversity includes those who’re further along the road than ourselves.
Secondly, then, we should resist the homogenous unit principle, both formally and informally. Naturally, we gravitate towards those who’re like us. Often after Sunday worship I’ll have conversations with other young parents, the men I play football with, or the literati. This pull is unavoidable; only that shouldn’t mean avoiding older believers.
Finally, to the older saints now, you should aspire to become more like Christ, setting an example for younger believers. And maybe, though I say this very tentatively, you also need to check your chronological snobbery and reach out to those younger than yourself.
“How Are They to Believe in Him of Whom They’ve Never Heard?”
There’s a wonderful passage in Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly, which provides a fitting set-up for my conclusion of this article. He writes, “When you look at the glorious older saints in your church, how do you think they got there? Sound doctrine, yes. Resolute obedience, without a doubt. Suffering without becoming cynical, for sure. But maybe another reason, maybe the deepest reason, is that they have, over time, been won over in their deepest affections to a gentle Saviour … Perhaps they have simply tasted, over many years, the surprise of a Christ for whom their very sins draw him in rather than push him away. Maybe they have not only known that Jesus loved them, but felt it.” But we’ll never know until we’ve asked them.
Graham Heslop serves as the Editor in Chief for The Gospel Coalition Africa, while lecturing theology part-time. You can read Graham’s theological musings at Rekindle, but his more strait-laced writing can be found at TGC. He and his wife Lynsay-Anne have one son, Teddy; they’re members of their local church, The Union Chapel.
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