The Deep End

The Unbiblical Concept of “Teenagers”

The world has developed a wonderful category for young people – wonderful, that is, from the world’s point of view. This category is called: The Teenage Years. Teenagers – especially in America – are encouraged to play around with all the privileges of adulthood while being exempt from all but a very few of the responsibilities.

Since this is a worldly concept, we would expect to see something different in the Church, wouldn’t we? Here is how the Bible says that adults should minister to young people in church:

That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.

Titus 2:2-6

The world says that teenaged children must be entertained or they will find church boring and irrelevant. God says that they are to be taught and exhorted from His Word, and that the power of the Gospel (not pizza parties, rock concerts, or games) will transform them. Children are not to be separated out of a church fellowship. They are to be kept among the aged men and women of the church, so that they can be prepared for mature Christian adulthood, not a worldly prolonged-adolescence.