From Childhood to Manhood

From childhood to manhood life will never stay the same. Children always copy what is familiar to them. They cannot copy what they have never seen or heard. Paul commented “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things” (1Cor.13:11). If we are not serious with our children, if we are not telling them the Truth, then we are failing them.

It is while a child that Samuel was taught the truth. First by his own parents and later by Eli in the house of God. “As soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him that he may appear in the presence of the Lord and abide there for ever” (1 Samuel 1:22 RSV). With this verse, I do not think that Hannah brought her child in the house of God at the age of 12, I suggest that Hannah could not have kept being breast fed up to the age of 12 but she brought her boy to the tabernacle at the age of 3 or 4. “And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her a three year old bull and an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and she brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh and the child was young” (1 Samuel 1:24). A three year old bull: was that the age of Samuel when he was brought to the tabernacle of God. An ephah (10 Kg): was it the weight of Samuel? [In the book of Maccabees it mentions that a child is weaned at about three years of age]

Photo: Leversey Ntchalachala

Some people come to know the Truth when they are adults. In our eyes they are grown up people. But when it comes to the Truth, they are children. They are at the early stage in their existence in the Truth. If some people are pastors, on members of other religions and decide to leave their religion and join the Christadelphians, they have to begin at the beginning of our faith.

We should teach the Truth to our children now, and they will take the right action when they grow up. “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15 AV).

If our children are familiar with the word of God, they will increase their knowledge even more when the grow into manhood. “But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child girded with a linen ephod” (1 Samuel 2:18 AV). There should be no hindrances or obstacles on the path of our children towards God.

Bro Harmony Ntchalachala (Kasungu, Malawi)