“After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10, NLT)
Funny that this topic of “generations” comes up this week with so much talk about this topic lately. The “Boomers” didn’t have much respect for my generation, “Generation X.” And my generation just can’t stand “Millennials!” But isn’t it interesting to see that these generation gaps are nothing new. They’ve been around as long as there have been parents and teenagers.
The problem with this new generation wasn’t that they didn’t know about God. They had grown up with stories from their parents and grandparents about the Exodus and the Red Sea crossing and the Battle of Jericho. They celebrated Passover every year.
Their problem: these weren’t “their” stories and they had no stories of their own to tell. They had no faith of their own – they were riding on the faith coat tails of their parents and grandparents. God was a topic to be discussed or a subject to be studied. Religion was simply their heritage.
So who’s to blame when faith isn’t transferred from one generation to the next? Maybe the parents did a poor job communicating the truth? Maybe the kids hardened their hearts to the truth?
I’m sure there’s enough blame to go around and it isn’t really helpful to point fingers. More importantly, God wants us to realize that it is vital for our faith to move from generation to generation. And happily, he shows us how to do it. The Book of Judges reminds us just how important this is.
I hope you’ll join us Sunday for this very important discussion as we continue our sermon series “Judges: Broken Heroes.”
