By John A. Huffman, Jr.
One person spoke up and told about how, at their church, they had a brand-new pastor. One of his first actions was to get rid of the choir, the organ and the traditional hymns of the faith. He replaced them with praise and with singers who were leading the congregation in contemporary praise choruses that they had never heard before.
Others began to speak up and tell how the same things were happening in their church. One family had just given a brand-new organ to the church, and the new pastor dismissed it as an irrelevant instrument, not to be used again in that church.
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Another spoke up, saying that their new pastor had told them that they could no longer be greeters at the church door. They were "too old" and would turn away the younger people that the church wanted to attract.
And the litany of complaints continued.
How sad that it is either/or. How sad it is that a whole generation of the builders, who have sacrificially given of their tithes, talents and time, building a community of faith, suddenly and quickly are devalued and pushed to the side. Change is necessary but must be done in a kindly, gentle manner with sensitivity to those being disrupted.
William Barclay wrote: "It is one of the tragedies of life that youth is so often apt to find age a nuisance. To age there must always be given the respect and the affection which are due to those who have lived long and fared far upon the pathway of life and of experience."
Cicero wrote: "It is, then, the duty of a young man to show deference to his elders, and to attach himself to the best and most approved of them as to receive the benefit of their counsel and influence."
Youth requires the practical wisdom of age to strengthen and direct it.
Second, he addresses the overbearing use of power.
Paul is aware that the timid young man, Timothy, is a more powerful person than he realizes. The very position of leadership can be intimidating. Not only is he called to treat older men and women with sensitivity and respect, as he would his own parents, but he also is encouraged to treat younger women, in particular, as sisters, with absolute purity. Paul was as up-to-date as today in his understanding of how the intimacy of a pastoral relationship can quickly turn to a scandalous sexual affair. He understood boundaries, alerting Timothy that the best way to treat a woman younger was to see her as his own sister, to protect her from his own sexual instincts that could turn an attractive person into an object to be used instead of a human being to be cherished and respected as a sister in Jesus Christ.