Seek after wisdom and guidance

Sunday 20th November 2022

Listen, my son, to you father’s instruction
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
They are a garland to grace your head
and a chain to adorn your neck.
Proverbs 1:8-9, NIV

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The final chapter of Louise Perry’s startling book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution – which I wrote about last week – is called ‘Listen to Your Mother.’  While she hopes that her book will be read by men and women of all ages, she has written it especially for young women.  Indeed, she could be writing for her own daughter.

“And, above all,” she writes, “listen to your mother.”  She goes on to say that thousands of young women “[have] been denied the guidance of mothers, not because their actual mothers are unwilling to offer it but because of a matricidal impulse in liberal feminism that cuts young women off from the ‘problematic’ older generation.  This means not only that they are cut off from the voices of experience, but – more importantly – they are also cut off from the person who loves them most in the world.”

We might add that it is not only liberal feminism that cuts people off from the wisdom of their parents.  There is a widespread anti-authoritarianism in our culture which leads us to ask, “What do they know anyway?”  There is also an individualism which says that we can, and even must, work these things out for ourselves.  And there is an anti-historicism which assumes that we know more and better than those who have gone before us.

It is not a new problem, although it may be more acute in our time and place.  The author of Proverbs certainly seems to feel the need, the responsibility and the challenge of getting his son to listen to his father’s instruction and not to forsake his mother’s teaching.

This is one area where we have a massive advantage in the church, where we still expect parents to have something to teach their children, and still have some expectation that children will be guided by their parents.   And we also have a multi-generational church family where we can learn from the wisdom of those who are ahead of us, both in the Christian race and in the walk of life.  It is increasingly rare to find that in our culture.  So, let’s do our best to grasp that opportunity, to see it as a blessing and not a problem to be embarrassed about.

And we have one absolute advantage in the church, and that is that we can put our children in touch with “the person who loves them most in the world”, and who loves them even more than their own mothers, and that is the God who so loved us that he gave his own beloved Son for us so that we may know his love.

Lord, grant us the wisdom to learn of your love from those who go ahead of us, and to teach it to those who come after us.  Amen.

Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)