Develop the Gift
W e’ve often heard the phrase “let no man despise thy you” but I Timothy 4:12-16 says more than that. The opposite of letting people despise his youth that Paul gives Timothy is to be an example. We often pull this verse out when we want to tell young people that they can have a place of service too, but I think it may be telling us more than that. It would be wrong to assume that people would despise Timothy’s youth simply because he was young. It may be instead that they would despise his youth because he was immature. I look at some of the teenagers I know and some of them are very immature. That is to be expected, since they are teenagers, but some of them grow up into their twenties and even thirties with no indication that they are ever going to take on the responsibilities of life. I look at other teenagers and you can already see that they have it together. They aren’t waiting until they are officially crowned adults before they take responsibility for their own lives and be...