Teachers of children

2 Timothy 1:13-14 (NLT)

13 Hold on to the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me—a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus. 14 Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you.

Paul was Timothy’s teacher and mentor. Paul had taught him a pattern for living a wholesome life that was shaped by faith and love for Jesus Christ and also by the Holy Spirit that lives within. Paul reminded Timothy to guard this precious truth for there had been those who had fallen away from it.

[In 2002, the U.S. Secret Service completed the Safe School Initiative, a study of school shootings and other school-based attacks. The study examined school shootings in the United States as far back as 1974, analyzing a total of 37 incidents involving 41 student attackers …. The young men who carried out the attacks differed from one another in numerous ways. However, almost every attacker had engaged in behavior before the shooting that seriously concerned at least one adult—and for many had concerned three or more different adults …. Far from being "loners," the killers are more likely to be aspiring "joiners" whose attempts at belonging fail. Many of the shooters told Secret Service investigators that feelings of alienation or persecution drove them to violence.

It's easy to label the shooters "evil" but miss some of the less noticeable (or less violent) signs that many boys are struggling alone in our culture. Consider these statistics:

Boys get expelled from preschool nearly five times more often than girls

In elementary school, boys are diagnosed with learning disorders four times as often.

By eighth grade huge numbers of boys read below basic level.

Males graduate high school at lower rates and attend college right out of high school at lower rates.

Young men are three times more likely to kill themselves than young women.

Somewhere in your world, there is a young man looking to you to model real, emotional resiliency. To show him that male-to-male friendship can extend beyond work, golf, or some other idolatry and withstand life's most difficult blows. To provide entry into a … honorable … definition of what it means to be a man in the 21st century. [Adapted from R. Todd Erkel, "Boys Need Good Role Models Now More Than Ever," Utne Reader (March-April 2013)]]

There are many boys and girls in this world that need good, solid leaders in their life. They need someone who can teach them the difference between what is right and what is wrong. They need guidance in how to deal with people and how to prepare to face the world as an adult. Don’t let the life of a child slip away. If you see a child in need see what you can do to help.

Mark 10:13-16 says, “People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.”

Let us learn to live and teach like Jesus.