On Role Models

At present there seems to be much talk about the need for positive role models for teenagers and children. 'Mentoring' has become chic in our school system as teachers and government realize the huge impact, for good and bad, that role models have upon young people. I believe that the increased emphasis upon mentoring is a positive step; Kings currently provides mentors for youth in a number of local schools.

For two years I worked in an Outside School Hours Care program in local primary schools. More often than not, the misbehavior of particular children was easily understood upon meeting the unruly child's parent/s (I say that with no disrespect intended).

The lifestyle of our superiors, whether older siblings, parents or celebrities, has a massive bearing upon our attitudes and behavior.

With this in mind, when reading Judges 6:11-27 I noticed something that I found fascinating. This passage tells the story of an Angel of the Lord visiting Gideon, telling him that he will save Israel from the oppression of the Midianites.

To the optimistic angelic messenger Gideon responds with skepticism, saying "If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles... How can I save Israel?"

"If... Why... Where... How..."

Why does Gideon respond with such doubt? I have heard many preachers take a shot at Gideon for his lack of faith; but let me take his side for a moment.

There is no doubting the influence of a father upon his son. Judges 6:11 tells us that Gideon's father's name was Joash. This name comes from two words which mean, 'Jehovah' and 'burning, fire, flaming, hot'. Strong's Concordance defines Joash as 'Jehovah fired'. Wow! What a statement Joash's name makes. Growing up, whenever Gideon called his dad's name, he declared 'Jehovah fired.'

However in Judges 6:25, the Lord said to Gideon:

"Take your father's young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image (or 'Asherah' - a Canaanite goddess) that is beside it..."

So we discover that Joash, 'Jehovah fired', has an altar to Baal and to Asherah in the back yard! Gideon has grown up in a household of confusion. Dad says that he is 'Jehovah fired' yet Baal and Asherah seem to be consuming most of his attention and affection.

Gideon's most influential role model has said one thing and shown another, and the boy is now in a state of confusion. It's little wonder that Gideon responds to the Angel with the words 'If..why...where...how?" What Gideon has heard and what he has seen are polar opposites.

I believing in speaking words of faith. However it is by our lifestyle that we create an environment of confusion or faith for those looking to us as role models. Gideon could not quickly grab the promises of God because of a poor example given to him by his father.

The application for my life is this: is my lifestyle building faith in God's word amongst those who look to me?

I don't want to be a Joash role model, declaring faith while demonstrating doubt.

May my life be free from the duplicities which cause others to doubt the word of God for their lives.

Role-models... Imitate what you can!

I'm slowly reading (and greatly enjoying) The Confessions by Saint Augustine.  As a young student in approx 370AD, Saint Augustine hated studying Greek literature, including the works of poet and author Homer who often wrote about the gods.

In Roman mythology, Jupiter (Zeus in Greek mythology) was the king of heaven and Earth and king of all the Olympian gods. Jupiter's wife was Juno (Hera in Greek mythology), who was very jealous of the attention that Jupiter paid to other goddesses and women.  Put simply, we would say that Jupiter was an adulterer. 

Reflecting on the nature of education and role models of his time, Augustine writes:

Woe, woe to you, you flood of human custom!  Who can keep his footing against you?  Will you never run dry?  How long will you toss the children of Eve into a vast, terrifying sea, which even those afloat on the saving wood can scarcely cross?

Did you not give me a story to read in which Jupiter is both the Thunderer and an adulterer?  He could not possibly be both; yet so he was represented, to the end that his real adultery might seem to establish itself as deserving imitation because a faked thunderclap acted as go-between.  

... Homer did indeed make up these tales, and thereby seemed to invest the disgraceful deeds of human beings with an aura of divinity, so that depraved actions should be reckoned depraved no longer, since anyone who behaved so could pretend to be imitating not abandoned humans but the gods above.   

... (A) young man looks at a mural painting which shows how Jupiter tricked a woman by sending a golden shower into Danae's lap.  Watch the dissolute youth making use of heavenly instruction to work up his lust!  "What a god!" he exclaims, "a god who makes the temples of heaven ring with his thunder!"  Well, a poor little fellow like me can't do that, but I have imitated him in the other thing, and what fun it was!  

In the 1,700 years since Augustine wrote, few things have changed.  Just as Augustine's young mind was fed on gods who both thundered and adulterated, so too our young people grow up on the same diet.  To be sure, time has changed the details, we've replaced Jupiter for film stars and thunder for giftedness, but  the underlying message remains the same - "Your divine thunder validates your disgraceful behaviour."  

Hollywood presents our young people with role models who for 90 minutes on screen can be both thunderer and adulterer, creating a fictional world where the two attributes can happily coexist.  In fact, the thunder is so celebrated that surely the adultery is to be celebrated also.  For example, James Bond's daring exploits are so heroic and worthy of emulation, that to his captive audience, surely his sexual exploits are heroic too!  

And so today, a young man looks not at a mural but at a big screen.  He watches not a mythological god but an action hero.  He observes the hero leap from building to building and woman to woman, thinking to himself, "What a man", and then leaves the cinema to emulate all of Bond's behaviour that he can.