Luke 2:49 And he said to them, How is it that you sought me? knew you not that I must be about my Father's business? Life must be wholly a manifestation of God. Every age is of value. Each section of life brings its own contribution to the perfected Christian character. Childhood has its own forces, its own kinds of strength and power, which other parts of life do not furnish; and they must be used in developing the man of God. You lose something if you put off religion to your later years. Your religious character never feels the benefit and power of these child forces, which do not belong to later life. You know the value of an overture in music; how its simplicity helps all the remainder of the more elaborate variations and movements. You could not start at once into the midst of the symphony or oratorio, and intelligently enjoy and use it. So youth brings its own peculiar contribution to the harmony of godly, Christly living. That is the teaching of the Boyhood of Christ. As the day without its dewy morning and all its influences; as the day beginning with hot noon; so is a life which begins for God at late years. We disjoint our religious lives, not seeing that 'the child is the father of the man,' and that all our days must be bound each to each by natural piety. Christ puts them altogether again, shows God in and through all of them, even in and through boyhood, and says, "It is not merely that you may be God's at the end; it is that all from the beginning may be His; and that at the end you may have a product towards which every stage of living has assisted." Oh, may Christ, the truest human child that has ever lived, win all the freshness and young strength there is yet in us for His Father. (Frederick Brooks.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?WEB: He said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Didn't you know that I must be in my Father's house?" |
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