PARENTHOOD
a divine stewardship

Lights in the World

We Christian parents have the aspiration to nurture our children in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. At first glance such a statement, which is directly from the Word of God (cf. Ephesians 6:4) seems to be a clear goal statement for the Christian parent. However, on further consideration, what does it really mean in our daily practice? What is the discipline of the Lord? What is the admonition of the Lord? And what is its practical outworking in our children? What is our goal, and what are the procedures that we must use to reach our objective?

In this issue of Parenthood, which is another chapter review from Watchman Nee's classic book entitled, Love Not The World, we see that God's purpose for His chosen people is to constitute them to be lights in the world. The Bible makes a clear statement that the believers are lights or luminaries in the world (Philippians 2:15). One of the primary purposes of light is to expose and disperse darkness. So, the apostle Paul encouraged the believers to "not participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them. For the things which are done in secret it is shameful even to speak of. But all things which are reproved are made manifest by the light; for everything that makes manifest is light" (Ephesians 5:11-13). We believers should live a life that shines in a dark place exposing all of the evil that is present in our society. The light we shine must be the Lord Himself--Paul says that we who were once darkness are now light in the Lord who should henceforth walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8). This indicates that as God's regenerated people, we must expose the sinful condition of the world by what we are and by the kind of life we live. At the same time we must be "holding forth the word of life" (Philippians 2:15) in order that others may know the source of our living.

For this reason, the Lord has not taken us out of the world but left us in the world so that the world might be saved through the testimony of the Lord in us. As parents, we must infuse our children with this reality of a living which is in the world but not of the world (cf. John 17:14-16). Our goal is to produce children who live as lights in the world. Our procedure is a living and a speaking in Christ which infuses them with the same vision.

That you may be blameless and guileless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine as luminaries in the world. (Philippians 2:15)

Without fear of challenge Jesus could say: "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). His claim does not surprise us in the least. What is surprising, however, is that He should then say to His disciples, and so by implication to us: "Ye are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14). For He does not exhort us to be that light; He plainly says that we are the world's light, whether we bring our illumination out into places where men can see it, or hide it away from them. The divine life planted in us, which itself is so utterly foreign to the world all around it, is a light-source designed to illumine to mankind the world's true character by emphasizing through contrast its inherent darkness. Accordingly Jesus goes on: "Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." From this it is clear that to separate ourselves from the world today, and thus deprive it of its only light, in no way glorifies God. It merely thwarts His purpose in us and in mankind.

It is true that, as we saw earlier, the career of John the Baptist was rather different. He did in fact withdraw from the world to live austerely in desert places apart, subsisting, we are told, on locusts and wild honey. Men went out there to seek him, for even there he was a burning and a shining light. Yet we are reminded that "he was not that Light." He came only to bear witness to it. His testimony was the last and greatest of an old prophetic order, but it was so because it pointed forward to Jesus. Jesus alone was "the true Light which lighteth every man, coming into the world"; and He certainly "was in the world," not outside of it (John 1:9, 10). Christianity derives from Him. God can use a John crying in the wilderness, but He never intended His Church to be a select company living by the principle of abstinence.

Earlier we saw how abstinence-"handle not, nor taste, nor touch"-was merely one more element in the world system, and as such was itself suspect (Colossians 2:21). But we must go a stage further than this, and once again the apostle Paul comes to our help. In Romans 14:17 he shows how the Christian life is something removed altogether from controversy about what we do and what we don't do. "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking"--not, that is to say, to be conceived in those terms at all--"but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit," which are in a realm wholly different. The Christian lives, and is guided, not by rules specifying just how far he may mix with men, but by these inward qualities which are mediated to him by God's Holy Spirit.

Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It may be good for a moment to direct our attention to the second of these. For peace, we find, is a potent element in God's answer to His Son's prayer that He would keep us from the evil one (John 17:15).

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