You may have seen a recent article about how young people in GenZ are having a lot less premarital sex and are much more pro-marriage than previous generations. If one of your students told you he or she wasn’t having sex and was looking forward to being married one day, you might think your Bible lessons are starting to get through to your students. Except, if you kept reading the article, you would learn that not having sex is more about exposure to toxic social media and porn. And that the willingness to marry is because they believe marriage is disposable – divorce is inevitable, so why not give marriage a try? Their ultimate goal? An exciting life.
The problem is that many Christian adults accept surface compliance or what looks like compliance as evidence of a heart that wants to please God. Of a young person who will grow to be a faithful, productive Christian. In some cases, that may be true. But statistically the odds are that those young people who appear to be obeying God and embracing more traditional ideas of marriage are actually enmeshed in pornography and don’t value marriage as a lifelong commitment at all.
Ironically, it was just this sort of thing Jesus encountered with the Pharisees when he was here on Earth. Mind you, the Pharisees were a tad more sophisticated about putting a spiritual varnish on it, but the problem was the same. What looked like someone who was obeying God was actually someone whose heart was very from God indeed.
So what can you do? Don’t assume anything. Ask questions that go deeper. Examine motives and hearts. Keep talking about the “why” behind many of God’s commands. Since God is the source of all wisdom, why He commands certain things is important. What does God know is the importance of keeping sex within the confines of a martial relationship in the real world? Why does God expect marriage to last a lifetime, expect under very limited circumstances? Talk about the importance of wanting to obey God – not just sorta kinda obeying Him almost by accident or for ungodly reasons.
We can’t necessarily change cultural trends, but understanding them can better prepare you to give your Bible students the lessons they most need to become who God wants them to be.
