the cult of youth

The long-running saga of 'The Brothers Milibandov' seems now to be reaching a close (for the moment). To their relief, I'm sure - and probably to the great relief of a host of others as well.

The younger brother got the job. An interesting, and, in its own little way, quite a significant fact.

Youth reigns.

The man is certainly young. The tag line that life begins at 40 has now been slightly altered - leadership begins at 40. We have the younger brother leading now: not the elder.

Never mind that he's not really had any other job outside of political life. Youth, it seems, is all.

There's something not quite right about it all.

In the Scriptures some stress is accorded to elders. The term is deliberately used.

As any genuine wine connoisseur will know (and I don't set myself up remotely as such, I should add) some things come with age. Some things require the passing of years. Some things are better the older they are, and can't be so good when they're younger.

Youth, of course, has a great deal going for it.

There's a huge, big reservoir of energy, for one thing, when you're young.

And (generally) massive enthusiasm, too. The young are full of ideals, full of a surging and passionate dream of just how the whole world can be changed.

We don't want to curb or to stifle these things. Not at all. We want to tap into that reservoir, we want to sustain and to draw on that visionary, vibrant enthusiasm.

But.

The one thing youth can never have is experience. By definition.

Why are older drivers so much less of an insurance risk? Not because they're any better drivers than the young. Often they're not. It's just that they're experienced. They've learned things down the years which no amount of lessons from the best of driving teachers can impart.

They have experience. And that always counts for a bit.

When the Scriptures give stress to the elders (as they plainly do), they're surely simply recognising that two of the components in the wisdom leaders need require the passing years.

This practical, and down-to-earth, and truly godly wisdom is a grace involving three distinct components.

The first is, as suggested, just experience. Some long decades of living in the world and mingling with a vast array of people and working through a whole array of problems and scenarios which can arise.

Being there, doing that, and getting the T-shirt is a time-consuming business in the real (and not the virtual) world. Experience comes over time.

By itself, of course, experience isn't that great. It begins to come into its own when it's tied to a grasp of the Scriptures.

And that takes time as well. Not just adopting some read-the-whole-Bible-in-a-year scheme. But being steeped in its truth and familiar with all that it says.

If you want your porridge the way it's meant to be, you've got to soak the oats. For hours.

Our minds and our hearts must be soaked in the truths of the Scriptures if we're seeking that biblical knowledge. That takes years. There are simply no short-cuts. It takes time and application. Much to the consternation of an 'instant age', it will not ever happen in a flash.

But when a person's experience is married to that biblical knowledge, and when that combination is being fashioned by the Spirit of Almighty God, then wisdom is increasingly its fruit.

That's why the Scriptures give place as they do to the elders.

Age still counts for something!

Is that a mark of my getting old? I hope it's not. I've always maintained that a leader will be at his peak when he's 50-60 years old. Before that stage he'll certainly have enthusiastic energy. After it he'll certainly have experienced expertise.

It's surely there, within that span of life (I'm speaking here in general terms), that the two are at their optimal point of balance. Energy and experience.

The one the driver of action. The other a pillar of wisdom.

The cult of youth is a worrying trend, for in the end there isn't any substitute for age.

You can buy some 'plonk' pretty cheap, of course. But a really good wine has been slowly maturing for years. And it costs!

I sometimes fear this preference for the younger not the elder is the hallmark of a culture which has opted for the drunken high your average 'plonk' can give.

Life (if you can call it that) decidedly on the cheap.