Age of Opportunity: Chapter 5 – Know Them and Care for Them

“The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” (Proverbs 20:5)

by Josh Liu

One of my biblical counseling professors has often exhorted his students that we not only need to faithfully exegete the Word of God, but we must also exegete people. In other words, we need to seek to know the people we minister to. Biblical wisdom must be applied appropriately and with discernment. Paul David Tripp touches on this principle.

To briefly review, I have been summarizing and expanding each chapter of Paul Tripp’s Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens. Tripp has divided his book into three parts: (1) Clearing the Debris; (2) Setting Godly Goals; and (3) Practical Strategies for Parenting Teens. In Part One, Tripp confronted the secular and skewed attitude toward parenting. He sought to reclaim parenting to the glorious purpose of fulfilling God’s divine appointment of shepherding another soul through life, in and against the culture’s attitude of merely surviving those teen years. He challenged readers (parents) to examine idols (unbiblical, worldly, selfish expectations and goals) within their hearts for their children. He then examined “family” according to the Scripture, summarizing biblical anthropology and family community. This present chapter, Chapter Five: “Parents, Meet Your Teenager,” which concludes Part One (Clearing the Debris), highlights important reminders to keep when pursuing opportunities with teens. This can ultimately be expanded to seeking to know anyone you would counsel, witness to, and disciple.

Tripp begins by stating, “Effective parents of teenagers are people who are able to remember what it was like to live in the scary world of the teen years…. If parents fail to remember moments like this, if we fail to recognize how huge these events are to our teenagers, we will fail to take them seriously.” In other words, parents who trivialize teens’ struggles miss opportunities to shepherd their children toward Christ. Here are things to keep in mind when ministering to teens (or another person in general):

  • Deal with your own heart first (cf. Matt. 7:3-5)
  • Speak in the right place at the right time
  • Consider how you make biblical wisdom and correction appealing and desirable in your responses
  • Remember that counseling is not beating someone over the head with the “right answers”
  • Seek to come with honest questions, not accusations
  • Be ready to humbly and graciously respond to defensiveness or blame shifting
  • Patiently pursue when they distance themselves
  • Wisely engage; do not be characterized exclusively as a lecturer
  • Prayerfully trust in God to work in hearts

Tripp highlights common tendencies of teens for parents to remember and be sensitive to when ministering to their children, which, again, may be expanded to others in general:

  • A tendency toward legalism: Many reduce godly living to a set of do’s and don’ts. You need to communicate what it means to have a heart for God and for doing what is right.
  • A tendency to be unwise in their choice of companions: Do not resort to gossip and slander, but help them examine what biblical friendship is and looks like.
  • A susceptibility to sexual temptation: Tripp suggests teaching your children early and keeping the topic of relationships, intimacy, and temptation open.
  • An absence of eschatological presence: Many, particularly teens, live for the present moment (e.g. Y.O.L.O.). Challenge their pursuit of temporal (and vain) happiness, and direct them to eternal investments.
  • A lack of heart awareness: Help them expose spiritual blind spots to their own heart motivations, desires, expectations, thoughts, and feelings by asking heart-probing questions. Help them see what they truly value, and how that is impacting their choices.

The teenage years truly is an age of opportunity when one humbles himself before God, girds himself with Scripture, and faithfully shepherds his teenage children. It may be an overwhelming or daunting task, but these general principles and reminders may encourage you to prayerfully and powerfully bring the Word of God to every moment in life. As you seek to minister to others, draw out the heart with the Word of God.

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)