1 Timothy 5:17 ( ESV) "Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching."Most of those who demonstrate are still in their youth. With gray hair comes wisdom. Those babes who were born just a few short years ago assume that they know it all, but are naive of their own ignorance. Sometimes they speak first hand of historical events even though in those days they weren't even a glint in their father's eyes. On the other hand I lived much of that history of which they claim to have so much knowledge.
Young people's ideas are tempered by those who teach. For instance, as a youth I grew up in the North. I was taught of the Civil War by Northerners, many of the liberal school of thought. When I read volumes of eye-witness accounts of that war, I realized that although I knew it all, that my teachers had lied, perhaps because they also had believed the lie.
Elders are to receive a double honor because they have wisdom. What young people learn off television is merely a body of knowledge, much of it fantasy. History is not objective when the purveyor of it has an agenda. Most movies and even documentaries are tainted by liberal thought. For those who think liberalism is open-mindedness, it has become the propagation of narrow views. Usually it's failing to teach divine truth and the propagation of secular deception. My own thought vault is filled with wisdom because I test knowledge with scripture. That is exactly what wisdom is.
It's insulting when a young person tells an elder how wrong they are, even when it is teaching what is right. By doing so, they trivialize the person's wisdom and have lack respect for their experience. In general the most ignorant old person has more wisdom than the most intelligent young person. Those young people should never assume that the elder is stupid, because that old person may even be a genius with a super high IQ. It is presumptive to challenge an elderly person because of the perception that old people are unknowledgeable and dim-witted.
The elderly should receive a double honor by the young people. That is double-respect. It will be the youth's turn to be honored as they gray, but until then, honor belongs to the elderly, and doubly so. Young people who always have the answer and seem to have an opinion on everything, are naïve. Without education, experience, and protocol; their opinions are much like a house built on quicksand. It is foolishness and will fall.
I speak from experience. In my youth I was a know-it-all. My opinion was divine truth in my own eyes, and my knowledge was superhuman. Wisdom just engulfed me as I slept and other people, even my dad, were mere humans. In my pride, I openly worshipped myself in full view of those who could only pity me. In my Bible white space I wrote profound commentary. After my hair grayed, I laughed at the wisdom of my youth. It was silliness which I wrote on the pages of my bible. Sometimes I still have too much pride in my own opinion because it became routine through the years. Even as an old person, I too am fallible, but not nearly as much as the young.
One method of honoring the elderly is to cease minimizing their wisdom. It is presumptive for someone twenty years old to lecture an older person. In our minds we can only laugh, but it's hard to laugh when one has just been offended. Some young people tell me about the injustice of the Viet-nam War. They waste their time. They weren't even alive in those times. Those young people should be asking me.
They tell me about Martin Luther King as if I know nothing of him. I was there with him as he marched, not in person, but with the cameraman. I know King's personality and his failures because I studied him as he lived. Now the man is a legend and legend is always more fantasy than fact. Look at the criminal Jesse James; society had made a hero of a petty criminal.
Facebook has become a place where some feel obligated to straighten out the world. That's why I write. I'm no different, but I want to admonish the world through Holy Scripture and make a strong attempt to filter the "me" out of it. In spite of that, my opinion is still predominant and I admit that. My opinion is not divine truth. The young person who is a know-it-all only delude themselves. Much of their knowledge is deception propagated by society.
It is the youth who demonstrate on the streets and condemn everybody who disagrees. Young people use that venue so as to propagate the views of the few. The leaders at these demonstrations are always the radicals, with the herd following their leadership. Those with herd mentality are often the young.
Even in 1904 Russia there were two groups of socialists: The Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks; the minority and the majority. However, it was really the Bolsheviks who were in the minority because they were the most radical, as history later revealed. They were rabid. Most of society is not rabid, but mere followers of mad leaders. The radicals, even though in truth, were the fewest won out over those in the majority. I wasn't there, but I have read first hand history extensively. Others didn't temper it for my palette.
Today's youth merely have an opinion on those things. It may be that their source of knowledge is some Hollywood narcissist or MSNBC commentator. However, all knowledge must be tested by scripture. Even the young zealots of Christ's time, the radicals, caused the destruction of the nation. What was has never been regained because of the lack of wisdom on the part of radicals. Those without wisdom caused their own nation to be destroyed in spite of the wise leaders who warned them. History can and does repeat itself, because the romantic ideals of the young can be destructive unless they learn from their elders.
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