Questions & Answers

You are asking very important questions and you are expressing a concern shared by fellow Christians everywhere when they work with or seek to bring youths to greater maturity in life and in their faith-life. Keep asking the questions, keep talking with the youths (and their parents) about such things, and make a point of speaking with others who have access to youths and share your concerns. Work together to try to make a difference in the specific youths that you have in mind and have access to.

You ask if they are accountable. The answer is yes. They are accountable to God, to the Christian community, their families, and themselves. Assuming meaningful instruction and assuming they were not allowed to participate in the confirmation ceremony mostly out of mere tradition, they should have a grasp on the basics of law and gospel, should see themselves as justified sinners who are called to lead sanctified lives. And more than that, they should have demonstrated a pattern of worship centered in a public as well as private use of the Word of God over a consistent period of time. At the same time they remain immature in so many ways, surrounded by societal and cultural temptations that  prey upon their emotional and physical immaturity and inexperience, and are sometimes quite self-centered to the point of embarrassment (this is a key trait of immaturity). No wonder David prayed as he did in Psalm 25:7 and no wonder a special admonition of Solomon was directed at youths in Ecclesiastes 12:1. The strong majority of Christian adults need little trouble remembering how shallow, selfish, thoughtless, rebellious, and prone to self-inflicted wounds they were while young. So while youths are and will remain accountable -- and should be held accountable by the church and family -- they also should be receiving our counsel and encouragement and included in our daily intercessions.

You ask how patient we should be with them. It is impossible to answer that question because our patience and firmness need to be linked to specific youths, not youth in general -- and Christian love will be taking note of the distinctive needs and traits of young people. Careful, loving observation coupled with ongoing encouragements, warnings, rebukes, and mature advice will soon be pretty well equipped to note the difference between youthful folly and open rebellion, between a weak faith and a false, hypocritical faith, between sins of weakness and ignorance versus deliberate sins. We will be more patient with the weak, and less patient with the willful rebel. That's applying law and gospel to others as we want it applied to us.

The passage you refer to, namely Proverbs 22:6, may serve us well in all this. The verb translated "train up" refers to more than passing on information or bare instruction. It has the picture of dedicating or setting a firm foundation upon which a lifestyle is constructed, parallel to building and dedicating a physical structure. This will involve modeling and mentoring, ongoing communication with love and patience, and not a mere informing of right and wrong. When youths are reared in that kind of environment, when they see and learn from the previous generation in an adequately functional family, a value system is being passed on. That will normally carry the youth through the difficult years of youthful immaturity and will bear all the more fruit to God's glory as the person matures.