Jesus and Young Men
Illustration★★★★If ever there were a cause in the history of the world which should attract young men, it is Christianity. Jesus was a young man. He died at 33. When the hymn, “When I survey the wondrous Cross,” was first written, the second line ran like this: “Where the young Prince of Glory died.”
I have always been sorry that that beautiful phrase, “the young Prince of Glory,” was cut out of later editions of the hymn... . Jesus called young men and young laymen. We parsons and professional ecclesiastics do not come into the picture very credit- ably in the Gospels. As far as we know, Jesus called no parsons at all, no old RI men, no professional people.
He called men who were simple-minded, like Peter and James and John, the men who got their living by fishing in the Galilean lake. Not because they were uneducated, but because young men, and especially young men who work with their hands and have an unsophisticated outlook, can change their ideas.
They are not hidebound and conventional and the victims of the etiquette and tyranny of their set, or their profession, or their party. They are free to follow truth. New thoughts are not rejected by un- trammeled young men because they are new, and new ways of looking at life are welcome if there seems to be a promise that they will work.
The point
Jesus called simple young men, not professionals or elders, because youth unburdened by convention are free to embrace truth and change their ideas, making them fit for discipleship.