Continues Improvement

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How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking
heed according to Your word Psalm 1199
ADOLESCENCE
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Biblical Guidance Through the
ADOLESCENCE
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Adolescence

• Lat. adulescens
• growing up, not yet come to full growth, youth
  (Lewis Short).

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Adolescence

• The state or period
• extending from about
• fourteen to twenty-five years of age in man and
  from twelve to twenty-one in woman
• New Century Dictionary of the English Language

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The Latin Vulgate

• For childhood adolescentia and youth are
  vanity (Ecclesiastes 1110b).
• Train up adulescens a child in the way he
  should go, And when he is old he will not depart
  from it (Proverbs 226).

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In Bible times there was no transition period
from childhood to adulthood. As children they
worked hard at chores and were responsible for
helping their family survive. They married
young they had to work to survive and they had
a shorter life-span. Because we are healthier,
better cared for and nourished, adolescence today
begins earlier and lasts longer. Jerry W.
Pounds, Sr . Hormones in Tennis Shoes, pg. 10
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The Roman Empire Law fixed marriageable age
for women at twelve years, and custom made it
fourteen. When a girl passed her nineteenth year
she was no longer, under ordinary circumstance,
eligible for marriage Roman Life in Plinys
Time, Women and Marriage
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India Saharan Africa
Over 50 of women marry between 15-19 Women in
the World An International Atlas, Seager
Olson, 14-15
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Laura left home and started her job as a school
teacher
At Fifteen years old!
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Challenges of Adolescence
Not a Child Not Yet an Adult
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I sometimes want to live in both worlds. I know
in the long run Gods the best choice but I want
to be a teenager and experience life and make my
own choices even if they arent the
best(Pounds).
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Challenges of Adolescence
Not a Child Not Yet an Adult
Peer Pressure
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As a Christian, I some-times get left out of
certain activities, therefore, my group of
friends has changed. Some of my friends dont
accept how I am good. And it can really be
hard in such a party city (Pounds).
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An intemperate youth brings to old age a
worn-out body Cicero, De Senectute, ix, sec.
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ADOLESCENCE
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Become old early if you wish to stay old long
Cato the Censor, De Re Rustica, quoted by
Cicero in De Senectute, c. 10, sec. 32
ADOLESCENCE
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Challenges of Adolescence
Not a Child Not Yet an Adult
Peer Pressure
Establishing a Secure Identity
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Questions Teenagers Ask Themselves
1. Who Am I? (Struggle for Identity) 2. What
Attitudes Will I Choose? (Struggle with
Responsibility) 3. Whose Rules Will I Respect?
(Struggle with Authority) 4. Which Lifestyle
Will I Adopt? (A Struggle with
Conformity). Chuck Swindoll, The Strong Family
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Challenges of Adolescence
Not a Child Not Yet an Adult
Peer Pressure
Establishing a Secure Identity
Generational Conflicts
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Its all that the young can do for the old, to
shock them and keep them up to date. George
Bernard Shaw Fannys First Play 1911
ADOLESCENCE
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In the old there is no taste, in the young no
insight Babylonian Talmud, Shabath, fo. 89b
ADOLESCENCE
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
The Example of Joseph Genesis 391-5
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1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And
Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the
guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the
Ishmaelites who had taken him down there. 2 The
LORD was with Joseph, and he was a successful
man and he was in the house of his master the
Egyptian. 3 And his master saw that the LORD was
with him and that the LORD made all he did to
prosper in his hand
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
The Example of Joseph Genesis 391-5
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...4 So Joseph found favor in his sight, and
served him. Then he made him overseer of his
house, and all that he had he put under his
authority. 5 So it was, from the time that he had
made him overseer of his house and all that he
had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptians house
for Josephs sake and the blessing of the LORD
was on all that he had in the house and in the
field.
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The LORD was with Joseph (vs. 2a).

• He was a successful man (vs. 2b).
• The Lord blessed the Egyptians house for
  Josephs sake (vs. 5).

The Lord had promised him that his family would
bow before him (Genesis 375-11).
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Rehoboam 1 Kings 121-11
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1 And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel
had gone to Shechem to make him king. 2 So it
happened, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard it
(he was still in Egypt, for he had fled from the
presence of King Solomon and had been dwelling in
Egypt), 3 that they sent and called him. Then
Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel came
and spoke to Rehoboam, saying
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Rehoboam 1 Kings 121-11
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4 Your father made our yoke heavy now
therefore, lighten the burdensome service of
your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on
us, and we will serve you. 5 So he said to them,
Depart for three days, then come back to me.
And the people departed. 6 Then King Rehoboam
consulted the elders who stood before his father
Solomon while he still lived, and he said, How
do you advise me to answer these people?
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Rehoboam 1 Kings 121-11
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7 And they spoke to him, saying, If you will
be a servant to these people today, and serve
them, and answer them, and speak good words to
them, then they will be your servants forever.
8 But he rejected the advice which the elders had
given him, and consulted the young men who had
grown up with him, who stood before him. 9 And he
said to them, What advice do you give? How
should we answer this people who
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Rehoboam 1 Kings 121-11
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have spoken to me, saying, Lighten the yoke
which your father put on us? 10 Then the young
men who had grown up with him spoke to him,
saying, Thus you should speak to this people who
have spoken to you, saying, Your father made our
yoke heavy, but you make it lighter on us thus
you shall say to them My little finger shall be
thicker than my fathers waist!
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Rehoboam 1 Kings 121-11
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11 And now, whereas my father put a heavy
yoke on you, I will add to your yoke my father
chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you
with scourges!
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So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be
swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath for
the wrath of man does not produce the
righteousness of God James 119-20
ADOLESCENCE
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It becomes a young man to be modest Plautus
Asinaria l. 833
ADOLESCENCE
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Do not be deceived Evil company corrupts good
habits. 1 Corinthians 1533
ADOLESCENCE
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Josiah - 2 Chronicles 341-3
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1 Josiah was eight years old when he became
king, and he reigned thirty-one years in
Jerusalem. 2 And he did what was right in the
sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of his
father David he did not turn aside to the right
hand or to the left. 3 For in the eighth year of
his reign, while he was still young, he began to
seek the God of his father David
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Josiah - 2 Chronicles 341-3
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and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah
and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden
images, the carved images, and the molded
images.
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Daniel Daniel 18
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8 But Daniel purposed in his heart that he
would not defile himself with the portion of the
kings delicacies, nor with the wine which he
drank therefore he requested of the chief of the
eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
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1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which
is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind, that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will
of God Romans 121-2
NON-CONFORMITY
ADOLESCENCE
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What You Say
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth,
but what is good for necessary edification, that
it may impart grace to the hearers Ephesians
429
NON-CONFORMITY
ADOLESCENCE
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What You Do
Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed
undefiled but fornicators and adulterers God
will judge. Hebrews 134
NON-CONFORMITY
ADOLESCENCE
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What You Put into Your Body
Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary
the devil walks about like a roaring lion,
seeking whom he may devour 1 Peter 58
NON-CONFORMITY
ADOLESCENCE
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What You Put on Your Body
Adorn themselves in modest apparel, with
propriety and moderation, not with braided hair
or gold or pearls or costly clothing 1 Timothy
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NON-CONFORMITY
ADOLESCENCE
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Biblical Guidance to Adolescents
Example of Jesus Luke 251-52
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51 Then He went down with them and came to
Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother
kept all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus
increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor
with God and men.
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Youth is meant to obey and old age to rule
Plutarch Moralia, Old Men in Public Affairs.
Sec. 789e
ADOLESCENCE
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A child costs the parents many, many dollars
along the way for clothes, food, doctors bills,
school expenses, and many other such things, but
he should not be made to feel any debt for the
expenses except the debt of gratitude. If he has
shown that gratitude by his big smiles and a hug
now and then, and if he has been obedient and
trustworthy, he has paid his way, and the parents
feel the wish that they could do more instead of
less for him. Irvin Lee, Good Homes
in a Wicked World 76
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1 But as for you, speak the things which are
proper for sound doctrine 2 that the older men
be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in
love, in patience Titus 21,2.
PATIENCE
ADOLESCENCE
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6 Likewise exhort the young men to be
sober-minded, 7 in all things showing yourself
to be a pattern of good works in doctrine
showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, 8
sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one
who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing
evil to say of you Titus 26-8
SELF-CONTROL
ADOLESCENCE
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5 But also for this very reason, giving all
diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue
knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to
self-control perseverance, to perseverance
godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and
to brotherly kindness love 2 Peter 15-7
SELF-CONTROL
ADOLESCENCE
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8 For if these things are yours and abound, you
will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who
lacks these things is short-sighted, even to
blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed
from his old sins. 2 Peter 18-10
SELF-CONTROL
ADOLESCENCE
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10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent
to make your call and election sure, for if you
do these things you will never stumble 2 Peter
18-10
SELF-CONTROL
ADOLESCENCE