Twenty easily confused pairs of Bible characters

The Bible is not short – in fact it consists of 66 books, 1,189 chapters and 31,103 verses.

That’s a lot of words.

In fact there are apparently 593,493 words in the Old Testament and 181,253 in the New Testament giving 774,746 words altogether.

Given that 70% of the Bible is narrative - and other sections list family names and genealogies in great detail - there are a phenomenal number of different named individuals, from Er to Maher-shalal-hash-baz!

Perhaps it is not surprising that many pairs of people with similar or identical names are easily confused.

Here, for your entertainment, and possibly also your education, are twenty such couples.

First are those with similar but not identical names.

1. Ahijah and Abijah. One was the prophet who tore his coat into twelve pieces and gave ten to Jeroboam, to signify that he would lead the ten northern tribes of Israel. The other was a King of Judah who did not follow the Lord whole-heartedly but wonan unlikely victory against huge odds when his men asked for God’s help.

2. Micah and Micaiah. Both were Old Testament prophets. The first predicted Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem in the book named after him. The second courageously spoke the truth to King Ahab, when no one else would, in spite of being imprisoned as a result.   

3. Abimelech and Ahimelech.  The first was the son of Gideon who murdered his seventy brothers and later died a violent death when hit on the head by a millstone dropped by a woman during a siege. The second was a priest whose loyalty to David cost him his life at the hands of Saul. He had a grandson of the same name. 

4. Amos and Amon. Amos was an Old Testament prophet who was called as a shepherd and predicted a major earthquake. Amon was a king of Judah who revelled in idolatry and was assassinated by his officials after being on the throne for only two years.

5. Enoch and Enosh. Both come from the early chapters of God. Enoch was a holy man who was taken up into heaven by God without dying. He was also Noah’s great grandfather and gets a mention in the New Testament book of Jude. Enosh was Enoch’s great grandfather and also the grandson of Adam.

6. Adoni-Zedek and Adoni-Bezek. The first was the Amorite king of Jerusalem who was defeated by Joshua on the day the latter commanded the sun to stand still. The second was a Canaanite king in the time of the judges who had a penchant for cutting off his enemies’ great toes.

7. Jude and Judah. The first was a brother of Jesus and wrote the New Testament letter of the same name. The second was one of the twelve sons of Israel and an ancestor of Jesus Christ, ‘the Lion of Judah’.

It’s particularly confusing when people with similar names live close together in history and interact with each other

8. Joram and Jehoram. Both were Old Testament Kings; Joram of Israel (he was the son of Ahab and Jezebel) and Jehoram of Judah. They were related by marriage as Jehoram married Joram’s sister. Neither did much good and Jehoram passed away, it is said, ‘to no one’s regret’.

9. Uz and Buz. Abraham’s nephews. Their mother may have had difficulty telling them apart but seemed to have a liking for unusual names. Her other sons were called Kemuel, Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel.

10. Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Rehoboam was the son of Solomon who was king at the time the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled. Jeroboam led the rebellion.

11. Elijah and Elisha. Elijah was one of the most famous of the Old Testament prophets. Elisha was his apprentice and later surpassed him, possessing a ‘double measure’ of his spirit.

But when two people have exactly the same name even biblical editors can get them mixed up.

12. Daniel and Daniel. The best known was the famous prophet who was rescued by God from a den of lions. His book of prophecy tells about the rise and fall of the empires of Babylonian, Median, Persian and Greek Empires, much of it before it actually happened. The lesser known was the son of David’s second wife Abigail.

13. Saul and Saul. One in each Testament: the former was the first king of Israel, who rejected God and was rejected by him. The second persecuted the early church but was converted on the Damascus Road and became one of Christ’s Apostles, changing his name to Paul. He later established churches all over the known world and wrote 13 books in the New Testament.

14. Joseph and Joseph. Again, one in each Testament: the first was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (later renamed Israel), who was sold as a slave by his brothers. He later ended up running the Egyptian Empire and saved its people, and his own family, from starvation during a famine. The latter was the husband of Mary and father of Jesus.

15. Mary and Mary. One was wife of Joseph and mother of Jesus. The second (Mary Magdalene) was a follower of Jesus and the first witness to his resurrection.

16. Tamar and Tamar. Both were the victims of sexual abuse. The first was Judah’s daughter in law who had two sons by him through posing as a prostitute after he had mistreated her. She is listed in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1. The second was the sister of Absalom and daughter of David, who was raped by her half brother Amnon. The event led directly to Absalom’s murder of Amnon and subsequent rebellion against David.

17. Joshua and Joshua. The former was the successor of Moses who led the people of Israel out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land. The second was a high priest referred to the book of Zechariah who was cleansed from his sin by God. Joshua is a Hebrew word meaning ‘saviour’; the Greek equivalent is Jesus.

18. James and James. The first was the brother of John, one of Jesus twelve disciples, who was put to death by Herod. The second was the brother of Jesus, chair of the Jerusalem Council and writer of the New Testament letter which bears his name.

19. Judas and Judas. Both were disciples of Jesus. Judas Iscariot betrayed him but Judas the son of James (also known as Thaddaeus) was faithful.

20. Zechariah and Zechariah. Both were Old Testament prophets. The first, Zechariah son of Berekiah, was the author of the book of the same name. The second was the son of Jehoiada the priest. He confronted king Joash over his idolatry but paid for it with his life. A New Testament editor appears to confuse the two in Matthew 23:35. Zechariah is one of the commonest names in the Bible and is also shared by a lesser known king of Israel and the father of John the Baptist.

No doubt you can think of other confusing biblical couplets and similarities, but of all the Bible characters one life stands out as absolutely unique: the one solitary life of Jesus Christ (literally ‘Saviour Messiah’).

Jesus  marks himself out by his words, claims and actions to be God in the flesh: Son of God, Son of Man, Lamb of God, Prince of Peace, Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, Lord, Judge and Saviour.

As the Apostle Peter said to the rulers and elders in Jerusalem, he is the only way to God:

‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)

DPP defers to doctors practising abortion on demand in failure to uphold the law

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer (pictured), said yesterday that he would not be prosecuting two doctors caught in a Telegraph sting who authorised abortions on grounds of sex selection.

The decision that a prosecution would not be in the public interest had previously fuelled massive outrage but Starmer claimed that in reaching his conclusion he ‘fully consulted with the police who agreed with him’.

In a detailed statement the DPP argued that ‘the law does not, in terms, expressly prohibit gender-specific abortions; rather it prohibits any abortion carried out without two medical practitioners having formed a view, in good faith, that the health risks of continuing with a pregnancy outweigh those of termination.’

‘On the facts of these cases, it would not be possible to prove that either doctor authorised an abortion on gender-specific grounds alone,’ he concluded.

In making his case to the attorney general who had sought ‘urgent clarification’ of the reasons, Starmer drew heavily on medical guidelines to justify his position.

He quoted the British Medical Association Handbook of Ethics and Law (2012) advising doctors that ‘there may be circumstances, in which termination of pregnancy on grounds of fetal sex would be lawful’.

Although he said this guidance was ‘far from clear’, it indicated the BMA’s view that ‘termination on the grounds of the gender of the foetus may be lawful if the effects of the pregnancy may be such that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family’.

He also quoted an unnamed ‘Programme Manager at the Department of Health’ who ‘indicated that many doctors feel that forcing a woman to proceed with an unwanted pregnancy would cause considerable stress and anxiety.’

‘Procuring a miscarriage’ is an offence contrary to section 58 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

However, section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967 provides that a person should not be guilty of an offence when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith, inter alia, that ‘the pregnancy has not exceeded its 24th week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family’.

Of the approximately 200,000 abortions which are carried out in Britain each year 98% are recorded as being on this basis and of these 99.96% of terminations are on the risk to the woman’s mental health alone.

As I have previously argued, these abortions are all technically illegal, as there is no sound medical evidence that continuing with a pregnancy ever constitutes a greater risk to a mother’s mental health than having an abortion.

But in practice the mental health clause is widely used by doctors, many of whom have not even seen the patient in question, as a convenient box to tick effectively to authorise abortion on demand.

Keir Starmer defended the initial decision of a CPS colleague not to prosecute in the two cases as ‘properly taken and sound’ and claimed that the law required prosecutors to prove that the doctors ‘did not carry out a sufficiently robust assessment’ of the health of the woman concerned before coming to their decision. 

He added that the ‘limited’ medical guidelines on the issue made this impossible and that it was now for others to decide whether these guidelines should be tightened.

The attorney general Dominic Grieve said he was satisfied that Mr Starmer had taken the decision ‘properly and conscientiously’ and that ‘it is for the DPP to make his decisions independently and based on the individual facts of the matter’.

Abortion is against every historic code of medical ethics including the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva and the International Code of medical Ethics. As recently as 1947 the BMA called it ‘the greatest crime’.

But doctors have now become abortion’s chief perpetrators and are been given a free hand to carry it out in Britain on an industrial scale without proper regulation and without fear of prosecution. There have been only a handful of prosecutions since the Abortion Act came into being 46 years ago.

So there we have it. The doctors betray their ethics and conspire to break the law on a massive scale.

The DPP lacks the balls to prosecute, defers to the doctors and passes the buck to parliament.

The police play poodle to the DPP. The attorney general washes his hands of the whole affair and parliament turns a blind eye.

Meanwhile over seven million future British citizens are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. A law that is not upheld – or is perhaps even unenforceable - is no law at all.

What a sorry state of affairs.

I gather that David Burrowes MP has called for an urgent parliamentary debate on the matter tomorrow and intends to ask the attorney general a number of searching questions about how we reached this point.

I wish him every success. 

All you need to know about euthanasia and assisted suicide in Britain

Care not Killing, which promotes good care and opposes euthanasia, has just updated its website to include more ready access to key campaign information.

There is now a new ‘Live Issues’ page which gives up to date information on all the main issues CNK has been involved in, along with key dates, links to background information and action points.

From here you can quickly get an overview of what is happening with the Falconer and Macdonald Bills, the Nicklinson, Lamb and ‘Martin’ court cases, the Liverpool Care Pathway, Media bias and the Royal College of General Practitioners consultation.

A policy guide explains where CNK stands on all these issues and more and an ‘About Page’ summarises the alliance's main arguments clearly and succinctly.

There is also an FAQ page which deals with the common questions people ask and a ‘Get involved’ page which explains how you can get more engaged with CNK's campaigns.

Don’t forget too to sign up to the twitter feed and facebook community and be aware of the videos on the CNK You Tube channel.

Latest updates on current events and personal stories are linked from the homepage and you can easily access recent stories from the last year – listed month by month - over the last on the ‘latest’ page.

CNK was set up in 2006 and represents over 40 organisations and thousands of concerned citizens. It has been a leading voice on end of life issues in the UK since its launch. 

How you can help grow Christian doctors worldwide

In July 2014 over 1,000 Christian doctors and medical students from over 60 countries will meet in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for the 15th WorldCongress of the International Christian Medical and Dental Association (ICMDA).

Our aim is to help key students and junior doctors from resource-poor parts of Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa to attend.

Previous world congresses have played a major role in establishing Christian medical fellowships all over the world as well as encouraging and equipping thousands of individual Christian doctors and students to live and speak for Jesus Christ.

Dr Alex Bolek (right) is a young South Sudanese doctor who was helped with travel and registration for the last World Congress in Uruguay 2010. Today he is a key player in a major Sudanese mission project to develop an Institute of Health Sciences to train healthcare workers in the Nile river town of Bor about two hours' drive north of the Capital Juba. The project is a joint venture between ICMDA, the Health Ministry of South Sudan and the Anglican Church. Training is scheduled to start in June 2014.

500 Euros (£420) will fund one doctor or medical student for the whole week in Rotterdam with accommodation provided free through host-families. A stringent selection process (that includes feedback from national associations and leaders) is in place to ensure that the right candidates get the bursary.

The total target is $150,000 (~£95,000) and we are aiming to raise just over 20% of that (£20,000) from CMF UK members and others in the UK. We have chosen this target because ICMDA relies on CMF UK, as one of the largest of its 70 national member organisations, for about 21% of its general income.

This is a wonderful opportunity to invest in ICMDA's dream of 'a Christian medical witness in every community, in every country'.

Please give generously and help us hit the target so that more like Alex can benefit

Opposition to the legalisation of assisted suicide is based on solid evidence and sound argument Sir Terence

Sir Terence English (pictured) is an 81 year old retired cardiac surgeon who lives in Oxford. He is also a patron of Dignity in Dying (the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society) and is on the steering group of its medical wing, Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying (HPAD).

As such he is one of a small minority of doctors in this country (a quarter of one per cent belong to HPAD) who think that medical practitioners should be licensed by the state to dispense lethal drugs to mentally competent, terminally ill adults who wish to kill themselves.

This is a policy opposed by the British Medical Association, the World Medical Association, the Association for Palliative Medicine, the British Geriatric Society and virtually every Royal Medical College including the RCGP and the RCP.

It is also contrary to every serious code of medical ethics that has ever been drafted including the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva, the International Code of Medical Ethics and the Statement of Marbella.

But last weekend Sir Terence wrote a letter to the Sunday Telegraph accusing me of ‘scaremongering’ for arguing that giving doctors such authority and power is not a good idea.

He commended the BBC for giving Lord Falconer a platform to promote his ‘assisted dying’ bill unopposed on BBC breakfast television and claimed that the bill had a ‘narrow focus’ which did not involve ‘euthanasia’ or ‘disabled people’ – only ‘mentally competent, terminally ill adults’.

Tellingly he gave no arguments to support his position.

‘Assisted dying’ is a euphemism with no meaning in law but it means supplying lethal drugs to people who are terminally ill with the purpose of helping them to commit suicide.

The line between assisted suicide and euthanasia is very thin. Assisted suicide is helping someone to kill themselves. Euthanasia is killing them with or without their permission. The intention in both is the same and the acts are thereby morally and ethically equivalent regardless of the fact that they are illegal under different UK laws (the Suicide Act 1961 and the murder law respectively). Assisted suicide is simply euthanasia one step back.

But more than this, from a practical point of view one merges into the other. If a doctor places lethal drugs in a person’s hands it is assisted suicide, but on his tongue it is euthanasia. If the doctor sets up a syringe-driver and pushes it himself it is euthanasia, but if the patient applies pressure or flicks the switch it is assisted suicide.

In one in seven cases of assisted suicide there are problems with ‘completion’ leaving the doctor to step in to finish the job, which is why legalising one inevitably legalises the other. There will also inevitably be those who claim that they are being discriminated against because they lack the capacity, even with assistance, to kill themselves, and so need someone to do it for them. This is why any law allowing assisted suicide only (and not euthanasia) would immediately be open to challenge under equality laws.

The reality is that assisted suicide is just another form of euthanasia.

Claiming that Falconer’s bill is not for disabled people but only for terminally ill people is equally disingenuous. This is because almost all terminally people are also disabled, and many disabled people are either terminally ill, have life limiting conditions, or are susceptible to sudden unexpected and potentially life-threatening deteriorations in health.

Disabled people and people with terminal illness are simply not distinct groups but considerably overlapping categories. This is why every major disability advocates group in the UK – including Disability Rights UK, SCOPE, Not Dead Yet and UKDPC – are opposed to a change in the law.  Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, in passionately voicing these concerns, has recently called assisted suicide a ‘chilling prospect for disabled people’.

Falconer’s three criteria of ‘terminally ill’, ‘adult’ and ‘mentally competent’ are equally malleable and open to interpretation as argued in the recent critique by leading parliamentary think tank ‘Living and Dying Well’.

Doctors are notoriously unreliable in estimating lifespans, ‘adult’ is easily open to extension to 12 to 14 year olds using the concept of ‘Gillick competence’ and the experience in Belgium and the Netherlands shows that mentally incompetent people (babies with severe disabilities and adults with dementia) quickly get drawn into the remit of laws allowing euthanasia or assisted suicide. Assessing mental competence is a specialised skill that not all doctors have and it can easily be clouded by the presence of depression, which itself increases suicidal ideation.

It is for these reasons that in every country which has legalised any form of ‘assisted dying’ we have seen incremental extension – an increase in total numbers, a broadening of categories of people to be included and an increase in ending life through parallel means such as deliberate withdrawal of treatment, intentional morphine overdose or so-called ‘terminal sedation’.

But the biggest problem with giving doctors the power and authority to end life, even with a patient's consent, is that doctors cannot be trusted with this kind of power.

Whatever one thinks of the morality of abortion, very few will disagree that the abortion law has been flagrantly abused, and yet it employs a very similar system to that proposed by Falconer - giving doctors licence to end life in so-called strict circumstances. Currently about 98% of all UK abortions (196,000 each year) are outside the bounds of the Abortion Act. Illegal pre-signing of authorisation forms is widespread - perjury on a massive scale – and yet no prosecutions take place. We would see the same flouting of the law and pushing of boundaries, along with the same reluctance by the police or crown prosecution service to intervene, if assisted suicide or euthanasia were to be legalised.

Doctors are human and prone to financial and emotional pressure, but there are also some who sadly will abuse any power given to them. The recent experience of the Liverpool Care Pathway debacle, where some doctors and other health professionals abused what was essentially a good therapeutic tool through laziness, neglect or deliberate malpractice, underlines further why they should not be trusted with the even greater power to end life actively. Allowing doctors to have this power would make them the most dangerous people in the state.

Our current law is clear and right. By prohibiting all euthanasia and assisted suicide it acts, through the penalties it holds in reserve, as a powerful deterrent to exploitation and abuse. And by allowing some discretion to judges and prosecutors in hard cases it exercises this stern face with a kind heart. It does not need changing.

To point out the consequences of changing the law is not scaremongering as Sir Terence English would have us believe. It is to exercise caution in the light of solid evidence and sound argument.

The first duty of parliament is to protect its citizens and this is what the current law does. We cannot chip away at it without at the same time removing legal protection from vulnerable people and putting them under pressure to end their lives so as not to be a financial or emotional burden to others.

Further Reading

Op-Ed: ‘Assisted suicide: a chilling prospect for disabled people’ by Tanni Grey-Thompson

Leading parliamentary think tank says Lord Falconer’s ‘Assisted Dying’ Bill fails public safety test

Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide: the illusion of safeguards and controls

Euthanasia deaths continue their relentless rise in the Netherlands

New round of celebrity-led cheer-leading for assisted suicide

Stephen Hawking is a great scientist but his advice on decriminalising assisted suicide should be given short shrift

Police arrest in Chichester should serve as a reminder of why assisted suicide is against the law

World Medical Association reaffirms its strong opposition to euthanasia

Legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide – a Christian perspective on upcoming threats in the UK

Euthanasia and Assisted suicide - more worrying developments in Belgium and the Netherlands

Belgium and the Netherlands escalate their children’s euthanasia programmes

Lord Falconer is seeking to overturn the Hippocratic Oath and change 2,400 years of history

The ‘Groningen protocol’ for euthanasia of disabled babies in the Netherlands

Why legalising assisted suicide inevitably also legalises euthanasia

Praying for Christians in Syria is not enough

We have all been deeply moved to hear about the desperate plight of Christians in Syria who have been targeted by radical Islamic groups during the civil war.

But recent weeks and days have brought powerfully home to us that Christians throughout the whole of the Islamic world are facing great danger from those who would like to see their communities eradicated: scores of churches in Egypt torched and burned, 78 killed outside a church in Pakistan, Kenyan Christians gunned down in Westgate shopping centre by Al Shabab for not reciting the ‘Shahada’ and now 40 students shot dead whilst they slept in Northern Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram.

These Christians are the tip of a much larger iceberg of those who have fled their homes, lost children, parents and family members or are without food, shelter or clothing. Many are included amongst over a million children who have fled fighting in Syria. Now they are hungry, homeless and fearful.

Many Christians in the UK and elsewhere have been praying for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East and elsewhere but as Christians in the UK we can and must do far more than that.

Suffering Christians in the Islamic world are part of the global church, who we have a responsibility to help and are in a position to do so.

In the first century the Apostle Paul organised a collection for the poor in Jerusalem to which Christians from all over the Roman world contributed (2 Corinthians 8 & 9). He emphasised his concern for the poor (Galatians 2:10) and said that Christians should ‘do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers’ (Galatians 6:2, 10).

Jesus, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, said that we way we treat our brothers and sisters who are hungry, thirsty, naked or without shelter is actually the way we treat him (Matthew 25:31-46).

His parable of the Good Samaritan challenges us to be neighbours to all those in need, regardless of nationality or culture (Luke 10:25-37).

James said that true religion involves caring for widows and orphans in their distress (James 1:27) and that faith without care for the physical needs of others is dead (James 2:14-17).

The Apostle John makes the challenge crystal clear:

^‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ‘ 
(1 John 3:16,17)

Not many of us will have the skills or openings to go to help and in most cases it will be best to leave it to those experts already on the ground. But in the 21^st century it is now very easy to give to provide food, clothing, shelter, medical care and other necessities.

Aid agencies like Save the Children, UNICEF, Red Cross, Christian Aid and Oxfam are already doing a lot to support refugees.

But there are also many Christian Missions who are specifically reaching and supporting Christian believers. I have listed and linked some of them below. As John exhorts us, ‘let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth’ (1 John 3:18).

Agencies supporting Christians in Syria and elsewhere

Barnabas Aid – Syria Appeal

Open Doors – Save Syria Campaign

World Vision – Syria Crisis Appeal  

Tear Fund – Syria Crisis Appeal

AWM – Syria Appeal
Aid to the Church in Need - Syria Crisis

The 4/14 Window – probably the world’s most strategic mission field

Most mission-minded Christians have heard of the 10/40 window (left) - the geographical region between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator - where most people unreached by the Gospel live.

But far fewer it seems have heard of the 4/14 window - the world of children between the ages of 4 and 14. Overall about one third of the world’s population is below the age of 15 years - in parts of Africa and Asia it is 40-50%.

The term was introduced in a 1996 publication by Dan Brewster, then program director for Compassion International.  He highlighted research by Bryant Myers, who showed that ‘85% of those who become Christians do so between the ages of 4 and 14 years old’.

A person’s life-long behaviours and beliefs are generally developed during childhood and early adolescence. In the overwhelming majority, moral and spiritual foundations are in place by age nine.

Fundamental perspectives on truth, integrity, meaning, justice, morality, and ethics are formed at this early stage of life.

It is therefore vital to reach children while they are young and equip them to make an impact throughout their lives.  Children are the most receptive to the gospel, and positioned to be a mighty force to bring others to faith in Christ. Children have their whole lives ahead of them to live out and share their faith, and they also have time to be long-term agents of change.

In September 2009 more than 300 international Christian leaders met at the 4/14 Window Global Summit in New York. The gathering was called by AD2000 and Beyond Movement founder Luis Bush, a renowned missiologist.

The 4/14 Window movement spawned by this event is still going and a host of resources are available on line (see below)

In October 2010, just over a year later, I was privileged to be amongst 4,000 Christian leaders from more than 200 countries attending The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa.

Through discussions and prayer, participants sought God’s direction to discern where the Church should invest its efforts and energies to most effectively respond to Jesus’ command to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’(Matthew 28:19).

The Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith and a Call to Action was one result. In Part 2 Section 5 it highlights the strategic nature of Children’s ministry:

‘Children and young people are the Church of today, not merely of tomorrow. Young people have great potential as active agents in God’s mission. They represent an enormous under-used pool of influencers with sensitivity to the voice of God and a willingness to respond to him. We rejoice in the excellent ministries that serve among and with children, and long for such work to be multiplied since the need is so great. As we see in the Bible, God can and does use children and young people – their prayers, their insights, their words, their initiatives – in changing hearts. They represent “new energy” to transform the world. Let us listen and not stifle their childlike spirituality with our adult rationalistic approaches.’

The section concludes in a call to action to:

‘take children seriously, through fresh biblical and theological enquiry that reflects on God’s love and purpose for them and through them’ and to seek to train people and provide resources to meet the needs of children worldwide, wherever possible working with their families and communities…’

The Bible calls us to ‘Start children off on the way they should go’ promising that ‘even when they are old they will not turn from it’ (Proverbs 22:6). 

Jesus called children to himself (Mark 10:14) and warned about leading them astray (Mathew 18:5,6). One of the most important passages in the Old Testament emphasises the importance of teaching children to love and honour God:

‘These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.’ (Deuteronomy 6:6,7)

Children are the future and today’s 4 to 14 year olds will be the leaders of the church in just a few decades time. Let’s make them a priority in our churches and communities.

4/14 Window Resources

4/14 Window Movement

4/14 YouTube Video

4/14 Window Movement Facebook Page

European Evangelical Alliance brochure

4/14 Global Summit – Bangkok 15-18 October 2013

Global 4/14 Day – 14 April 2014