What does it mean to have a multi-generational mentality in discipleship and raising children?

Jason Dohm shares insights from Deuteronomy 32:7, emphasizing that discipleship should be a multi-generational endeavor. This means wisdom is not confined to a single generation but can be found across different generations, which is significant because if discipleship only happens within one generation, we miss out on the wisdom of those who came before and will come after us. Every generation should avoid the misconception that they are the sole containers of all wisdom and should rather seek wisdom from other generations.

The next point Dohm highlights is the importance of the younger generation seeking wisdom from their elders. While parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents should impart wisdom to their descendants, it is also the responsibility of the younger generation to seek out and pull this wisdom from their elders. This helps balance the responsibility of wisdom transfer and encourages the younger generation to have an appetite for wisdom from those who have more life experience and have 'been through the wars'.

Proverbs 1:8-9 (NKJV): 'Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.'

Here's Deuteronomy 32-7, the reason I'm reading it is it has a direct and obvious bearing on discipleship, particularly of children. Deuteronomy 32, 7 says, remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders and they will tell you. So a couple of things jump out here. One is discipleship is multi-generational.

It's intended to be multi-generational. What does that mean and why is it important? Well it means that wisdom isn't isolated to any generation. Wisdom is found really sort of in different concentration across the generations. So if discipleship is all happening within one generation, you're missing out what's above and what's beneath generationally speaking.

Job had his counselors who come to him and Job ends up sort of mocking them saying, oh you're saying we are the men and wisdom dies with us. Every generation sort of has that sense of itself. We're a self-containment of all wisdom. It's not true. There's wisdom from the generations that have come before.

The other thing that jumps out here is that it's a call to pull wisdom from upstream, meaning parents, grandparents, great grandparents can push wisdom downstream to children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. But this is actually not talking about that. They should do that. We should do that when we get in that position. But what this is calling for is the younger generation pulling from parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents wisdom, seeking it out from other generations, which is an incredibly important concept because the onus then isn't only on the older generations to be pushing wisdom to the younger generation, but for the younger generation to have an appetite for it, to desire to pull it out of these generations that have come before.

So they've lived a lot of life, they've been through the wars.