Adam - a legacy

In English we have an expression ‘being born with a silver spoon in his mouth’. It refers to somebody who is born into a situation of privilege, into a wealthy family, with good social standing, a good education and wonderful career prospects. Many of these privileged people go on to achieve great things: for example, the person voted by the British public as the greatest Briton ever, Sir Winston Churchill, was born in a palace into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. But others, even with all these advantages, make a mess of their lives and tragically end up in drug addiction or other sad situations - as we can so often see in the media.

Having finished the book of Hosea, I am now going to look at what we can learn from characters in the Bible, many of them not so well known. And what better place to begin than with Adam, the very first human being? Adam was born with a very large silver spoon in his mouth. He is one of only three human beings who began his life perfect (the others being Eve and Jesus); he spoke face to face with God; and he enjoyed the created world before anything had been able to spoil it.

Sadly, Adam was not one of those people who used his advantages well. He messed up big time, disobeying the one command which God had given to him and eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As a result, death came into the human race - something which God had never wanted - Adam was banished from the presence of God, and human survival became something hard and difficult - you can read about this in the third chapter of Genesis.

I have looked at every verse in the Bible that refers to Adam - outside the Genesis narrative there are 11 in total - and not one good thing is said about him. In fact, we are told, Sin entered the world through one man [that is, Adam], and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people (Romans 5:12). In Adam all of us die (1 Corinthians 15:22). What an awful legacy to leave to all his successors in the human race!

Every one of us reading this will ultimately die - unless we happen to be alive when Jesus comes back to earth - and we will leave a legacy. I’m not talking about the money or possessions that we leave behind and which will be divided out among our children, family members or charities. I am speaking about something much more permanent: the impact which we will have made upon the people around us: family, friends, work colleagues, fellow church members, neighbours, …

When I began to follow Jesus in the 1970s, not one of the older, godly men in the church took a particular interest me; none of them made it their aim to disciple me; none of them mentored me. It never occurred to them to do this, because such a thing was just not done at that time (at least not in the churches where I was a member). Looking back, 40 years later, I feel I missed out on something, and that there is so much that they could have passed on to me. I missed out on receiving a legacy from them.

So I determined that I would seek out promising young men and offer them the possibility to meet together every couple of weeks to talk, pray, read the Bible, share life together. Because our lives were so busy, we met at 7.00 a.m. for breakfast - I figured that if they were prepared to come to my house at that time, this demonstrated a real commitment to the relationship. Now, as I look back on my 25 years on Brussels, I would say that this is probably the single most useful thing I did while I was there, passing on to them a legacy from the things which I have learned and experienced. And I aim to continue to do this now that I am back in England.

God has given every one of us certain privileges, abilities and gifts. What are we going to do with them? Will we, like Adam, squander them and pass on a legacy which has no life in it?

Or will we seek to pass something on to the next generation, maybe through mentoring, maybe through leaving an imprint on the church where we have worshipped, on the company where we have worked, on the neighbourhood where we have lived? You don’t have to wait until you are old to start doing this.

However old or young you are, now is the time to begin passing on the legacy of the good things which God has given to you.