The One Love

Introduction

This book is written for young people. It has repeatedly been stated that we are losing two-thirds of our young people from the Southern Baptist Convention. Southern Baptist only makes up 5.6% of the population of the United States and 0.3% of the world population. One can see from the standpoint of humanity and this book that it is a senseless statistic either within the United States or in the world. One must also note that scripturally young people are no different than the competent 100 year old.

The age of accountability is not noted specifically in the Scriptures. The Jewish literature suggests one becomes accountable at the time of puberty. Others usually consider the age of 12 or 13 as the age of accountability. All the world becomes guilty before God, (Romans 3:19) and all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say,  "I find no pleasure in them". (Ecclesiastes 12:1 NIV) (This verse has several translations, but the best seems to be from Matthew Henry’s Commentary since 1706, p. 1054.) Henry states, “A call to young people to think of God, and mind their duty to Him, when they are young. You that are young flatter yourselves with exceptions of great things from it, but believe those that have tried it; it yields no satisfaction to a soul…the antidote against the particular disease of youth, the love of mirth, which childhood and youth are subject to, is to prevent and accept the cure by remembering the Creator.”

From God’s Word and throughout the Scriptures our youth are no different from anyone else. If an 18 year old is Biblically Illiterate he is in trouble of having a good life. If a 100 year old is Biblically Illiterate he is in real trouble because few people accept Christ as their Savior after the age of 70.

This book will hopefully encourage a few of our youth to develop an academically acceptable plan to learn the Scriptures. This most likely will happen only if one takes Bible as an elective in college. This requires repeated reading, discussion, and study under the supervision of a competent and academically qualified professor.

Most people my age do not like the change of the name Sunday School to Life Groups, but it is at least honest because calling the Sunday School a school has been deceptive for fifty years that I know of. We have young people from birth to high school graduation who are Biblically Illiterate and are released into the world where we lose two thirds of them. Now what is this two thirds? Since the total number of Southern Baptists is 5.6% of the United States population and two thirds of the youth are part of the 5.6% it means that we are reaching less than 1% of our youth in our community. All of us who are Southern Baptists leaders will have to answer to God as to why we are not reaching more of them. God clearly commanded us to teach our children His Word, which we are not doing.  If anyone wants to question this, let us give high school seniors the Bible exam that one takes after only one semester (four months) of Bible in college.

The purpose of this book is to educate or at least to make available to young people when contemplating marriage or those who are already married how to have a successful and long marriage and life.

When one takes the test for Instrument Flight Certification they can bring any notes or references with them to the exam. It is impossible to know all the information, but it is also important to have references for any questions one might have.

In my first book, Biblical Baptist, I defined 13 things that I believe one would have to know something about to consider himself to have a “Broad Mentality.” This included some knowledge of:

1    The Bible

2    The Trinity (God, The Father, God, The Son. God, The Holy Spirit)

3    Man

4    Salvation of Man From Death

5    The Church

6    The Lord’s Day (Sunday)

7    God’s Kingdom

8    The Last Things (End of the World)

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