Chapter 1

Mary & Peter: Teenagers (but neither TCKs nor Adolescents)

            “Jesus was a teenager, but never an adolescent.”  That remark by a guest Sunday school teacher immediately caught my attention.  How could that be?  Aren’t teenagers and adolescents the same thing.  Our oldest child had just become a teenager, and the truth of that statement radically changed the way we treated him then, as well as the way we treated our two younger children when they became teenagers.  It also occupied much of my thinking for the next decade.  Let us consider some people who lived during Jesus time, people who were teenagers, but neither TKCs nor adolescents.

Mary

            All who lived in New Testament times were teenagers, but none were adolescents.  Mary, along with Martha and Lazarus (her sister and brother), lived in their family home in Bethany just a couple miles east of Jerusalem, about six miles northeast of Bethlehem.  Mary often sat with the disciples and listened as Jesus taught.  One time when she did not help cook, Martha scolded her and tattled to Jesus (Luke 10).  Another time Mary, heartbroken at the death of her brother, watched as Jesus brought him back to life (John 11).  She had been a teenager but neither an adolescent nor a third culture kid (TCK).

Peter

            Peter was probably present when Mary’s brother was raised from the dead.  He lived and worked in Galilee about 85 miles north of Bethany.  He and his brother were fishermen, and one day Jesus asked to teach from Peter’s boat near the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  After Jesus finished speaking, he told Peter to throw his nets overboard in the deep water to catch some fish.  Knowing that he had fished all night with no luck, Peter was hesitant, but he threw the nets overboard anyway.  The nets were filled with so many fish that they began to tear, and Peter needed help to get the fish into the boat.  It was so full that it began to sink (Luke 5).  From that moment on Peter followed Jesus and became a leader among the disciples.  Like Mary, Peter had been a teenager but neither an adolescent nor a TCK.

            Both Mary and Peter knew about other cultures.  In fact, Samaria was between Bethany (where Mary lived) and Galilee (where Peter lived).  Although the Samaritans and Jews had a common ancestry, the Jews who lived in either side of them (like Mary and Peter) did not consider the Samaritans to be Jewish.  In fact, when traveling between Bethany and Galilee, Jews tried to avoid going through Samaria—even if it took them a day longer to travel.  Even though Mary and Peter were keenly aware of this culture, they had never lived in it.  In fact, they often tried not even to pass through it.  They were not TCKs.

Teenagers were adults.

            The dictionary defines a teenager as a person in his or her teens.  Of course, the teens are the numbers between 13 and 19, so anyone 13-19 years old is a teenager.  Jesus lived 33 years, so at one time he was 13 years old, 14 years old, and so forth.  He was a teenager at one time in his life.  However, adolescence had not yet been invented as a “stage” which children went through on their way to adulthood, so Jesus was never an adolescent.  When his childhood was over, he became an adult as shown by the following items.

• Ceremonies.  Children became adults through ceremonies.  The Encyclopedia Judaica notes that bar mitzvah literally means “son of the commandment” (and bat mitzvah means “daughter of the commandment”).  At the age of 13 plus one day (12 plus one day for girls) the boy became a man, attaining religious and legal maturity so his vows were valid.  Though the actual ceremony was not developed until much later, even during Jesus’ time boys became men at this age.  They could marry and participate fully in religious services, as well as buy and sell property.
• Responsibility.  Jewish law fixed 13 as the age of responsibility for young men (12 for young women).  Midrashic literature has many references to this as the turning point in a person’s life, noting that at this age Abraham rejected the idols of his father.  At this age Jacob and Esau went their separate ways (one to study Torah and one to idol worship).  Talmudic literature notes that in Jerusalem during the period of the Second Temple, it was customary to bless persons who had completed their first fast day at 12 or 13.  The father was responsible for his son’s actions only until the boy turned 13. 
• Religious participation.  Reading from the Torah was the primary symbolic act showing that the boy had become a man.  On the first occasion for reading the Torah after his thirteenth birthday according to the Jewish calendar, the young man did so.  That was the first public demonstration of his new role as a man.  When the boy’s father read the Torah, he recited the benediction, “Blessed is he who has now freed me from the responsibility of this one.”  The boy was now a man.
• Bible passages.  Throughout both Old Testament times and New Testament times, people went from being children to being adults.  Whether you read about Moses’ development in Exodus 2 or Hebrews 11, you find that in one sentence he is referred to as a child.  In the next sentence he is referred to as being grown up.  There was no intermediate stage of adolescence.  In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul referred to himself as a child three times in one sentence.  He then began the next sentence with, “When I became a man…”  Again there was no intermediate developmental stage of adolescence. 
• Marriage for Women.  One sure sign that people were considered adults was the minimum age at which they could legally marry.  Of course, not everyone married at this minimum age, but it was strongly encouraged as seen in the following from the Talmud.  “As had been taught: Do not profane thy daughter to cause her to be a whore: R. Akiba said: This refers to the delay in marrying off a daughter who is already a bogareth” (A footnote explains that since she has reached puberty, she may become unchaste if not married).  “R. Kahana said: The only poor in Israel is the subtly wicked and he who delays in marrying off his daughter, a bogareth.” Another passage talking about the man who lived in peace and not sin states, “He who loves his wife as himself and honors her more than himself, and leads his children in the right path, and marries them just before they attain puberty—of him the scripture saith…” (Sanhedrin 76a-76b).
• Marriage for men.  The Talmud also has similar passages about the young men.  “R. Huna was thus in accordance with his views.  For he said, He who is twenty years of age and is not married spends all his days in sin.  ‘In sin’—can you really think so?—but say, spends all his days in sinful thoughts.”  “As soon as one attains twenty and has not married, he exclaims, ‘blasted be his bones!”  “R. Hisda said: The reason that I am superior to my colleagues is that I married at sixteen.  And had I married at fourteen, I would have said to Satan, ‘An arrow in your eye.’”  (Kiddushin 29-b-30a).
• Other cultures over thousands of years.  The minimum legal age for marriage (a mark of adulthood) remained at 12 for women and 13 or 14 for men until a century or two ago. One can trace these ages throughout the history of the western world, through Roman law, English law, and early American law.  Again, remember that not everyone married at these ages, but they could legally do so.  From pioneer Kentucky, “A marriage that sometimes united a boy of sixteen to a girl of fourteen was an occasion of merriment that brought out the whole fort.”  “The girls of North Carolina married so early that grandmothers of twenty-seven years of age were frequently found.”
• Work.  Not only could people marry, but they were expected to provide for themselves.  A Massachusetts law about welfare in 1823 said, “They shall certify that no part of such account is for the support of any male person, over the age of twelve and under the age of sixty years, while of competent health to labor.”  In his autobiography Andrew Carnegie wrote about when he was 15 years old, “And that is how in 1850 I got my first real start in life.  From the dark cellar running a steam engine at two dollars a week, begrimed with coal dirt…into paradise, yes heaven, as it seemed to me, with newspapers, pens, pencils, and sunshine about me.”  This, of course, was a promotion based on several years of adult work as a younger teenager.
• Definition.  Adult comes to us from the Latin word adultus which is the past participle of adolescere from ad (to) and olescere (grow).  It literally means the grown one.  The dictionary defines an adult as a person grown to full size and strength, legally a person who has come of age.  Thus, in summary, for several thousand years, people became adults legally at 12-14 years of age, or at least when they had their growth spurt and became full size people.  They were expected to marry, to support themselves, and to be treated like any other adults.

Who is more qualified to understand this concept than missionaries and missionary kids?  Missionaries and their families are the ones most likely to actually live among people of other cultures and be able to enter into those ways of thinking.  Of course, any family living in another county is able to observe different cultures, but most people in the military, diplomatic corps, or business are not as likely to live among the nationals as much as missionary families are. 

The fact is that most cultures of the world still treat teenagers as adults.  It is only when western culture introduced the concept of adolescence that some cultures stopped holding teenagers responsible for their behavior.  As the western concept of adolescence spreads around the globe, teens are no longer expected to act like adults, and they frequently do not do so.

Martha and Peter certainly went through their teen years, but during that time, they were adults, not adolescents.  In addition, they lived their entire lives in the one culture, so they never became TCKs either.

What can adolescent TCKs do?

            Act like adults.  You are adults, and people your age have functioned as adults for thousands of years in many different cultures.  You have the capacity to be responsible adults if you want to.  Your parents may not be too keen on this idea, so ask them to try treating you as adults.  Ask for more freedom and the responsibility that goes with it.  Then show them that you can handle the freedom and responsibility.

            You have heard the story of David and Goliath from the time you started Sunday school.  The adults in David’s life did not have as much confidence in him as they should have.  When Samuel came to anoint one of Jesse’s sons to be king, Jesse did not even bring David (the baby of the family) for Samuel to consider.  When David offered to fight Goliath, King Saul said, “You are only a boy....”  When David faced Goliath, the giant looked him over, “saw that he was only a boy,” and despised him.  However, David had been functioning as an adult caring for the sheep and killing a lion and a bear barehanded.  He was an adult, and he just needed a chance to prove it (1 Samuel 16-17).

            If you blow it and act like a child, wait a few weeks and ask your parents for another chance.  If you are not sure how you should act in a particular situation, ask your parents what to do.  Consulting others never hurts—and it can often save you from failure and pain.

Of course, your actions depend on the host culture in which you grew up.  Some countries have accepted adolescence as part of their overall culture.  In that case, you will probably not experience this any differently from any other adolescent.  However, in other countries teenagers are treated as adolescents in the larger cities but as adults in rural villages.  In this case, you may feel some additional conflict as you feel like an adult in your village home, but like a child back in your passport country.

Many people from “modern” western cultures look at the rites of passage in “primitive” cultures as being puberty rites.  Of course, they take place at the time of puberty, but they are really adulthood rites.  In those cultures, puberty is a sign of adulthood, and the people going through the ceremonies are entering the culture with full adult status rather than going into a holding pattern waiting for the time to come when they will be treated as adults.  If you live in this kind of culture, check your attitude toward it.