Mentors From Afar

By it the elders obtained a good testimony.

Hebrews 11:2

Some of our best mentors are dead people. They are like the elders mentioned in Hebrews 11, who obtained a good testimony and went on to heaven, leaving us an example to follow.

In addition to those heroes of the faith listed in Hebrews 11, we find other mentors in the Bible, such as the faithful Christians of Smyrna whom Jesus commended in Revelation 2:8-11.

Mentors of the faith also hail from the pages of church history. Some have called Christian history the “Third Testament,” for it leaves us a chronicle of faithful witnesses who, for two thousand years, have handed the gospel down to us. In every stage of the church and in every generation, a faithful few have borne the challenges, kept the faith, and finished the work. Their biographies and autobiographies are among the most powerful books on our shelves. We learn from their lives, from their faithfulness, and even from their failures.

Now it’s our turn to be faithful and to pass along a legacy to those to come. Today let’s thank God for His faithful people who have gone before, and let’s rededicate ourselves to obtaining a good testimony for the sake of those yet to come.

To study the lives, to meditate the sorrows, to commune with the thoughts, of the great and holy men and women of this rich world is a sacred discipline.

JAMES MARTINEAU