The Torn Robe

J. Michael Sharman

          King Josiah lived about 450 years after his ancestor Solomon had dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem. Since then, Josiah’s father Amon had done “what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done.”[1]

In the early years of Josiah’s kingship, when his workers were doing a restoration project on the Temple, they found some old scrolls stuffed in a corner.[2]

            When the scrolls were brought to Josiah, he read them and was overwhelmed. They were not the notes of a historian or the memorial of a long deceased king, but they were written instructions from God Himself.

            Josiah was a young man, placed early into the kingship after his father’s murder. The kingdom he inherited was corrupt from the outside in and the inside out and he knew there was no way he was smart enough to rule a kingdom in chaos.

            With the discovery of the scrolls, he found out that all the time his country was suffering from more and more problems under the rule of his father and grandfather, the very thing they needed—a how-to guide from God Himself – lay tossed in a corner like a forgotten aunt’s old scrapbook

            Josiah practically exploded with frustration at the stupidity and unnecessary pain of it all. Grabbing the collar of his robe, he tore his robe in two in a burst of grief.

            Out of that grief was born a resolve. He could not undo the wreckages caused by the choices his father and grandfather had made to ignore God’s instructions, but he could do what he now had the authority to do: he would read God’s law to his people in a public assembly, and he would undo all of the things that were a direct contradiction to God’s instructions. 

            What King Josiah needed to do was clear: just follow God’s instruction. The result was indisputably good—his people and his nation survived for one more generation.

            That was way back in the 7^th Century B.C. Now imagine you are a 21^st Century American teenager who is helping his mom pack up the things for a move to a less expensive place.

            As he’s taking down the row of books that have set on the shelf above the TV for as long as he can remember, one book catches his eye—it is unlike any other book he’s seen. Bound in white leather with gold edging on the pages, the book just looks important. He opened the cover, and on the first page was the statement, “This Bible was presented to…” with his dad’s name and high school graduation date.

            Turning the page, the young man saw a chart labeled, “Teachings About Some of Life’s Problems.”

            Four of his dad’s problems leaped up at him from the alphabetical list: Adultery (Heb. 13:4)[3], Anger (I Cor. 13:4-5)[4], Deceit (Prov. 12:22)[5], and Drunkenness (Prov. 21:17)[6].

The boy looked up the page numbers next to each heading. As he read each verse, he thought of how much less painful life would have been for himself and his mom, if only his dad had known about these warnings.

And then it struck him – this was his dad’s Bible he was holding. His dad had either known and ignored what God had said to him, or he had simply never bothered to read even the first page of God’s instruction book.

Like King Josiah, the boy was overcome with emotions which likewise turned to resolve: he committed that he would not intentionally endanger himself and his future family by ignoring God’s how-to guide for his life.

            This isn’t just a hypothetical story: it can be the parable for a youth movement called the Pure Life Revolution: The Roar of a Generation[7] that I learned about this past weekend when I spoke with its leader, Matthew Stark.

Look it up on the Web. I hope you’ll be as encouraged by it as I was.

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By J. Michael Sharman Click here for bio and archived articles