Keep On Giving

Joel 1:3

Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

There are, I think, five generations here. The experience of the original (which in this case is the message of the book) ought to be passed down at least to the fifth generation. In my family's case that is almost exactly 100 years.  I think a case can be made that it shouldn't end after the fifth generation, but should, by that time become a custom forever.

The Jews did not do this entirely successfully. Scores upon scores of them departed from the message. Millions of them today are completely alienated from every part of the message except that they are Jewish. 

That doesn't mean, however, that the message was lost. God recorded and preserved it so that any Jew who desires to do so may look into the Word of God and restore the heritage of passing down the message of The Bible.

The New Testament teaches the same lesson - take what we have been given and faithfully give it to others who will faithfully give it to still more. We need not fret if that chain has been broken because God has given and preserved His Word without error. All we need do is return to the book and restore proclaiming of the original message.