How can you leave a lasting legacy?
Text: Proverbs 10:7
Hosts:
Tim Defor
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2026 CrossTalk Global
Brian: At some point, everyone begins thinking about legacy, about what they'll leave behind and how people will remember them when they die. According to Mudassity, Each generation has a slightly different outlook on legacy. Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, focus on career accomplishments and family continuity. Generation X, those born between 1965 and 1980, value quiet influence through the raising of grounded families and mentoring others. Millennials, those born from 1981 through 1996, measure their impact through overall contribution to society as well as social change. Finally, Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, view their legacy in light of ongoing activism, innovation, and emotional openness that encourages others to do likewise. While all of these goals have good intentions, King Solomon says we should strive to leave a righteous legacy. Why? Why does the wisest man who ever lived tell us we should leave a righteous legacy? Today, while Dr. Kent is away teaching with Crosstalk, join Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman, and guest host Tim Defor as they discover Solomon's prescription for a good legacy in Proverbs 10:7. Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman, and Tim Defor continue our journey through Proverbs. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs chapter 10, verse 7, as we join their discussion.
Nathan: Well, Tim, welcome back. Good to have you back on the show.
Tim: Thank you.
Vicki: It is, Tim.
Tim: Thank you. It's a pleasure.
Nathan: Vicki and Tim, do you think people actually think about their legacy?
Vicki: I think when people get older, they do. I don't think a 20-year-old running to a football game or pursuing love do. What do you think, Tim?
Tim: Yeah, I would agree. Get older, I think we think about it more and more. We start thinking about, uh, that we're going to be gone and what's going to be left behind. I do think others, when they're young, they think about it in stages. Like maybe in high school, I want to be the guy who's got the plaque on the wall for the record, whatever it is.
Vicki: That could be true.
Tim: But, but then they realize that that fades, that's temporary.
Nathan: So I think, like you said, as we get older Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably true for most of us, or you're going to think of it in deeper ways. So when people do think about their legacy, what kind of legacy do people want to leave in general?
Vicki: Well, I was driving home to do this podcast, and two men that I know that were very prominent about 20 years ago One has a football stadium and one has, I can't remember the other. I think they're both stadiums, come to think of it. They're named after them.
Nathan: Wow.
Vicki: And one was a very wealthy, well, they're both very wealthy, but one was known for being wealthy and the other one was known for being wealthy and being very prominent in sports. I doubt in another 10 years anybody will know who they were.
Nathan: Yeah, that's a good point.
Vicki: But if they did, one of them would be known for his business— well, both of them, again, business acumen. But the other one, business acumen in sports.
Nathan: Right.
Vicki: You know.
Nathan: Yeah, I would imagine it's similar to the hospitals, right? Because as a pastor, you know, you go to the hospital and then you have to wait for a bit. Until you're ready to go see the person. And there's always wings or sections of the hospital named after so-and-so, the so-and-so, you know, ICU, right? And I have no clue who that is. There's no bio there. And outside of the close family, nobody does either, right? So I always find myself wondering, who was this and what were they good at? And I wouldn't be able to tell you a single name of the many, many, many names that I've seen over the years.
Tim: Yeah, for sure. I, I was thinking about what kind of legacy do people want to leave, and I think it matters as far as what do they deeply value. If they want fame, then they want to be remembered. If they're seeking power, they want to be remembered as somebody who had the, the strongest voice in the room and could bend others to their will. If somebody values money, it's, uh, they're known for being that Vanderbilt-level money person. But I think hopefully as we grow, we want to be known for making a difference, leaving the world a better place than you found it, kind of like the old Boy Scout motto. I think it's really what's internally driving you. What do you want to be known as?
Nathan: Yeah. We have certainly a variety of different desires for legacies as Bryan's introduction showed us. It even changes through the various generations. So now we come to Proverbs 10:7, and here Solomon has a prescription for a lasting legacy. Whether you have business acumen or not, whether you're a popular sports character or a movie star or somebody who buys the wing of a hospital, Solomon has good wisdom for a lasting legacy. Vicki, do you want to read Proverbs 10:7?
Vicki: You bet. Proverbs 27 says, "The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot." Okay.
Nathan: And that's the natural unit right there. Just that one verse. Because not everyone leaves a good legacy. Solomon tells his listeners that the memory of the righteous are a blessing for those who are still living. Simply defined, the righteous are those who have a right relationship with God. But to be a bit more specific, the righteous are those whose lives reflect the character of God. When you see a good person, it's because they are reflecting the character of God. And according to Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived apart from Jesus, a person who has generally reflected the goodness of God will leave behind a good memory when he or she dies. Their legacy will bring good memories. But this teaching comes with a warning. Not everyone gets a good legacy. For the wicked, meaning those who have lived contrary to God's character, their memory will be like rotted fruit. Their legacy will age like milk. So let me back up here a little bit and let's just kind of think about our own experiences. Vicki and Tim, have you ever been to the funeral of a bad person? And if so, what's it like?
Tim: That's a, that's a good question. I have as a pastor, I've done some. And part of it is trying to remember that you are ministering to the people who are there. And because that's the best you can do. It's wonderful to be able to say good things. But in those particular times, I remember a funeral that my dad preached at, and the guy's name was Rocky, and he was a terrible person, and he was abusive, and he was violent. And, uh, my dad said, uh, he was like, what do I say? Uh, Rocky is a good name for somebody who's violent. It's a terrible name for relationships. Like, what do you say? And there's people who want you to say bad things about the person, and you can't really do that either. It's It's a bitter place. It's a terrible thing to be at.
Nathan: Yeah.
Vicki: I've told this story before, but my brother was a pastor, and he was fairly new at the game, and funeral homes would call him and say, would you preach a sermon? And he'd always say yes, and you know, he'd get asked to preach funerals for people he never met, didn't know anything about them, and so So he always wanted to personalize the funeral. And there was a man who died, and it turns out nobody, nobody liked the guy. And he interviewed the family. The family detested the guy. And the only quote he could get was, he was an S of a B. Oh, wow. Which is not a lot to go on if you're trying to preach a funeral. So, so what he did was he said, if so-and-so were here, he has discovered something you'll want to know. And then he gave the gospel.
Nathan: Yeah, that's wise. That is wise. I know I've done funerals for individuals who are not the greatest. I can recall doing the funeral and really I did not want to do it. It was a relative of somebody from our church. And she asked me to do it. So I said, of course. And I knew who this was. This guy had abused in some way, shape, or form every single member of his family and extended family. I mean, just awful. And so I'm doing this funeral and they wanted a time to share and people are just manufacturing details or coming up with the smallest little tributes that they could. Or in one case, what I heard them talking about was, was what predators do to their victims. They groom them to prepare them to be abused, and they were talking about that as a positive thing. I was just so horrified, and no one in that room, no one in that room thought that this was a good person, uh, as they were trying to just try and find something nice to say. It was really— it was really hard. The best thing I could say, because I knew some people were avoiding the funeral or didn't want to come or came to support somebody else, they didn't like the guy. I said, you know, I know there's a lot of complex feelings here. Some of the memories of, of, of love that you have and some memories of hurt that this is bringing up.
Vicki: So you just acknowledged it?
Nathan: Yeah, you had to. Yeah, the guy had a record. You know, the guy had been in and out of jail. Oh, it was awful.
Tim: It was terrible.
Nathan: And that's what Solomon warns about. He says the name of the wicked or the legacy of the wicked will rot. All right. When people think about that person, it will just wither. It's not going to be something fun. They're going to, oh, let's not talk about that person. Even if they did have great business understanding, even if they did have great sports ability, According to Solomon, if they did not live a life that reflected the goodness of God, their legacy rots. By way of that, who are some wicked people in history whose legacy has rotted?
Vicki: Well, if you say who was a wicked person, the first name you think of is Hitler. When I was in college, we studied effective communication. And they would always bring up Hitler. And they would say, whenever he gave a speech, it was sunny outside. Whenever this, he did that. But nobody ever said, tell us about an effective communicator. I mean, they would if you were studying it, because I know, because I did study it. But you don't think of him as, wow, he was powerful, although he was. Wow, he was a great leader, although in a way he was. You think of him as a wicked person in history, and his legacy has rotted.
Tim: Yeah, I think about kind of like Hitler, people whose names become equated with bad behaviors or bad choices. And we don't tend to name our kids or even our pets after some of them. Like, there's not a lot of kids running around in our school system named Judas. Right? So, like, no, we start to equate that over time. Or, or, uh, Pontius Pilate or Mussolini or Pol Pot. You know, you think about that. And as I think about, uh, legacy rotting, it's almost that over time more and more of their wickedness becomes increasingly apparent. So not only is it bad when they go, it gets worse as you discover more about them.
Vicki: Yeah, well, that currently Cesar Chavez is in the news because he was a hero, but as his sexual abuse has become known, that's all changing. His names are coming off of street signs and the whole opinion of him is changing and his legacy has begun to rot.
Nathan: Yeah, and that's a perfect example, right? Because here you're— he's a folk hero. And then as the truth comes out, as Tim mentioned, he did not reflect the goodness of God. He did not reflect the character of God. And according to Solomon, that means his legacy rots. And what a horrible image, but a good image for us to see. Like he had streets named after him and they're pulling those signs right down. They're saying, no, we're not, we're not going to support this.
Brian: Yeah.
Nathan: Solomon gives us this warning so we can choose to live a life of character. In fact, this proverb is still used today in the Jewish community. When a good person passes, they will say, "May her memory be for a blessing," or "May her name be a blessing." Solomon wants us to consider how we're living our lives by forcing us to reflect on how we think of wicked people who have died and contrast them with the godly people we know. And then it naturally asks the question, what kind of person do I want to be? What kind of memory do I want to leave behind? What kind of legacy do I want people to remember me by? So, uh, we asked about historical bad people. Who are historically good people? Uh, historical people who've left a good legacy behind?
Vicki: I don't know if this is still true, but I think the entire time I was at least in elementary school, in a classroom, up on the left was George Washington, and up on the right was Abraham Lincoln. And George Washington was known as an honest president. He could not tell a lie, supposedly. I chopped down the cherry tree, I cannot tell a lie. And then Lincoln freed the slaves, and to this day we honor those two presidents.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you think about It's almost like love covers a multitude of sins in the sense of when somebody is genuinely good, then the little flaws or foibles or problems that they have are recognized as the exception and not the core of their character. And that's good that we can do that. And I think of people like Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela and Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale and Gandhi, and you think of those people, and it's not that they were perfect, or Mother Teresa, they have their flaws, but nobody would recognize their flaws as their core character.
Nathan: Right, right.
Vicki: And that would be true of a more recent character, President Carter. He may or may not have been a good president, But he was a fine, godly man, and as busy as he was, every Sunday he taught a Sunday school class when he was president.
Nathan: Yeah, when are we going to have another U.S. president who teaches Sunday school classes, right?
Vicki: He left a fine legacy.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, no, that's a really good image. You know, I think just recently— I don't know if you're familiar with him— John Perkins, Dr. John M. Perkins, he was a civil rights leader. I think he was 95 perhaps when he— he just, he just passed a couple weeks ago. And I don't even know how he came on my radar, but his, his focus was on reconciling people to each other. And he, he was Black, and he— his brother had been killed by police, and he was beaten up pretty brutally and thrown into a jail during civil civil rights. And his conversion happened when he was in that jail cell filled with so much hatred, absolute hatred for the people who did this, that he knew that he could not get out of this cycle of hatred by himself. And that's how he responded to the gospel. That's how he was transformed by Jesus.
Vicki: Wow.
Nathan: He spent the rest of his life up until like he published a book, I don't know, like 3 or 4 years ago with a co-author. But it's just an incredible, incredible story where he just would not back down and would have, he would ask the hard questions between congregations and try to bring about reconciliation between different ethnicities. Yeah, the last book he wrote was called "One Blood" because there's one race, the human race, but multiple ethnicities. Let's bring us together by the blood of Jesus Christ. And he never backed down from that. It never became like a, just a political movement or just some sort of social movement only. The gospel was always front and center in what he did and how he brought people together. Yeah, great, great legacy. So, okay, so we talked a little bit about historical people, old and new, who left a good legacy, who left a good name. Who are the people in your personal lives who've left a good legacy?
Vicki: Oh, I was fortunate to be born into a wonderful family. My parents were godly. My grandparents were godly. My mother's father played the piano, not particularly well, but he would chord, and he had a deep, beautiful voice. And he would play, "What a friend we have in Jesus." And he could sing. I couldn't. But I remember him playing, and He and my grandmother would go to— back then they called them old folks homes— and they'd— he played the guitar, and they'd sing, and they just loved the Lord. And she would, in her neighborhood, hold— they called them 5-day clubs— and she'd lead kids to the Lord. And they were just a wonderful example to me. My father's mother died when he was a boy, and his father lived in Harlem when it was a bad neighborhood, but he would walk to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and he didn't have much money, but he'd put $5 in the offering plate every service, we found out after he died. And $5 back then was a lot of money. And again, just a good, godly man. And then I'll tell you one more. I was thinking about it the other day. When I was a newlywed, I had a woman in her 60s who, back then I thought that was so old, who loved the Lord. And she helped me decorate my home. And she had wonderful taste. And she was fun to be with. And I, because of her, bought quality, good furniture that I still have. I've recovered it. But Excellent pieces. And I think about her all the time. I walk through my house and I just think, oh, thank you, Lord, for Jill. Thank you for Jill. Thank you for this beautiful sofa. Thank you for this. You know, I would have tacked up posters possibly, you know, but, but I got beautiful pieces because of her and it has been a legacy in my life.
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: Thank you, Cheryl.
Tim: Yeah. Very similar. I think there's impact from my parents, of course, my grandparents, Hank and Clara, who served in the church faithfully forever. I think of the previous pastor of our church when I came on as an associate. He had some qualities that I wanted to emulate. I think of former professors, Phil and Susan Casey, who were missionaries that helped stir my heart to the nations. We had a professor in seminary named Dr. Fife, and I quote him often. He was one of the first regiments as a chaplain to go into Dachau after World War II.
Nathan: Oh, wow.
Tim: And when he spoke of unity between brothers and sisters in Christ, it's even choking me up now. He would speak of it with tears in his eyes. And then there's people that I never met. And I discovered later were part of my heritage as part of the Christian church background, like Marshall Keeble. He started over 200 churches and baptized over 20,000 people, and when I found out about it, it was so inspiring that I felt robbed having not known that earlier, and all of those are the kinds of legacies that have shaped what I want to emulate in in my life and what I want people to think of if they ever think of me. And those are all very, very personal to me.
Nathan: Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I still kind of raw for us. My, my mother-in-law passed away about a month and a half ago, maybe longer. I don't know. Time, time goes weird during grief. And I'm sure if I can think a little more deeply, I can come up with some more thoughts. But one of The things that she really instilled on me is to show grace to people who are struggling under a variety of things, but addictions or suffering the natural consequences of their own action. I think my natural inclination is just be like, well, you mess around and you find out, and this is the natural consequence of your actions. You know, tough, you know, tough. But she, you know, over the course of knowing her, I don't know, 25 years, let's say, she, she really challenged me graciously to be thinking about people who have made some really bad choices and they were their choices and they fully knew what consequences would come their way. And yet now they were suffering under those consequences. And she really showed me a compassion for people in those situations, which I didn't have before. Yeah, incredible legacy, you know, and that's something I'm passing on to my children and those that I disciple. When, you know, you kind of get that Christian, like, look down the nose at people who are like, hey, don't inject that in your blood. Oh, you injected it. Oh, it's terrible. Oh, it's awful. Well, we told you. Well, that's it, right? No. Instead say, you know, that is the dregs of sin. That is the power of sin, that it just so thoroughly deceives us. Even though we know it's a bad idea, we do it anyways. Let's show them grace and let's show them the love of Jesus so that they'll have the power to stand up against that sin. Because, Tim, what does our proverb for the day say?
Tim: The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.
Nathan: Why should we strive to leave a righteous legacy? Because only the righteous, not the wicked, will be remembered fondly. Our prayer is that you live in such a way that people will say of you, may the memory of you be a blessing.
Brian: All of us will die one day. When we do, people will remember us either fondly or not so fondly. Only righteous people, not wicked people, are remembered fondly. When our lives reflect the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—then we will live righteous lives that those around us will cherish. One day, may the memory of you be a blessing. I trust that today's discussion of God's Word has been helpful. And so served as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the word, but doers. Together, let's bring God's word to life, to our lives this week. The Crosstalk Podcast is a production of Crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. CrossTalk is training leaders in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, Kenya, and Kansas over the next few weeks. Help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click Donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find it. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue to learn from God's wisdom in the book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it.