Cosmovisão - Aula 1

Well, it's great to be with you, and I would like to begin by reading a passage of
scripture from Deuteronomy.
When we begin on laying a foundation for Christian education, we have to look at it
from the largest perspective.
What is God's view of educating individuals and generations?
And there's a passage of scripture which theologians have considered to be the
center or the foundation for all the Old Testament law.
Because the law was given to one generation, but its intent was to be passed down
from the parents to succeeding generations.
And that means that the intent of giving the law to one person is never to stop. But
it's to be imparted from one to another.
So this passage of scripture gives us some basics as a place to begin. It's
Deuteronomy chapter 6, and I'm beginning with verse 1.
These are the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which the Lord
your God commands to teach you. That you might do them in the land where you go
to possess.
Notice right away, I'm giving you commandments that you will teach them and do
them.
He then says that you might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his
commandments,
which I command you, thou and your son and your son's son, all the days of your
life, and that your days may be perfected.
And that your days may be perfected. Hear therefore, O Israel, observe to do it, that
it may be well with you, that you may increase mightily, as the Lord God of your
fathers has promised,
in the land that flows with milk and honey. And then he gets very practical. Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. You will love the Lord your God with all your
heart,
with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command thee
this day will be in your heart. You will teach them diligently unto your children.
Talk of when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie
down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign on your hand,
frontlets between your eyes, and you'll write them on the posts of your house, and on
your gates.
Now, this passage of scripture and portions was considered to be the mezuzah. This
was what was put on the forehead of the rabbinical priest during the time of Jesus.
This was considered to be the heart of the law. And I want to begin here by simply
sharing this. That if you're going to look at Christian education,
or passing down knowledge and wisdom from one generation to the next, we need to
start where God starts.
The first thing God says is he gives a multi-generational vision. He says, make sure
that when you receive my words,
you know immediately you have a responsibility to teach them to your children, and
to make sure they go. To your children's children. He says right at the beginning,
education is not a temporary, nor is it short term, or a quick fix for a problem. It's a
multi-generational vision.
And so we have to have a minimal generational vision of three generations in order
to be able to comprehend the kind of excellence we're going to want.
In training the next generation. Now immediately,
education is going to have to be far broader and deeper than just borrowing facts
and having people memorize things.
Because that is not going to be passionately desired to hand down to the next
generation. So a vision is multi-generational. The second thing we see in this
passage,
is that we're going to have a vision that is multi-generational. The vision, is the heart
must be captured. It says, thou shall teach them unto your children, and specifically,
that you would keep them in your heart. It's imperative that there's a heart-to-heart
transfer. And so there's a second aspect about God's vision.
God knows, that the best way to impart something, not just to do it,
just inform but to impart is to do it heart to heart and that's why the bible says that the
home
is the first institution of education because that's where the heart of the parent and
the
heart of the child are closest a parent wants to make sure their children embrace the
heart
that they have so education can't operate without passion without a heart in love with
love the Lord your God with all your heart and now the Bible says this once you
understand a
multi-generational vision and that it's to come from the heart then he says we'll teach
them in wisdom and as we do that it's very logical and mütt that's why that's why
we're working on
will see that word teach is the Hebrew word Lamad. It means to cut a channel of
thinking
in the mind. So here we have three things that are imperative just to begin. First,
we have a multi-generational vision that God wants us to think beyond our lifetime,
beyond
the lifetime of our children, to our grandchildren. So we must teach something deep
enough, broad
enough, applied with biblical principles, so that it goes to our children and our
grandchildren,
but it first impacts us. Well, how does it impact us? In our hearts. It's first in the heart,
and then it will come to us. It's first in the heart, and then it will come
to the mind. Now, for many of our children, it's going to impact their mind. How does
it impact their heart? Because the one that's teaching them, the parent or the
teacher,
has a heart to pass it on to the next generation. So there's a heart impartation and a
mind
information. So you have these three areas. There's three areas that are very, very
important when we begin in Christian education. And
this is a broad view scripturally. We could look at many examples in the Bible on how
one generation properly imparted to the next, and sometimes to three generations.
But it's
rare. Most often throughout the Bible and in history.
A group of parents teach their children, but rarely does it continue to the third
generation.
And that's why the Bible tells us the enemy will do everything he can to stop it from
going to three
consecutive generations. It's imperative for us to see this is a necessity that we will
see come from us to our children.
And to our children's children. Now, as we take a look at this course, we are going to
look at several parts.
And this first part is Christian foundations of education.
And the agenda of the course, we're going to start with laying a foundation for what
is Christian education.
And then we're going to talk about some details on teaching and learning. And
particularly, what does it actually mean for a teacher to teach and a child to learn?
We're going to talk about building Christian character, or methods of education, or
educational pedagogy.
And then we're going to talk about government, or who is to do the educating. And
we'll talk about the three institutions of home, church, and civil government.
We'll introduce that in this session. And so we lead together exploring these topics.
Now.
These are topics that you can teach on for quite some time. They're very deep in the
Word of God.
So as we go through on this, we're going to start with the foundations of Christian
education. And we're going to talk about this.
Now, this first point that I want to make is simply this. The question we'd have to ask,
if we want to ask how are we to educate?
If we have this great. great vision of going to multi-generations we want to capture
the heart and we want to
make sure the mind is renewed how do we do this well the first question is not how
should we
educate it's how does god educate us how does god model education for us and one
of the areas that's very important is to recognize that
the christian life is the model for education how we grow in the lord is how we want
our children
to grow the biblical patterns for spiritual growth in the christian life are the very same
patterns for academic growth in education or missions or training in any area of life
we don't have one set of rules for the spiritual life and then a completely separate set
of rules
for natural life the bible says the spiritual and the natural come out of the same root
we need both but they come from god and sometimes we have this idea that we
learn about biblical principles on how to live our christian life
and we don't have one set of rules for the spiritual life and then a completely
separate set of rules but then when we go over to physics or chemistry or reading or
literature we have all all kinds of
rules that have nothing to do with our spiritual life what i've found over years of
research
in the bible and academics is that the same biblical principles which govern my
spiritual walk apply to my academic life
and help me in my spiritual life to be able to live my spiritual life in the same way that
i did in the past
it makes it one cohesive whole one seamless garment it is one philosophy of life
so the philosophy of the christian life is a philosophy of christian education
now two scriptural passages here that i put i want us to look at romans 11 36 for of
him
and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever amen so god
says here
in any area of life you need to see how it comes from god how it's held together in
god
and then given back to god for his glory so in any area of life
how does it come from god it's of god through god and back to god
my life my life came from god my physical life and my spiritual life it came from god
it's held together it's made living and practical by biblical principles
and what's its purpose to give glory to god so everything we can talk about
what is a christian view of chemistry how does chemistry and the periodic table
and all of the chemicals come from god's creation what are the principles that hold it
together
and how can it be used for the advance of the kingdom
and glory of god and this would be true for reading for writing for history for missions
for literature for art for music any area of life because this is the view that god has
of the christian life the christian life comes from god held together by god given back
to him
now look at the second scripture it says in colossians for by him that is christ
were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were
created
by him and for him he's before all things and by him all things consist notice the
exact same terminology
everything that god has created in heaven and in earth came from god
the bible says it's also to be used for god and then the verse tells us by the lord it
consists or it's held together by god and by him all things are made visible and visible
together
so marriage comes from god defined by god and it's for the glory of god
but a marriage can only work by god's principles it's held together by god just as
child-training is held together by god
the home is held together by god a church a church comes from god
God. It was God's idea to birth the church. The church is to be the glory of God, but it
is held
together by biblical principles. Now, if this is God's view of the Christian life, it's got to
be
God's view of Christian education. And already, all we've done is paint a very broad
picture.
But it is imperative to see that Christianity encompasses everything. Every area of
life
is under the direction of God. Now, as we take a look at this, we want to take a look
at just a
couple of, theologically, the word epistemology, simply put, epistemology.
means how do we know what we know? What is the origin of our knowledge? Do we
know things
and then because we know them, we say they're true? And see, knowledge has to
come from
somewhere. If it is true because we know it, then we become the ultimate judge. And
but God says this, knowledge comes from his word, not all the facts of life, but the
key
premises of knowledge. Theological epistemology simply means the doctrines taught
in the Bible,
the major doctrines, we know are true because God says them. And that's how we
know it. Because we take the Bible as authority.
And that means that there are doctrines that we teach in the Christian life. The
doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of the word, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit,
salvation, baptism. We could go on on these doctrines. These doctrines are the
pillars of the Christian life. But this is not the only one.
This is not what we mean by biblical principles. These doctrines would be taught in
Bible class, illustrated in every subject, referred to. They're very important.
But there's a second aspect. The book of Isaiah tells us that how does God teach
knowledge? And he teaches knowledge precept on precept
and line on line. A precept is vertical. It is a preconception.
Something that already exists before you know it. God is truth before you know there
is a God.
God precedes you. So truth precedes relationships. Truth precedes all of us.
That is the doctrine of epistemology. That's a precept. Now a line is horizontal.
And this line means how do we apply those doctrines to everyday life? How do we
live them out?
We call that axiology, which means ethics and the values of living out the Christian
life in a practical way.
And what Christian education is, is referring to the doctrines. We teach every area of
life,
every academic discipline with the same principles on how to apply the Christian life.
So when I teach students algebra, the very principles that I teach them, the very
principles of algebra that help them solve algebra problems
are also illustrations on how to live the Christian life. They're the same principles.
And when you learn fractions
and you tell them you have to get common denominators in order to add the
numerators, that's a biblical principle. You have to be in union with God. You have to
be in unity
before you can be in union. The laws of God's creation are an illustration of how to
apply the Christian life.
Because God is the creator of everything there is. And all of His attributes and His
ways are embedded in His creation.
So when we begin to perceive this, we begin to recognize that when we're talking
about a foundation of Christian education, we need to see it from the big picture
before we go to the smaller picture. That we have to have this heart in us that it has
to be broad enough and deep enough to be passed to several generations.
It has to capture our hearts. So we say, I see the Lord high and lifted up in physics,
in chemistry, in history, in literature. Not because we Christianize those subjects or
merely add Bible verses to them,
but because they begin to perceive, demonstrate the glory of God in every area of
life. So we see these two areas.
Theology of God and the principles of applying that truth. And that's a backdrop for
Christian education. Now in the Bible,
when we talk about foundations of Christian education, the Bible uses a method
called contrast. In the Old Testament,
we often see God talking about the godly and the ungodly. The righteous and the
unrighteous.
The children of light, the children of darkness. These opposites or opposing
philosophies are contrasted.
So there are several keys to the key concepts when the Bible lists foundational truths
that are contrasted in the scriptures
that we just want to rehearse. These are broad philosophies, but they're very
important in order for us to have a grounding in what is Christian
or biblical and what is non-biblical. Now in Hebrews chapter 6, the Bible lists
foundational truths.
And the scripture tells us those truths exist and are laid down at the foundation that
we might go on to perfection or maturity.
That we might grow. And then he lists those doctrines. So it's basics. We're going to
contrast them with their opposites.
If these things are for our growth, we're not going to take just the doctrine but the
leading idea.
If this is for our growth, what is the opposite? What tears down our growth? What
stunts our growth?
What slows us down? And once again, we're at the broad picture. It's very, very
important what a teacher takes into the classroom
or a parent into their living room when they begin to impart to their children. The
Bible tells us the doctrine of repentance is first. What is the doctrine of repentance?
The doctrine of repentance means this. Change starts inside. What is repentance?
What is repentance? It's a change of mind.
A change of heart. And it's a change from the inside out. Important to note here
that when... So God says the following. When I change something, I change it from
the inside out. Well, what's the opposite?
The change comes from the outside in. Now, there's all kinds of change that comes
from all directions. But here's our... These are our primary ideas.
That the best form of change is to come from the inside and not to be forced from the
outside. Psychology
and other forms of philosophy talk about changing people from the outside in.
Environmental determinism.
And that's a phrase from Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto. The idea... And also
the Communist Manifesto of the early 1900s.
That you are determined... Your destiny is determined by the environment. That you
and who you are
is merely a product of where you've been in your environment. This was a major
concept with Sigmund Freud in psychology.
But you see, the Bible says something different. As a teacher, and when I'm in a
classroom, I am conscious, I am training the mind
in whatever subject I'm teaching to think by Biblical principles. However, my goal
is that the Holy Spirit would move to change the heart. Because true change comes
from within. And not just from without. So I'm working with God
to alert the mind as to what the Spirit wants to do. From the inside out. I don't look at
the child as an object.
Or the discipline as a subject. But human beings with spirit, soul, and body. Where
God wants to bring someone alive.
Where the lights come on. And they see it. They don't just understand it. They see it.
In their own hearts. So God tells us, here's a major contrast.
The Bible says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Don't be conformed by
the world.
And what that means in Romans 12, is to be squeezed from the outside in. Let's look
at the second thing. It's the doctrine of faith.
In other words, it's a trusting in absolutes. What is the doctrine of faith? That we trust
God. That He knows best. In every situation.
That we are not the master. He is the master. We don't have the final say. He has the
final say. So faith is credibility
in God. Credence in God. Credo is the root of the word faith. To believe. I believe
God is sovereign.
Even if I don't like what happens, and it doesn't go my way, I trust that God is
sovereign. That He knows best.
I trust in an absolute. This is true in every situation. This is what Christianity is about.
This is what Christian teachers take into a classroom.
Why do we rehearse these things? Because it's the foundation of Christian
education. What we don't want to do is teach one thing over here on Sunday school
and talk about what God does over here. And then when we go to the classroom,
unknowingly, without thinking, we're bound to the truth.
We're borrowing ideas that are exactly the opposite of what we just taught in church
on Sunday. And we're not realizing we're bringing foreign ideas and principles
into the classroom. Borrowing methods or using textbooks without discerning the
philosophy and the children are actually being trained
in the opposite principles that they hear from the Bible. And then they have a
dichotomous worldview. Now they're confused.
Because a child will follow their training more than they will follow their teaching. And
education is training.
And on Sundays we preach the Word. But a Sunday is not the time to train the Word.
We proclaim it. So it's imperative to see this
that the Bible says we walk by faith and not by sight. What does it mean to walk by
sight? We do what works.
We do what we think is good by the evidences we see. We call this evidentialism.
But keep in mind the evidence you see,
is not all the evidence there is. So you just can't go by what you see. There's more to
life than what you see. And so in a Christian life,
we don't walk blind. But we have faith in God and His Word even when we don't
understand it. We don't walk by sight
or pragmatism and we just do whatever works. Because remember, the devil's
methods work but they don't end in a good place.
They don't work long term. They don't work for good. But they do work. Sin does
bring pleasure
for a short season. But if we teach pragmatism, then we begin to judge things based
on merely does it feel good
and does it give me pleasure rather than what the Bible says. So again, these are
broad pillars, large contrasts that are imperative to have in our minds
and our hearts. Now I'm going to be laying a lot of truth in and I'm going to do it the
best I can. But each of us need to be able to wrestle with this.
Look at the third area here in this contrast. It talks about obedience. That success is
separation unto God.
It's obedience to God. And often this is said in contrast in the Bible to measuring
yourself by the group. How well am I doing
compared to the people I see? This group-centered thinking, very popular today, is
not a biblical idea. We compare ourselves to God.
Use the biblical illustrations. God says, you can obey me in everything except one
area and you're a sinner.
You miss one and you're a sinner. That's not fair. I should be getting in the Hall of
Fame. I only missed one.
But you see, the Bible tells us that there's a different standard. The standard of
obedience is a standard directly to God. Where a standard of comparing yourself
with others
is not wise. Now the Bible says, compare yourself to God. Don't compare yourself to
each other. That is not wisdom. That brings confusion.
So the Bible sets this in contrast. How does this guide education? It guides
education in the way we grade, how we evaluate students. We evaluate students
based on a standard. We don't evaluate students based on the other students in the
class. We don't grade on a curve. We don't grade based on the group.
We grade based on the standard. Because those ideas are the broad pillars that we
want to live out in the life of the student because we believe them in the Christian
life.
And what's true in the Christian life should be true in the classroom. So again, we're
just laying down some biblical pillars. When it talks about the biblical foundations, it
talks about serving others.
And a lot of this comes from doctrines of laying on of hands. The various doctrines
that are given, I've just put down the set of the doctrines, just the leading idea.
In other words, he that serves will end up leading. Service is the best model. The
reason you learn
is so that you can have something to serve others. The reason you learn is not so
that you get an award, so that you are looking good. We honor those
as they achieve, but the goal is not merely to praise ourselves. And so we recognize
this, that the goal is not to dominate.
The goal is not to control. The goal is service. And what did Jesus say of his
disciples? You'll know them by their love one for another,
not their pride about themselves. And this is very important because this is why we
teach children. Egos are very, very prominent in classrooms
among parents and teachers. And it's very important. People want to be first. They
want to be, I got the best grade and we need to teach character of service.
The Bible also tells us that there's victory rather than mediocrity. In other words, our
goal is excellence. Our goal is that which is the best.
The goal that we're going to achieve
is to give the most valuable success to the children who are the most successful and
successful children in the world. what we do. Faith towards the almighty, and we
believe that we can do more
from death than from death. from dead works, faith toward God, the doctrine of
baptisms, that's obedience to God,
laying on of hands. Why do we lay hands on someone? Because when they are
inducted into service,
we lay hands on them because they are going to be servants of others.
The Bible talks about the resurrection of the dead. In other words, Jesus conquered
death.
He reigns victorious. He is excellence. This is what we want. We want standards of
excellence
in our classrooms, not mediocrity and settling for second best. And finally, it says
eternal judgment, which in essence is accountability.
We will give account for everything that we do. So we hold students accountable for
everything we
assign, every homework that's assigned. They have to turn it in. It's accountability.
Important to be judged in the proper way, evaluated. So again, why? Why these
contrasts?
Because these are the broad areas of the Christian life that we preach,
these are the foundational doctrines that take us unto maturity. But they have leading
ideas
embedded in them that are much broader than just the doctrine. It's a way of life.
And it's imperative for us as educators to do this. Now, another very broad area, and
I know I'm painting with large brushstrokes. And throughout this day,
if there are questions you have, you want to be able to ask them. So I'm going to ask
you a question. If you want to be able to write them down, we'll have a short time
when we can take some of the questions as we begin the next session.
So you want to just be able to jot them down. But I hope to be able to at least clarify
the best I can. Now, another major area is to take a look at God's kingdom and ask
ourselves this
question. Who's responsible for all this education? Now, see, God is giving us a very
practical area.
We could call this a picture of the kingdom. And I want to go through this very
practically
because this is what we call a biblical worldview of God's institutions.
How does God want to carry out this education? How should we view it? So we've
looked at the
vision for education, but it's multi-generational, beyond our lifetime.
It involves both for heart and the head. We talked about our contrasts, our biblical
versus a non-biblical way of thinking. And we want to be consistent. What's true in
the Christian life should be true in the classroom.
What's deception that God warns us about is the deception that he warns us about in
the classroom and we want that contrast. And we also want to have God's Biblical
view of where his goal is. See, God gives rights to individuals, not groups. When
God created man,
he first created a single individual. Out from that individual came a group.
God did not start with a group. He did not start with 50 people. He started with one.
One. What does this mean? God is concerned with every individual in a classroom.
Every individual student. They're important to God. God does not look at masses.
He looks at individuals. The scriptures are clear that every individual is given the
right of life, liberty, and property. Why is that given? That's in Genesis chapter one.
Because he said very clearly, be fruitful and multiply. That's life. Replenish the earth.
That requires liberty in order to invent and bring forth things in a different form.
And then possess the earth or own property. Life, liberty, property. He gives those
rights
to individuals. However, there are three institutions in God's economy.
They carry out this responsibility. This is imperative when we minister to homes.
The home. The foundation of the home is marriage. The fruit of the home are
children and child
training. And the discipline of the home. There's corporal punishment, a restraining
effect
on the home. The degree to which homes restrain children are the degree to which
society,
will not have to restrain them. If homes do not restrain children,
societies will have to restrain them. There's a cause and effect. So it is with child
training.
And we're not talking about abuse. We're talking about biblical corporal punishment.
Associations of families are to form businesses. Business comes out of the family.
And they bless the nations of the world. But God also has a church. The called out
ones. Again, parallel to the same thing. The church, the foundation of the church are
each individual
member of that church that feels called to that church. When you talk about the fruit,
they're the disciples. They're the individuals who are disciplined in Christ. And the
ultimate
discipline the church has is excommunication. They can simply say to someone, you
can do this, you can no longer fellowship here. You refuse to repent. A home can
corporally discipline, but a home
cannot become a court. They can only go so far. And then they have to let the child
go
into the arms of the state. So it is with the church. They can only go so far. And they
have
to let the person go, as the Bible says. But the goal of the church, though it has a
restraining influence, voluntary associations of churches impact the culture. They
light the cities.
They perform good works. They minister to nations. What about civil government?
God ordained civil government. It's his institution.
He ordained it. The foundation is his law. His ten commandments. The fruit of the
civil government, what is it supposed to produce on the earth? Justice. And that
justice,
the restraining influence, the restraining influence, the restraining influence, the
restraining influence, the restrainings, the restrainings. God ordained civil
government. God ordained civil the ultimate restraint, so to speak. God is the
ultimate restrainer. But then you also have
civil government. It's a voluntary association of nations defend God's law among the
nations. Not a one world government, but a voluntary association of nations. So in
the whole kingdom
of God, we see these institutions. Why is this important? Because all of us, whether
we're churches or schools, have got to respect the integrity of the home.
The home is the primary educational institution. And we want that institution to
flourish. We want to lift the hands of parents.
And sometimes you'll be training children for years before the parents catch on and
gain a heart for what's going on. But the goal has got to be that the parent's heart
gets engaged.
In Deuteronomy 5, prior to that first chapter and verse that we looked at in chapter 6,
we have this cry of the Lord.
Oh, that there were such a heart in them. Speaking to the parents. Oh, that there
were such a heart in the parents that it might be well with the children. That's a very
good phrase to remember.
Oh, that it would be good in the heart of the parent. Because then it will go well with
the children. And that should be our goal. Our goal is, Lord, that the parents' hearts
get engaged. Because that's the key institution here.
Without a restoration of the home, without a foundation of the home, we will not have
a foundation to build on. And then when we look at the church, we see that the
church is to be an extension of homes and individuals.
And to equip parents to educate their children. And to offer schools to be able to
teach and train them. The civil government in the Bible is only given educational
duties in the military.
To train the military. You will not find a place in the Bible where civil government
operated schools. Because it was God's intent
that homes and churches or local communities would gather together and deal with
schools for their children.
That's a new anomaly in the modern era. That's a new anomaly in the modern era.
That's a new anomaly in the modern era. Civil governments, throughout history,
governments have operated in education. But the idea that the model, the best
model, would be that civil government operated schools.
According to the Bible, what ends up happening is the wrong institution takes the
major role in something the family is supposed to do in the church. And what
normally happens is the civil government is only doing it
to that degree because homes and churches are not. So the answer is not to make
an enemy out of civil government. The answer is to increase
the responsibilities in the home and the church. So it's a quick view of this that there
are three institutions that have some responsibilities
in the area of education. Now it's imperative to recognize that these aspects of
Christian education again are the broad pillars.
The areas that make it important for us to take a look. Now, let's land the airplane, so
to speak. We've been flying way up. Let's talk a little bit about
Christian education in the home and church. Because the Bible does tell us that the
home and church are going to be the primary institutions for Christian education.
Notice there is a pattern in Ephesians 6 and Matthew 28 in relation to education.
Now, I believe Christian education
is discipleship. If we were to look in the Bible for a biblical word for education, it
would be discipleship.
And this passage, particularly in the Great Commission, will define some of these
words. But let's take a look at Ephesians 6, 4.
Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord.
Don't provoke them. To provoke them means you get so close to their face and
become so regimented that they want to push you away.
The Bible says, bring them up in the nurture and the admonition. Nurture is heart, to
heart. Admonition is mind, to mind.
Admonition deals with discipline, correcting the mind. Nurture deals with the heart. It
comes alongside. It's as a friend. So the Bible tells us
that there's this idea of teaching and learning in order to obey. The word teach
works.
We come and we draw out from the child and we pour in. But we teach
so that a child learns and they end up obeying God. That's the goal. That happens in
a home. When a parent comes alongside a child
and disciples them. Actually, the best word in, the word in Greek is
Greek for nurturing is the word paideia and we would best translate that in English
coach.
Now when I coached basketball and I had been coached in basketball, the coach
would come
alongside me and show me how to do a shot and then I would practice that shot and
then he would correct me.
He did not tell me how to shoot the shot from a distance. He showed me how to
shoot the shot close.
It was heart to heart and then he could correct me from a greater distance. That's the
way this passage is to be read.
What is the heart to heart relationship of a parent with a child? What is the
investment a parent is giving? What is the investment the teacher is giving to a
child's life? What is the investment the teacher is giving in the classroom?
And then as this takes place, the Bible makes it clear that the nurture and admonition
of
the Lord, the goal is that you would have an obedient child.
Honors the parent and obeys the parent because obviously the context of this verse
in Ephesians 6.4 is a part of a passage. It says, children obey your parents. But how
do they obey?
They're taught, they're first coached and taught on how to do that, teaching and
learning that they might obey. Now let's take a look at the great commission.
The great commission in Matthew 28 says, all power is given unto me in heaven and
earth. Go therefore, teach all nations. Go therefore, teach all nations.
And then it says again, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded
you. Now the word teach, there's two different words there.
When it says teach all nations, it's the word mathitiu from which we get the word
mathematics.
It's actually a word that means become a pupil, become a learner, a lifelong learner
of Christ.
And then when it says teach them to observe, the word is didache from which we get
doctrine or admonishment or rebuke.
So there's two modes for teaching. There's an investment, a coaching and a
proclamation.
So if I proclaim the truth, I also must demonstrate the truth.
So for instance, if I teach students how to write an essay, a topic sentence, and all
the sentences follow, I'll tell them why the paragraph must be united.
The internal ideas should govern the choice of vocabulary, should be governed from
the inside out. Each sentence should be governed from the inside out. Each
sentence should be governed by the verb.
The tense of the verb should be in agreement with the tense of the modifiers. And I
talk to them about it. I teach them. It's not enough.
I must show them. Therefore, I need to write a paragraph myself. Show them how a
paragraph is written.
And help them, coach them, that they might learn so that we teach and learn that we
engage
the heart and the head that they might obey. And this, in this way, we are following
what God said would happen in the home and the church.
Notice what he says in the church. This should be happening in churches.
We proclaim the truth as it applies to every area of life from the pulpit.
But we also need to equip people to live out that truth. It has to be smaller groups. It
has to be coaching.
It has to be working with people. This is how you do it. This is how you serve in the
community. This is how you share the gospel.
This is how you lead someone to Christ. This is how you teach them. We need both.
The proclamation of the word and the coaching of the word that we might end up
having obedient disciples. The goal is to have disciples, not just followers.
Followers of the Lord follow afar off for what they want.
they can get. Disciples are producers and they can produce when no one else is
producing
because they have discipline and they've learned to obey. But why is this so
important? This is a
comprehensive view because we recognize this becomes imperative and this is why
Christian
education is so imperative to have standards of excellence. That means in every
area of a school,
a home, we want the highest standard. I was once given an illustration
because there's always a movement to lower standards. A man said to me, take the
Olympics.
Every time I go to the Olympics, I'm going to win the Olympics. Every time the
Olympics take place, the standards are higher than they were the previous time.
Records were broken.
The standard went up. Now the record to beat is a faster pace. And the record is the
best that's been done.
It doesn't mean we disqualify people who don't meet that standard. But the standard
becomes the barometer.
And a standard in the Bible is a banner, an ensign that causes the enemy to flee.
The Bible says in Isaiah 59, 19,
When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Lord does what? Lifts up a standard
against him. And in the Old Testament, that was literally,
an image, a banner, a picture designed on a shield, a lion of the tribe of Judah.
And so when that would be shown, people recognize, they lift it up, and they see it.
It's raised high. It's the best.
They're the goals. It doesn't mean you always meet them. And you don't always
meet them. You don't, you're not doing something with an attitude of punishing. You
simply recognize where the goal is.
I'm amazed because the higher I make the goal, there's always some students that
will strive for it. When I make it lower and lower, students become lazy.
They don't want to work anymore. And the student who can barely make it, you
encourage them. You can do it.
And so, what do we have? Where are these standards? We have standards in the
way parents and teachers work in covenant relationships. We need to define these.
For instance, should parents be supportive of the teacher? Yes. I had a teacher
recently say to me,
she'd been teaching more than 30 years. She says, when I was in school, if I got in
trouble at school, I would get in trouble again at home.
Because the parent would say, if you got corrected at school, I'm going to correct you
at home.
Today, what often happens is a teacher corrects a child, and the parent makes an
excuse. He makes an excuse for the child and becomes adversary of the teacher.
Why did you tell my child that they should sit down? Well, they were disturbing the
classroom. You don't understand my child. That was wrong to speak to him that way.
And the teacher says, how do you know I spoke to them that way? Well, he told me.
So you took what he said as to exactly what happened. Of course, my child does not
like that. He doesn't like that lie.
And on and on this goes. And what ends up happening, we come to a situation
where there's an adversarial relationship between parent and teacher. It can work in
the other direction.
It can be a very supportive parent, but a teacher that's not governing themselves in
the classroom. We need a standard that says, we need a covenant relationship
between parent and teacher.
The reason the teacher is teaching the child is to for the benefit of the parent. And
therefore, how do we operate and how do we resolve differences? That is a biblical
standard.
The parent should meet with the teacher alone before they come to judgments on
what happened in the classroom. That's Matthew 18. That's a biblical way to do it.
So we need standards on how teachers and parents. I'm just giving you brief areas
of standards, but it's imperative. I'm just giving you brief areas of standards, but it's
imperative. I'm just giving you brief areas of standards, but it's imperative that these
standards be lifted high. We need standards of philosophy.
Just like we've taught here. We need every teacher in the classroom to be agreeing
with the same philosophy.
I may not know it perfectly, but we want them all to see that every subject comes
from God, through God, and to God.
Now, they may not know all the details about that yet, but they certainly want to have
that as a standard. The student needs to realize their goal. We want to have
standards of methodology, how we teach in the classroom.
There are certain things that we should do and certain things that we should not do
in the classroom. There are ways we can engage the students to make it as living a
classroom as possible,
and there are things that we should not do. What are those guidelines? We need to
bring ourselves into a greater state of unity in order to be able to strike through the
able to walk in harmony and of course curriculum goals um what are our goals in
accomplishing at
any grade level in any aspect of a subject matter what are those goals and are we in
harmony with those goals very important to have standards because what is done in
fourth grade greatly
affects fifth grade and what's done in one subject greatly affects the next subject
teachers can't be islands and this is important even in homeschooling
that homes as much as they want to be independent they have to be careful that
they're not becoming isolated from what's going on around them in the christian
community we need to have that harmony
and then of course discipline standards how do we handle discipline problems are
the teachers in unity and in parents in unity on how we handle a problem is the
parent
in agreement with how the teacher is going to confront their child and if not use it as
a teachable moment to be able to bring people into an agreement so that we're in
agreement that this
is the way we're going to deal with discipline problems and then um and handle it
and so you need to write down these processes now are we in agreement on
grading how we evaluate the student
how we evaluate achievement how do we grade effort and conduct in the classroom
and academic work and are we all grading essays in approximately
will ever be perfect but approximately the same way with the same standards all of
these are important
standards so that we might have what we have turned now a philosophy of christian
education
other words when we come to a conclusion here the session and we look at it we
can say all right we'd like this to be a content center and there may be changing
Where do we begin?
We talked about the goal that God had of multi-generations. How God captures the
heart and moves toward the head.
And these two scriptures we're going to go into greater depth in another session. But
to show you that the role of the word of God, it says in 2 Timothy,
is for doctrine, for reproof, correction, and instruction. In other words, these are the
things that the word of God does in the heart of us.
This is how education operates. And we're transformed by the renewing of our mind
that we can prove what is the good, perfect, acceptable word of God. Because
remember, in that contrast, we're changed from the inside out
and not squeezed from the outside in. So how do we translate this into a vision for
dealing with education? Well, if we look at this real quickly, we'll recognize the
following.
Remember those verses we started with. All things come of God, by Christ, through
God, are held together in Christ, and then given what?
Back to God for His glory. So we can take a chart and say all academic knowledge,
all of Christian education, comes from God.
So we always ask the question, God, how did you educate? Then I'll know how to
educate. Jesus, how did you teach? You're the master teacher. Then I'll teach like
you.
Lord, how did you operate with the mind? How do you transform the mind? How do
you change your heart? I want to work in concert with your ways, Lord.
And with the way you do it. And then, through God, Lord, I want to do it your way,
according to your principles, by your methods,
so that we can give it back to you as an offering. And notice how the Word of God, in
looking at this, we ask the question, why? That's what philosophy is. Why do we
teach?
Then we look at methodology. And we take these aspects where you see in the
Word of God, Doctrine, research, reproof, reasoning,
correction, or relating it to the person, instruction, recording it, those four R's, which
we'll talk a bit about, and you have reflective teaching, creative expression,
obedient living. Because remember, you have teaching, in order to learn, so that we
may obey. And so you have this, in essence, though there are many, there are four
stages,
you have these three broad strokes that God gives, and says, look, the goal that we
have in Christian education is of a very clear philosophy as to why we do what we
do.
I can tell you, the depth of your philosophy will determine the duration that people will
continue to do what you're doing. The more shallow the philosophy is,
people will come on for, one mile along the train ride, and get off. Because they don't
understand why they're here. They want something immediate.
Someone said to me, well, are you totally satisfied? I can't teach. I'm here for my
great-grandchildren. I may never see what I teach for.
But if my passion is there for multi-generations, then I can't lose. Because the goal is
not to just experience something in this life.
The goal is to be obedient in the long perspective of God's growth of his kingdom.
And that's far greater task. And that's why, for a comprehensive vision, in essence,
everything that we've taught now goes on this one chart, that we look at this and say,
okay, Lord, how are we going to then become this? That philosophy is going to be
very critical. Now we're going to go into a bit on methodology,
we'll talk a bit about methodology in the classroom, though we won't go into depth, I
know that's another course, and we won't go into curriculum here, but the idea is it
leads right into this,
and to the goal, the godly lifestyle. And the whole idea is, this course here, we're
trying to just build this panel of Christian education. Why do we do what we do?
Why is it so imperative? And how can we do it? How can we be more successful? By
being more in unity and harmony as we seek to do these things.
Amen? Amen. Praise God. And so we conclude with this. Our vision then is to
advance the kingdom. Our philosophy,
we lay biblical premises and principles. We have a biblical methodology, a
curriculum, that we might achieve God's righteous goal.
And as the Bible says in 2 Timothy, what's the goal? That the man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works. Amen.
Amen. So what we would like you to do is to write down questions at the beginning.
Okay, do you want to do that question now? Okay, let's do it now. There's one
question.
Okay. Okay, from one student. You may read the name of the student. Amen. Okay,
this question is from Adenir Miller. And the question is,
the death penalty was present in the Old Testament, an eye for an eye and tooth for
tooth. But in the New Testament with Jesus came the law of grace and love. That
way the death penalty was banished. Or am I mistaken?
Okay, the death penalty in the Old Testament, there were two sets of the death
penalty. There was a death penalty for every one of the Ten Commandments.
Both in the religious side, the first four commandments are relationship to God, as
well as the second six commandments. In the New Testament, the Bible does not
banish the death penalty in the area of civil government.
When Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, go and sin no more, and he that
has no sin cast the first stone, he was talking about how to apply the Old Testament
law of witnesses. And therefore,
he was not abrogating because Jesus came to fulfill the law, not do away with the
law. So the idea, however, is this. In the New Testament, now, there is not an aspect
in the New Testament
of death penalty in the area of your walk with God. And that has been repealed with
the year of Jubilee. So I would say that the death penalty
would still be a God-given role of a civil government under specific situations. You're
innocent until proven guilty. And that that could come for aspects of the second table
of law.
All right. But again, keep in mind, regardless of that, when we look at Christian
education, we're not the civil government.
And so our correction is far more lenient than that. So certainly we're looking at
coaching, and encouraging. Amen. Amen. Praise God.
We will take a break now and come back for our next session.