Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN

There was a frantic tone to her email.  “My students keep asking me ‘Why do we have to learn this?!’  Please help!”  So I composed a dozen responses for her recalcitrant Christian school students.  Ready the next time the whiney retort erupted from her classroom, she began with the first, “If this is God’s world, He made it, and it is important to Him, it should be important to us.”[1] As she recounted the story,

“I just started reading down the list.  By the time I finished number four, students were crying out, ‘We get it!  OK!  Stop!’  But I kept on going.  As I finished number six they were groaning.  Past eight, audible moans emanated from their lips.  I was on a roll.  By number ten, heads were down on desks.  When I completed the twelfth Christian reason to learn anything, there was dead silence.  Mark,” she reported, “the list has never had to be read again.  But I read one point each day.”

A Christian view of study must take into account The One who made us, reminders of our responsibility in His Word, and our collective desire to find excuses for our lazy thinking.

Imagine a parent having just witnessed their son “whiffing” at the soccer ball, kicking at nothing but air.  “Hey, stop the game!” they call.  “My son practiced so long and hard for this event!  Give him a do-over!”  I can hear you laughing now!  Yet this happens at some point during every school’s parent-teacher conference.  “Johnny spent so much time on that assignment!  His effort should count for something!”

Here is a story of one of the many times the “time-equals-grade” argument was proposed to me.  “Imagine your son in welding class,” I was connecting with a mom whose son took vocational education in the afternoons.  “He’s just attached a hitch to the bumper of his truck.  To test tensile strength, the teacher links a boat trailer to his vehicle.  Asked to drive it around the parking lot, the weld breaks, and the trailer falls off.  Now do you think that the welding teacher is going to give your son an ‘A’ because he spent so much time on the project?”  The question hung in the air for about ten seconds.  The mother looked confused, then desperately announced, “But studying the Bible should be different!”[2]

Though the mother’s attitude would never be condoned by an athletic coach, educators must put up with incessant parental, then student, whining.  Unfortunately, culture has conditioned Christian thinking.  Excuses unacceptable on the athletic field are condoned in the classroom; the physical trumping intellectual pursuit.  What can be shown at the end of the day is more important than the molding of someone’s interior life.  The opposite of whining in Christian academic rigor must be what biblical writers referred to as “inclining one’s heart.”[3] Athletes prepare hard: “there is no off season” goes the saying.  “Suit up!”  “Get your head in the game!”  “Dedication,” “commitment,” and “all in” are statements adorning school practice jerseys.  The same ideas reverberate through the First Testament phrase “incline your heart.”

“Incline[4] your heart” means to bend, stretch, or extend, clear connections to the physical world.  Like coaches, wise people were to be heard.[5] The figurative usage of the phrase can mean the negative-one has shifted their loyalty, apostatized, or “been swayed.”[6] Jeremiah is constantly linking lack of listening and so obedience with “inclining their ear toward God.”[7] The command is active and urgent: “put away foreign gods and incline your heart to Yahweh, the God of Israel!”[8] But what strikes me in this study is the believers’ command to God to make us incline our ear. Psalm 119:36 is one such case: “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not unto profit-making.”

George Zemek in his article “Aiming the Mind: A Key to Godly Living”[9] cites multiple passages that necessitate God taking initial action, making us bend toward Him because of our own recalcitrant hearts.  Zemek suggests that God knows our hearts, does surgical heart transplants, and then directs our hearts.  Lamentations 5:21 completes the idea: “Turn us that we may turn!”  Our mindset must be changed.  While we bear responsibility, we rely on God’s Spirit to motivate our interior life.

Colin Duriez examines Francis Schaeffer’s “crisis” as he reevaluated his whole Christian belief system in the early 1950’s.[10] Schaeffer was driven in his spirit to reconsider his commitment.  Having been convinced again of biblical assumptions and evidence, Schaeffer inclined his thinking and teaching toward Yahweh the rest of his life.

One of the most brilliant minds in Christ’s Church was Blaise Pascal.  After his death, a parchment was retrieved, having been sewn in the lining of his jacket.  Marking the time, date, and place of his salvation, large letters contained his one word summary of the event: FIRE.[11] Pascal’s passion wrote these words for every parent, all students, and ME who attempt to wriggle free from our true bent, proper inclination toward our Maker:

In short, we must resort to habit once the mind has seen where the truth lies, in order to steep and stain ourselves in that belief which constantly eludes us, for it is too much trouble to have the proofs always present before us.  We must acquire an easier belief, which is that of habit.  With no violence, art, or argument it makes us believe things, and so inclines all our faculties to this belief that our soul naturally falls into it.  When we believe only the strength of our conviction . . . that is not enough.  We must therefore make both parts of us believe: the mind by reasons . . . and by habit, not allowing it any inclination to the contrary: Incline my heart.[12]

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[1] Genesis 1; 1 Chronicles 29:11; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalms 33:6-11; 50:9-12; 89:11.

[2] I taught what I called CLAWS or “Christian Life and World Studies” in Christian high schools for seventeen years.  Most Christian schools refer to this as “bible class.”

[3] “Academic rigor” is an educational phrase that should be heard more often in school halls.  See, Louis Markos. 2005. Wrestling in the Academy: How Christian Professors Can Train Their Students to Grapple with Ideas.  Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal 4:2 (Fall 2005): 16-22

[4] Marvin Wilson. 1980. natah. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): 2:574.

[5] Proverbs 4:20; 5:1, 13; 22:17.

[6] 1 Kings 11:2-4, 9; 2 Samuel 19:14.

[7] A few examples include Jeremiah 7:24, 26; 11:8; 17:23.

[8] Joshua 24:23.

[9] Grace Theological Journal 5:2 (Fall 1984): 205-27,

[10] Colin Duriez. 2008. Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life. (Crossway): 103-26.

[11] For the full manuscript see Mind on Fire: A Faith for the Skeptical and Indifferent, ed. James M. Houston. (Bethany: 1989, 1997): 41-42.

[12] Blaise Pascal. Pensees, number 821.

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July 9, 2009 6:00 pm

Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN 

The story is told by Charles Hodge, famous 20^th century theologian, of the most popular professor at Princeton in his day.  Philip Lindsay was a man actively sought by many universities in the Mid-Atlantic States to be their president.  Hodge explains, “Lindsay told our class that we would find one of the best preparations for death was a thorough knowledge of the Greek grammar.”  “This,” comments Dr. Hodge, “was his way of telling us that we ought to do our duty.[1]  

“Tell me what you love, I will tell you what you are” is the famous connection between knowing and doing.  A. G. Sertillanges continues the idea, “Love is the beginning of everything in us . . . Truth visits those who love her, who surrender to her, and this love cannot be without virtue.”[2]  Submission to truth shows one’s affection. 

We should all be “intellectuals” in some measure.  Famed American pastor-scholar Jonathan Edwards preached to his flock that study is “. . . Not only for the instruction of ministers and men of learning; but for the instruction of all men, of all sorts, learned and unlearned, men, women, and children. . . .[3] 

Christian learning for Christian duty must be linked with Christ’s passion.  B. B. Warfield explains 

There is no mistake more terrible than to suppose that activity in Christian work can take the place of depth of Christian affections . . . the foundation stone of your piety. . . . That is to be found, of course, in your closets, or rather in your hearts, in your private religious exercises, and in your intimate religious aspirations.[4] 

Love for God’s law, testimonies, commandments, precepts, and words[5] in Psalm 119 is more than emotion.  Hebrews placed feelings in the background while love’s commitment took the foreground.[6]  To “love God’s law” was intensively[7] intentional for the believer.  Psalm 119:47 complements the love of the study of Scripture with “delight” in Scripture.[8]  Festive, exultant[9] enthusiasm[10] is present as the writer cheers Heaven’s Book.  The resulting pleasure from such teaching is a word such as “bibliophile”-book lover. 

Two decades ago I first met the efforts of some to squelch the growing love of study.  Craig, one of my most passionate students, was being told by some on a ministry trip that his desire to spend time reading was self-centered.  “Who would want to quell this young man’s burgeoning desire to grow?” I thought!  Edwards reminds us 

So there can be no love without knowledge.  It is not according to the nature of the human soul, to love an object which is entirely unknown.  The heart cannot be set upon an object of which there is no idea in the understanding.  The reasons which induce the soul to love must first be understood before they can have a reasonable influence on the heart.[11] 

Great joy is gained from study and its application to real world living.[12]  Psalm 119:18 was often my classroom prayer, “Open my eyes that I might see wonderful things in Your law!”  The great teacher of preachers, Haddon Robinson, called for “evangelistic scholars”[13] to put feet to head knowledge.  And anyone who wants to motivate a classroom need read Howard Hendricks Teaching to Change Lives[14] at least once a year to watch the seamlessness of study with joy.  The Christian teacher requires a passionate love for truth.  Samuel Solivan proposed the term orthopathos (literally, straight love) linking orthodoxy (straight teaching) with orthopraxis (straight living).  Delight and truth must hold hands walking down the road of duty.[15] 

So, Lindsay was right: a theologian’s best preparation for death means the study of Greek grammar.  Love of study (whatever field in God’s creation ignites our passion) shows one’s love for God.  John W. Peterson expressed it best in a forgotten hymn A Student’s Prayer.  The first stanza summarizes why intellectuals are in love.[16] 

God, the all wise, and Creator of the human intellect,

Guide our search for truth and knowledge, all our thoughts and ways direct.

Help us build the towers of learning that would make us wise, astute,

On the rock of Holy Scripture: Truth revealed and absolute. 

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[1] B. B. Warfield. 1911. “The Religious Life of Theological Students.” In Selected Shorter Writings of B. B. Warfield, vol. 1, 414.

[2] A. G. Sertillanges. 1921, 1998. The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. Trans. Mary Ryan. Fwd., James V. Schall. (Catholic University of America Press): 19.

[3] Jonathan Edwards. 1849. “The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards in Four Volumes (Leavitt, Trow and Company): 3:2-4, 4-7, 7-8, 11, 14-15 as quoted in an edited version of those remarks entitled “The Discipleship of Study” in The Great Awakening and American Education, 207.

[4] Warfield, 424, 422.

[5] Psalm 119: 47, 48, 97, 113, 119, 127, 159, 163, 165, 167.

[6] George J. Zemek. n.d. The Word of God in the Child of God. (For a free copy of this exceptional hardbound commentary, write to: Psalm 119 Commentary, P. O. Box 428, Mango, FL 33550): 233.

[7] Zemek, 95.

[8] The first occurrences are in Psalm 119:14 and 16.

[9] Derek Kidner. 1975. Psalms 73-150. In the TOTC, J. Wiseman, ed. (IVP): 420.

[10] Gary G. Cohen. 1980. sus. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): 2:873.

[11] The Great Awakening, 202.

[12] Craig Mattson, PhD, presently serves as professor of communication at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL.  I had the joy of hearing him speak to students this past year.  Craig epitomizes depth of scholarship with depth of passion.  May his tribe increase.

[13] Haddon Robinson. 1985. “The Theologian and the Evangelist” Journal of the Evangelical Society 28/1 (March): 3-8.

[14] Howard Hendricks. 2003. Teaching to Change Lives. (Reprint, Multnomah).

[15] Reference to Samuel Solivan, “Orthopathos: Interlocutor between Orthodoxy and Praxis,” Andover Newton Review 1 (Winter 1990): 19-25 quoted in Robert W. Pazmino, By What Authority do we Teach? (Eerdmans, 1994): 120.

[16] A play off the theme addressed by James W. Sire in Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling. (IVP, 2000): 76-77.  Sire uses a great many of the ideas found in Sertillanges.  See ftnt. #2.

July 23, 2009 10:00 am

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July 24, 2009 10:00 am

August 14, 2009 10:00 am

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August 15, 2009 10:00 am

Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN 

 

Studying the art of war is crucial for preparation to fight in war.  Retired Major General Robert H. Scales argues that a national defense is dependant upon solders’ ability to think critically.  After making his case Scales concludes, “War is a thinking man’s game and only those who take the time to study war are likely to fight it competently.  Soldiers and Marines need time for reflection, time to learn, teach, research and write.”[1]  Every vocation necessitates education build on knowledge.  Students of every stripe must learn, then live. 

 

“School” came from the Latin schole meaning “leisure.”  The idea was that such a prolonged opportunity for focused study would never come again.  Billy Graham was asked what he would do differently if he had life to live over again.  His response, without hesitation, was that he would study twice as much as he ministered.  John Wesley, given a hypothetical situation of knowing he had three years to live, was questioned how he would use the time.  His reply, to the point, “I would study for two and preach for one.”  Every builder, athlete, businessperson, restaurateur, everyone knows action without plan is a mitigated disaster.  Knowledge is the linchpin of life. 

 

Proverbs 19:2 is straightforward, “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, or be hasty and miss the way.”  Hebrew readers understood zeal meant excitement without direction.  They would not make snap judgments as one who was hasty.  Like the carpenter, people were taught to “measure twice, cut once.”  They would gain understanding little by little supported by the wisdom of Proverbs 21:5, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”  Not missing the way listeners were to keep their eyes on the prize.  Unlike the fool whose eyes “wandered to the ends of the earth” without focus, “a discerning man kept wisdom in view” (Proverbs 17:24). 

 

So students, bolstered by knowledge, know that to learn, then live takes concerted effort.  Arising out of the trauma of Genesis three, the primary principle presents itself: students must dedicate themselves to learning as work.  Like the garden that would now fill with weeds, the task of learning demands consistent tilling, fertilizing, and aeration (3:17-19).  When students whine, “Why do we have to take the test?” the requisite answer is, “because you’re sinners!”  Frustration arises out of learning because learning takes such a long time.  Someone once asked me in the midst of an interim pulpit supply how long a certain sermon had taken to develop.  My answer of three years prompted wide-eyed shock!  But such is the case.  If learning is work, my fallen, fragile mind demands long-term dedication. 

 

Tilling the soil of my mind means every time I open a book I find out how much I don’t know.  Incompletion is another byproduct of sin that compels my dedication to learning.  Add to my unfinished efforts the problem of laziness.  It is much easier to watch television than it is to read a book.  Understand, television is not the problem—I am!  As a student, the siren’s call of putting studies off until another time is a recurrent tendency.  Slothfulness then leads to “boredom.”  How many times have teachers heard, “That’s boring!”  To such a complaint comes my consistent response, “The only thing boring about that is you!”  The subject itself is not disinteresting.  A student’s poor response arising out of rebellion against work poses the problem.  Sin has corrupted the classroom just as it has every other sphere of life.  Subsequently, it is incumbent upon the student to commit to the learning life. 

 

For the Christian, then, an intentional steadfastness to learning precedes all else.  A second major principle for a student’s vocation is the discipleship of the mind to scholarship.  Solomon’s response to The Almighty’s offer of any gift was an earnest desire for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding (1 Kings 3:7-9).  Scripture takes up mentoring the mind throughout its pages.  Romans 8:6-8 mandates the Christian mind be Spirit controlled.  Unlike our pagan counterparts, believers see the world through the lens of The Word.  A process of renewal develops through the transformation begun in the mind (Romans 12:2).  Changed thinking is the result of sanctified thinking.  Every Christian should pray with the Psalmist, “open my eyes that I might see wonderful things in your law” (119:18).  Precepts from Holy Writ are available to students strapped in to the harness of a Spirit-directed, disciplined mind.  Only then can the believer hope to “bring every thought captive to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).   

 

But doesn’t our culture worship at the altar of education?  Must we not be careful that intellectual pursuits do not derail us from spiritual maturity in Christ?  Like the thematic element in the movie Sneakers—“it’s all about the information”—some have fallen prey to the academy’s manipulations.  Worshipping the intellect over the Creator (Romans 1:21) is problematic if that is our focus.  In similar fashion, arrogance producing “a big head” is not to be a Christian response to knowledge (1 Corinthians 8:1-2).  But perhaps the spirit of any human-centered age is best represented in Paul’s warning that some are “ever learning but never coming to the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7).  Discipleship of the Christian mind runs counter to all these distortions as we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). 

 

Having the mind of Christ is one thing, changing our minds toward a proper view of learning is something else.  In all my years of teaching, I have never heard anyone say we do our homework to the glory of God.  If mediocrity is unacceptable on an athletic field, shouldn’t this also be true of the classroom?  The third biblical principle of knowledge for the student is the direction of learning to God’s glory.  Psalm 115:1 clearly states the focus of a believer’s life is to throw God’s weight around—the meaning of “glory.”  Life is God-given.  This God-given life is sacred.  Sacred, God-given life brings responsibility.  And responsibility to sacred, God-given life is lifelong (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20; 11:9; 12:13-14).  As students, we give ourselves to knowledge because the knowledge has been given to us.   

 

What applications can be had from a God-centered view of knowledge?  Why should we learn, then live?  (1) We should understand there is always more to learn, remaining teachable (Proverbs 9:9).  Humility must accompany the wise man.  (2) We should commit ourselves with discipline to every “discipline” (Proverbs 4:1).  As teachers we beg, beseech, and cajole our students to listen, pay attention, and gain understanding.  (3) Success in education is not high test scores but faithfulness to the duties of discernment (Proverbs 4:7).  No cost is too great in acquiring wisdom.  (4) Stewardship of knowledge necessitates that we dedicate ourselves to our studies (Genesis 1:28).  The mandate to manage and conserve the creation includes our education.  (5) School exercises—each being fragments of eternal truth—are like sacraments to God (Hebrews 13:5).  Simon Weil’s idea that participation in school is akin to offerings is apt.  (6) Security of truth rests with us (Titus 1:9).  Requirements for Christian leadership should include the knowledge of doctrine and abilities in apologetics.  As C.S. Lewis said,  

If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were uneducated.  But as it is, a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not.  To be ignorant and simple now—not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground—would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen.  Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.[2] 

 

Recently I asked a student what their school was known for.  Her academy, by her account, was seen as a “party school.”  Who is responsible for such a situation?  Who should carry out the applications “student” as a vocation?  Since vigilance to carry out the mission of the school is crucial the initial accountability falls to administration.  To stop mission drift, headmasters must anchor their thinking and that of their Christian school in a vocational commitment to biblical thought.  Teachers form the second line of defense.  If a Christian worldview is not intentionally taught in every lesson, reinforced in every activity, and revisited at every relational opportunity a school will not remain Christian for long.  Yet the students themselves bear responsibility to remember what was said at the outset: preparation precedes activity, knowing establishes doing, and principle frames practice.  Warriors study war.  Christians as students must study The Word to prepare for the world.

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