Dr. Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center 

The 300.  Spartans.  Thermopylae.  For those who know anything of Western history the Grecian battle against the Persian hordes is legendary.  But it is Barry Strauss’ The Battle for Salamis[1] which details the victorious stand in 480 B. C. by independent minded Greeks versus the totalitarian regime of Xerxes.  The subtitle of the book says it all: “The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece-and Western Civilization.”  Not until September 11^th, 1683[2]–when Jan Sobieski and his Poles turned back Islam at the gates of Vienna-had The West stood so close to the historical abyss.  

The 12 families.  Hebrews.  The Red Sea.  For those who know anything of God’s people in The First Testament the book of Exodus records Egyptian overthrow.  But it is the Genesis lightening strike, felling the tree of paganism, which set the world on fire.  The victory of Heaven over Hell began with a genealogical line so thin, the pompous nation states gave it few entries in their histories.  But without the Hebrew race, most of what we take for granted today would be only a pipedream.  It was Genesis that dragged people, ethnicities, and nations out of the cultural abyss.     

While the Greeks gave The West an independent spirit, the Hebrews developed an integrated view of life.  “Sacred” applied to all creation.  “Secular” did not exist.  “Wholeness” best captured their lived lives.  If God is, as Genesis assumes, His singular, Authorial purpose gives answer to “Why?”  Genesis unifies knowing with living.  No longer are people left with a polytheistic coin-flip: “I wonder which god is angry today?”  Gone are the days of subservience to petty, tyrannical idols whose non-existence was lost on those scared to and scared of death.  Hope took the place of fear.  Thomas Cahill’s The Gifts of the Jews summarizes the result of Hebrew heritage as 

. . . Governed by a single outlook.  The material and the spiritual, the intellectual and the moral were one:  Hearken O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH (is) One!  The great formula is not that there is one God but that “God is One.”  From this insight will flow not only the integrating and universalist propensities of Western philosophy but even the possibility of modern science.  For life is not a series of discrete experiences, influenced by diverse forces . . . Because God is One, life is a moral continuum-and reality makes sense.[3] 

This time Cahill’s subtitle sums up the Hebrew influence: “How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels.” 

The Hebrews had a sensible and sensitive outlook on life in contrast to other peoples’ attitudes.  Neighbor cultures believed fickle, temperamental gods practiced heinous crimes against each other.  Creation was the result of severed body parts.  Humans were created out of blood spilt as a result of godlike territorial warfare.  Indeed, tired of work, the gods’ sole purpose for human creation was an all-earth maid service.  Sinister and foreboding are the best word descriptions of pagan cultural thought. 

But Genesis was a halogen headlight in the darkness of that ancient near eastern world.  In no other text is there a Personal, Eternal Creator.  Transcendence and immanence both poured from the Hebrew’s God.  He was at once separate and other-than while at the same time demonstrating caring compassion.  Only from One whose authority was autonomous and absolute could spring the framework of a well ordered world.  Creation worked.  Stability made life livable.  Harmony flowed throughout every established system.  Yahweh’s beneficence cascaded from His personal nurture.  Common grace was goodness shown through all creation.[4]   In short, humans could 

know God in all his works . . .  things terrestrial as well as things celestial; to open to view both the order of creation, and the “common grace” of the God he adores, in nature and its wondrous character, in the production of human industry, in the life of mankind, in sociology and in the history of the human race.[5]  

The singular distinctive sustaining the Hebrews and their way of thought within a region where dictatorial superpowers governed was 

primarily their unique religion which sustained them, making them capable of withstanding those forces of absorption and disintegration which would have removed them as a people from the stage of history.[6] 

Totalitarian regimes like Persia mirror Hell’s desire for usurpation and slavery.  Freedom rings from the portals of Heaven whose Architect intended goodness in a good world.  Drawing the obvious distinction, Barry Strauss’ explains the utter defeat of Persia: 

The Persian ships had little interest in continuing a struggle past the point where they might collect their reward.  Compare the Spartan willingness to fight to the last man at Thermopylae with the Phoenicians’ decision to turn and leave the line at Salamis after they realized that they could not defeat the Athenians.  The Spartan king Leonidas served a transcendent cause, while the Phoenician king Tetramnestus merely calculated the odds.  Freedom was worth dying for, but there was no percentage in giving one’s life in exchange for power from the Great King that one would never enjoy.[7] 

We serve a Transcendent Person’s Cause: the last word on the first book, Genesis. 

[2] The exact date of the 9-11 attacks precisely match the date Europeans turned the tide of the Muslim invasion in 1683: September 11^th.  The message from our current adversaries is clear to anyone who desires to understand the contiguous historical nature of our present state of warfare.

[3] Thomas Cahill. 1998. The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels.  (Doubleday): 156-57.

[4] Gen 39:5; Ps 107; 145:9, 15-16; Matt 5:44-45; Luke 6:35-36; John 1:9; Acts 14:16-17; 1 Cor 7:12-14.

[5] Abraham Kuyper. 1899, 1943, 2008. Lectures on Calvinism. (Reprint, Eerdmans): 125.

[6] Eugene G. Bewkes quoted by Marvin R. Wilson in Our Father Abraham. (Eerdmans) : 12.

[7] Strauss, 193, emphasis mine.

Dr. Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center

In The Island of Lost Maps Miles Harvey asks “why the sense of discovery seemed to play such an important role for the [map] collector.”  During an interview with Werner Muensterberger, a psychology expert and author of Collecting: An Unruly Passion, Harvey explored the explorer’s mind:

“Think of the word: dis — cover-to take the cover off and see what’s there,” Muensterberger began, “It goes very deep for the collector: I want to find out.  And what you really want to find is, Where do I come from?  What is the source? That is discovery-finding something no one knew before, and you didn’t know before.”[1]

Discovery has much the same sense as “revelation:” to uncover or disclose for the purpose of further understanding.[2] Earthly penchant for learning new things comes from Heaven: “It is the glory of God to conceal things but the glory of kings is to search things out.”[3] Kings in the ancient world were considered similar to a 21^st C. “patron of arts and sciences.”[4] State sovereigns’ pursuit of new intellectual thought was to bring honor to the universal Sovereign.  As God has revealed Himself in His creation, so humans discover the creation The Creator has revealed.

Consequently I am perplexed when I read that someone is keeping their knowledge a secret from the rest of us.  Online advertisements, for instance, entice the viewer to consider how someone lost 47 pounds because they followed “this one secret.”  Of course the draw is to get a person interested in the purchase of a product.  The secret can be bought and sold.  Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code made Gnostic[5] secrets famous.  During the first century The Church was besieged by people who believed they had a special knowledge.  Indeed, if you wanted “the secret to life” you had to join their sect.  Knowing Gnostic secrets meant payment was due in some form.

John and Paul smashed the pomposity of Gnostic heresies in their books of 1 John[6] and Colossians.  It is Paul’s phrase in Colossians 2:3 in particular that lampoons belief in secret information: “in whom [Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”[7] Paul’s admonitions hold at least four truths that all believers should apply to the Christian concept of study.

(1) Christ is the storehouse of knowledge (“hidden treasures”).  Christ is the layaway for the world’s information and its application: it is laid up, treasured, stored away.[8] Paul uses the Greek word that we still use today: thesaurus. A storehouse of words now, was a storehouse of valuables then.[9] Jesus said a person focuses their attention on values they think are important, made obvious by life choices.[10] Proverbs 20:15 indicates that while financial riches exist “the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.”  Accumulation of Heaven’s wealth means a bank account focused on Heaven’s view of mental health.

(2) Christ’s knowledge is exclusive (“in whom”).  “In” in Greek can tell both the location and instrumentation of a subject.[11] So, there are no brute facts.  Neutrality is a myth.  Equality of beliefs is impossible.  A Christian view of study is broadminded in the sense that everything is open for investigation.  A Christian, however, is close-minded (as is everyone to their own beliefs) in this: all knowledge is from and through Christ.  John W. Peterson’s hymn “A Student’s Prayer” ties application to instruction:

May the things we learn, so meager, never lift our hearts in pride

Till in foolish self-reliance we would wander from Thy side.

Let them only bind us closer, Lord, to Thee, in whom we find

Very fountainhead of Wisdom, Light and life of all mankind.

(3) Christ is the source of knowledge (“wisdom and knowledge”).  In Greek thought knowledge came through the senses and wisdom was equivalent to philosophical speculation.[12] Paul’s use of the terms is exactly opposite.  Hebrews personalized the Heavenly origin of knowledge in wise living.  The believer listens to the Personification of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:34 as she says “Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors” (ESV).  Arthur Holmes links a Christian view of study with similar themes that shaped St. Bonaventure’s approach to learning:

Wisdom is written everywhere, Bonaventure insists, and the world is like a book written front and back, or a mirror imaging the presence of God in its order and beauty and light. . . . God’s goodness emanates like a light diffusing itself throughout the entire creation; he is the exemplar, the Logos of all created things, and he is the one to whom it leads and for whom it all exists.[13]

(4) Christ’s control of knowledge is universal (“all”).  As I often tell my students, “‘All’ means all and that’s all, ‘all’ means.”  Abraham Kuyper’s oft quoted sentence is clear, ‘there is not one square inch of earth over which Christ does not declare ‘I am Lord!’ Erasmus made his point earlier in Church history: “All studies, philosophy, rhetoric are followed for this one object, that we may know Christ and honor him.  This is the end of all learning and eloquence.”[14] Human attempts either to fathom or discover more of Christ’s knowledge-even of their physical realm-”are but the outer fringe of his works.”[15]

A portrait of Michael Faraday hung in Albert Einstein’s office.  It was Faraday’s work that made Einstein a household name.  “Fields of force,” Faraday’s brainchild, impacts the intellectual world of physics through today.  Faraday was raised in a Christian home.  At his death, Faraday’s well worn Bible was especially focused on Job’s creational commentary.  In an 1845 scientific address Faraday stated his belief that the “various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin.”[16] Though not trained as a scientist, he was a collector of what he saw in God’s world.  Whether one searches for maps or quarks, the very idea of study depends on something to study.  Christ Himself is the vault of all earthly wisdom without whom no study would be accomplished.

[2] Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest. 1987. Integrative Theology: Knowing Ultimate Reality. Vol. 1. (Zondervan): 61.

[3] Proverbs 25:2 (ESV).

[4] Robert L. Allen. 1983. Proverbs: A Commentary on an Ancient Book of Timeless Advice. (Baker): 181.

[5] The word “Gnostic” comes from the Greek word for “knowledge.”  Any Bible dictionary would give background information on the group.  After reading descriptions it becomes clear that Gnostics exist in every culture.

[6] Another key Gnostic doctrine maintained that the physical body was “bad.”  The implication clearly attacked the incarnation (coming in flesh) of Christ.  1 John 1:1-3 and 4:1-6 excoriates the false teaching.

[7] In fact, the very next words out of Paul’s pen warn of arguments meant to delude Christians.

[8] John Eadie. 1856, 1977. Colossians. (James & Klock): 181.

[9] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida. 1989.  Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. 2^nd ed. (United Bible Society): 1:86.

[10] Matthew 6:21; 12:35, 52; Luke 12:24, 33, 34.

[11] H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey. 1955. A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament. (Reprint, MacMillan): 105

[12] Larry Richards. 1985. Expository Dictionary of Bible Words. (Zondervan): 383, 629.

[13] Arthur F. Holmes. 2001. Building the Christian Academy. (Eerdmans): 43-44.

[14] Desiderius Erasmus. 1528. Ciceronianus. Quoted by D. Bruce Lockerbie in A Passion for Learning: The History of Christian Thought on Education, (Moody, 1994): 136.

[15] Job 26:14, NIV.

[16] Daniel J. Boorstin. 1983. The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself. (Random House): 679-83.

Dr. Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center

“Useless eaters.”  Nazis coined the phrase for mentally ill patients.  Indeed, the first people to die in the Holocaust were German World War I amputee veterans.[1] A naturalistic mindset (“there is nothing outside of this world”) births an evolutionary point of view (“only the strong survive”).  Then, a materialistic lifestyle (“matter is all that matters”) bends toward utilitarian ethics: personhood depends on productivity.  What has worth must have immediate benefit.

Views of life centered on usefulness have a deleterious impact on education.[2] Neil Postman warns

In consideration of the disintegrative power of Technopoly, perhaps themost important contribution schools can make to the education of our youth is to give them sense of coherence in their studies, a sense of purpose, meaning, an interconnectedness in what they learn. . . . [However] There is no set of ideas or attitudes that permeates all parts of the curriculum. . . . It does not even put forward a clear vision of what constitutes an educated person, unless it is a person who possesses “skills.”  In other words, a technocrat’s ideal is a person with no commitment and no point of view but with plenty of marketable skills.[3]

“When am I going to use this?!”[4] is the schoolroom mantra.  Pragmatism-a desire for usefulness-subverts the need for building a broad understanding of all of life.  Teacher conventions are noted for demonstrations and booths that unconsciously advertise the gnawing question, “will it work?”  On occasion it seems that this is the only critical question teachers ask.  “Pragmatism” works its wiles through “teaching tips”, “recipes”, and the call to “try this.”  The immediate and practical supplant vision and philosophy.  But “why” is more foundational than “how” one practices education.  Materialism spawns this deadly disease-where learning means earning-when the size of one’s wallet is more important than the size of one’s vocabulary.[5] Schooling becomes a means to an end.  Do what you have to and move on.  Utilitarianism-the false belief that consequences of any action should provide production and pleasure-raises its ugly head.

However, “A society too commercial in orientation might lose its sense that there is anything higher than immediate gratification.”[6] Consumerism, offspring of materialism, is not the intention of creational law through human stewardship.  Phrases such as “Human Resources,” something to be used and used up, do not befit a Christian worldview.  Business nomenclature, tactics, and ethos have made more inroads into The Church than we would like to admit.  Zenger and Folkman, for instance, regard changing attitude by changing behavior as high priority in The Extraordinary Leader. Again and again the reader is told that behavior develops character-not the other way around.[7] Behavior modification, training a person’s internal fortitude by external compulsion, seems to be the underlying belief.  As a consequence, the real interest is in results.[8] Indeed, an earlier book from Zenger continues to sustain the theme: Results Based Leadership.[9] Performance, production, profit, and pragmatism drive the quest for success.  While there is a genuine concern for developing and improving leadership, the ultimate measurement lies in the bottom line.

But when it comes to education, Proverbs is clear: knowledge is to be sought, acquired, and understood.  Study is accomplished in stages.[10] Anything worthwhile takes work.  Providential success is accrued over time, not over night.  Whatever we acquire, we have because God wills it.[11] Our ultimate goal is not for our own self-interests, but the glory of God and the good of people.[12] Telos is the Bible’s word for end, fulfillment, or completion.  Accordingly, Jesus is “the fulfillment of the ages” to which believers are to “hold firmly” with “diligence” and “perseverance” because He Himself is “the end.”[13] Our interest is not in the bottom line but the end of the line.

George Peabody, widely acknowledged as the founder of modern philanthropy, gave millions of dollars in gifts toward educational causes in the mid 1800’s.  Why?

Deprived as I was, of the opportunity of obtaining anything more than the most common education I am well qualified to estimate its value by the disadvantages I labour under in the society [in] which my business and situation in life frequently throws me, and willingly would I now give twenty times the expense of attending a good education could I possess it, but it is now too late for me to learn and I can only do to those that come under my care, as I could have wished circumstances had permitted others to have done by me.[14]

I once had a colleague in government schools who told me, “Mark, for the first time in ten years, I will be able to teach from the same curriculum I had last year.”  With our drive toward “what works” we have moored our hopes to the sinking ship of “what use is it?”  The mentality birthing the phrase “useless eaters” is subtly at work in educational corridors.  Biblical wisdom in study prompts us to value people over productivity.   Postman and Peabody knew the truth: our end has longer life.

[2] See my article: Mark Eckel. “Selling the School: A Christian Response to the Consumer Education Model.” Christian Educators Journal February 2009: 28.

[3] Neil Postman. 1992. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (Knopf): 185-86.

[4] See STUDY Part 5 “Whining” and Part 7 “Boring” for similar negative responses to study.

[5] Proverbs 20:15; 30:7-9.

[6] Tod Lindberg. “The Deepest Roots.” National Review 10 August 2009: 41.

[7] John H. Zenger and Joseph Folkman. 2002. The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders. (McGraw-Hill): 80, 186, 234, 260.

[8] Ibid. 63-65.

[9] Ibid. 14, 64-65, 232, 256.

[10] Proverbs 15:14; 18:15; 19:25; 22:17-18).

[11] Deuteronomy 6:10-12 reminds the people that God gave a land ready for inhabitation.  It is good to be reminded of the “you did not” phrases (cf. 8:10-20).  James 4:13-17 is clear.

[12] For example: Psalm 115:1; Matthew 25:34-40; 2 Corinthians 8:1-5.

[13] 1 Corinthians 10:4; Hebrews 3:6, 14; 6:11; Revelation 2:26; 21:6; 22:13.

[14] Quoted by Miles Harvey in The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime. (G.K. Hall, 2000, 2001): 24-25.