Education Information

In previous posts I have admitted my woeful relationship with education.  My lack can be attributed to laziness and disinterest but a bit of the blame goes to not understanding the building blocks of education in the first place. 

I always thought that math, science and composition were studied to simply gain knowledge of the subject.  Then another was studied and so on until a degree was obtained.  The eventual outcome of course was a career in one’s field of interest be that garage mechanics, home management, teaching, engineering or vocational ministry. 

Only recently have I learned that subjects are not an end in themselves but provide an avenue for acquiring the building blocks of education.  These building blocks include understanding the principles and rules of a subject, examining and discussing how ideas relate, learning to think logically, and expressing oneself persuasively through various means (grammar, dialectic, logic, rhetoric).  More than acquiring information of specific subjects, a well-rounded student acquires the foundation for becoming a lifelong learner whose horizons are expanded.   

 

Beyond education I wonder if we haven’t inadvertently taken this same approach in the church.  In collecting information about the Bible, have we neglected or even abandoned the purpose of the studies in the first place?

The systematic studies of last things, the temple, 1 John, the parables and angels are not an end in themselves.  Collecting information about the Bible is not the main point.  Instead the real point is to study in order to intimately and consistently know God, to be lifelong learners of the Way, to accurately and humbly communicate the Message, to recognize the mysterious hand of God crisscrossing our lives and to have our spiritual horizons expanded in Him.

Instead of just a belief system we have a way of life that bursts forth form our beliefs.  It is not static information but life giving revelation.   It is a compelling and coherent.  It is formed deep in the soul and shaped in the faith community.  It expresses itself in mission.