Friends, Verily I tell you, it is a joy to include the truth of Christ in daily high school education. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #875

August 22, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Christ in the Classroom

By Bob Walters

“… bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4, NIV

“How’s teaching going, Bob?”

I heard that question from friends a dozen or more times in church this morning as school started last week.  My general response was, “You wouldn’t believe it.”

In world history the book talks about the Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages, theories of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon humans, and then gives full weight to the reality of God’s Creation.  The Bible, the text clearly notes, is far different from secular stories.

In government, the first issue is to wade through God’s expectations for human development owing to His righteousness and the reason we need government: our sin.

U.S. history opens with Marco Polo in an Italian prison in 1298 AD telling stories of fabulous wealth, products, and civilizations in the Far East.  Next, the Crusades to retake the Holy Land first exposed Europeans to the fabulous Muslim bounties from China.  Not long after that, Europeans began exploring other routes to the Far East that did not involve fighting Muslims along the way.  Hence, exploration by ocean routes.

After the obligatory rundown of world explorers Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot, and Ferdinand Magellan, by pages seven and eight we were discussing Luther’s Reformation in Germany, Calvin’s teaching in Geneva, and the impact of Protestant freedom, government, and education on the allure of a New World far from the Pope of the Church and the Kings and Queens of Europe.

I was talking to highly-educated, former-elder-chairman church buddy Don on the phone Saturday night, sharing among other things that it was Calvin whose teaching reformed and renewed Geneva with the ideas that sinners simply needed to trust Christ, all levels of society should experience the spiritual renewal of the Reformation, enhanced education was the best way to produce effective leaders for church and society, and that better than any monarchy would be a government by assemblies elected by citizens. Britain’s Magna Carta aside, Calvin promoted modern government.

Don is enough of a like-minded trivialist to appreciate that in our educational histories, neither of us had ever heard that.  And all this was in just my first three days teaching high school at Mission Christian Academy (MCA) in Fishers.  It is astounding what you can learn in a social studies classroom when the Bible is inbounds and in play.

I don’t remember high school U.S. History class 50 years ago mentioning Calvin.

So, to my caring friends, yes, school is going great; full-time teaching is a joyous new adventure.  Teaching history while sharing a Christian worldview – our worldview – with open-minded teenaged students is a joy for me … and, I sense, a comfort for them. 

Did I say “open-minded”? Isn’t this a building full of close-minded Christians?  I’m afraid the world pitches that hay off the wrong end of the wagon.  It is the God-intolerant world whose minds are closed to reality and objective truth.  Every human being has a unique opinion about God – I believe that – but denial of God only exposes foolishness.  

Sadly, that’s our world. See Psalms 14:1 and 53:1 for scriptural back-up.

MCA promises parents – this isn’t a sales pitch, it’s also what I was promised as a teacher – that its mission is truth, salvation, and Christian worldview.  As I survey culture, politics, and most modern “education,” I see narratives rife with lies meant to diminish humanity, shackle freedom, and contort responsibility. I say, choose wisdom.

The training and instruction of the Lord, in the Lord, is a gift that gives forever.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) now realizes how “full time” a job teaching really is.