Anyway, when I think about teaching and my kids—and other people’s kids—Bart Ehrman comes to mind.

Give me a sec to explain.

Here’s a guy who professed Christianity, went to Moody, was trained as a textual critic and eventually threw away his faith because he said he found an error in the Bible.

Apparently, this guy either had a faulty view of inerrancy or he placed inerrancy in a weird position in his hierarchy of beliefs. Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe in inerrancy (it’s one of my pet subjects) but I think one should hold to inerrancy because there is a strong biblical and theological groundwork—not because one needs it to be a Christian.

In other words, instead of holding to inerrancy because of his belief in God, Ehrman believed in God because inerrancy was true. When his view of inerrancy collapsed, it took his faith with it. So much so, he got vocal with his agnostic atheism.

Enter my concern with (my/our) kids: Adults constantly underestimate them.

Kids are capable of understanding a vast amount of things, and appropriating them in their system of beliefs—without all the inhibitions that prevent Adults from accepting things.

I don’t mean that Kids are stupid and can fall for anything. No, it’s more like they are tapped into a world that is constantly expanding so they don’t have a problem allowing consideration of some idea or another even if the ideas are paradoxical. Call this expanding world of The Believed a Belief Sphere.

Adults on the other hand have reached a point where they’ve habitually categorized things. With those presuppositions undergirding their mind, we Adults often refuse to consider after we’ve concluded—or worst, taught. We’ve committed to an Idea and anything outside of what we have defined as World, ceases to exist: or at the very least grows dim. So although we have a Belief Sphere, our Conclusion Sphere holds priority.

So Adults underestimate that a kid can appropriate very difficult concepts (by putting them in their Belief Sphere with an invisible subhead of needs-working-out). By underestimating them—and thinking in Adult Categories—the Adult often hands over the post-masticated theological Conclusion Sphere without any of the structure or grid-work that gives real foundation to that conclusion. It’s an idea void of reason for belief—the undergirding just winds up being merely consequences for not holding to this Conclusion Sphere. Everything outside of that Conclusion Sphere winds up labeled Non-Belief instead of Non-Conclusion.

As an example: instead of entrusting the child with the strong theological grid-work of the Creator God and his Derivative Creation (Belief Sphere), we hand over our Conclusion Sphere which consists of my view Creation Week. The Consequence of not holding to my Conclusion Sphere, we warn the Child, is that that belongs outside of Belief—it is the Outer Darkness of the Non-Believing Realm.

Enter the day that the Child becomes an Adult and casts away our Conclusion Sphere but thinks it’s labeled Belief Sphere. Since he’s not embracing Belief, he’s embracing the Other category: Non-Belief.

Mind you, I’m not saying we don’t teach our view of Creation Week. Or even the importance of Inerrancy. I’m saying that all these teachings should be handed over with a strong theological grid-work established on Biblical grounds—as a Belief Sphere—so that when (not if) our Conclusion Sphere is at some later point challenged, the Child-then-Adult still finds himself with the strong undergirding of the Belief Sphere. The single Conclusion has no problem collapsing since it was part of a larger matrix.

I’ve mentioned before that I learned some fairly odd things pretty young in my faith and the thing that brought me back was the historicity of the death and resurrection of Christ. I realized the importance of the centrality of the death and resurrection. It was so important that if it ever comes about that I find out that Jesus really drank grape juice instead of wine, my faith wouldn’t be shaken.

Anyway, this is just a really long-winded way of me saying I have concerns with how and what we teach kids. This summer, I was given opportunity, via the grace of God, to help in some endeavors and answer questions where they needed clarifying, and re-teaching where something was being occluded.

So I’ll touch on a VBS program that I’ve reformulated—maybe even touch on last year’s VBS too, I don’t know—and some questions that came up during the summer that may be helpful for other parents as they deal with their kids, just for the sake of e-posterity and Google-searches.

If there were a take home in this it is this: don’t underestimate your kids. Unleash the Gospel in its entirety. They can handle it. Sure, you could (and should) be afraid of Conclusion Spheres that you reject; that’s perfectly understandable—ideas have consequences. But don’t fear giving your kids the reason for the hope and faith (the Belief Sphere) that is within you. Too often we think that that applies only to the Stranger Outside The Home when our kids are the ones who are actually the most likely ones to ask us “Why?” Knowing that our Belief Sphere is really faith in a crucified creator God who gave himself for us, then rose again and promises to save those who trust in Him should allow us to be very open with supplying them with those foundational answers. After all, trusting Him is what saves—not trusting in some concluding interpretation.

Technorati Tags: belief, faith, teaching

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Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

Technorati Tags: ignatius, prayer mondays

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It is underscored almost explicitly in John 7:24 “Do not judge according to appearance but judge with righteous judgment.” The people have the evidence, they acknowledge the goodness of the works, they have some real theological theories, but they put it all together in such a way that explains their already embraced knowledge.

It’s sort of like the agnostic evolutionist who has all the same evidence as the proponent of intelligent design, but winds up with a different conclusion because he has the pre-knowledge that a designer is totally improvable.

Sphere 1:
In John 7, the first sphere occurs in the home as the feast of booths draws nigh. This is an excellent feast of rejoicing because the Lord provided for the people in the wilderness. They, back then, would make little booths of palm leaves and today continue the practice. So although you can’t see what’s going on in the inside—the little booths don’t look very happy or comfortable at all—something different is going on in the inside: the people are rejoicing.

Well in this home, as the celebration approached, the brothers of Jesus do not believe—if anyone you would expect to believe it would be them. They indeed tell him that he should go to the feast and declare himself openly but he tells them two things that underscore their problem:

• One, they are part of this world’s system. They can do what they want here because their actions flow within the restrictions of this world—but not so with himself. John tells us in Chapter 1 that he came Into the world.
• Two, the World can’t hate them but it hates Him because he testifies that its deeds are evil.  See, the world can’t hate them because they’re friends of the World.

So they give him advice, but they base their advice on what they know in This World and This World is against Christ. They in effect, think they know better even though they don’t have the proper grounds to know better.

Sphere 2:
So they go up to the Feast and Christ, getting the signal from the Father, follows a couple of days later. And here we see the second sphere of activity with the people discussing their ideas on the person of Jesus. Oh they think he does good works—but are they good enough? They have their theology—the Christ will come from we don’t know where or when; but we know when and where this guy came from. Isn’t it true that Messiah comes from Bethlehem of the line of David—this guy is only from Nazareth.

They have their ideas, and the irony is that some of their ideas are dead on and John records it maybe even laughing behind his hands. Yes, the Messiah is from Bethlehem! Yes, the Messiah does do these good works! Indeed, they’re expecting the Messiah to bring the showers of spiritual blessing and to provide for the people as God provided water from the Rock in the wilderness.

But Jesus points out their problem:

• First, their expectation of good works is out of wack. If they do good works on the Sabbath (by saving a whole man and circumcising him) then surely he can do good works by saving an entire man of his infirmities.
• Second, their problem isn’t so much knowing him but that they don’t know who sent Him. He’s not speaking of his own authority but like the prophets of old, he’s speaking on the authority of another. But there’s a major difference: he speaks like no man.
• Third, they look to the festival and the temple for the expectation of latter day Spiritual showers but Christ Himself is the source of those showers.

Sphere 3:
Then the scene cuts away to the Intelligentsia speaking about what they know above the crowds. The people are unschooled and don’t have a clue about the Law—of course the rabble would gather round an usurper and sinner. Indeed, their gathering is probably just because they’re fellow countrymen since everyone knows that the expectations of the people of God look differently from This Man.

Jesus points out the situation here in some pretty intense ways. They don’t know his Father though they search the Scriptures. They judge but they do that according to the flesh—and not the Spirit. They seek light but they don’t know that Christ is the light of the world: the light of life. They reject his testimony, and prove that they are of this world—just like his brothers who didn’t believe him.

The problem for the intelligentsia was the same problem of the crowds and his brothers though it was evidenced in different ways: they thought they knew better.

The unbelief was illustrated expertly by the miracle with the blind man. There he goes, a man who knows he’s blind and that the only solution exists outside of himself. He finds himself healed, not of his own power, but of the mandate of another and he states: one thing I know, I was blind but now I see.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, scorn the guy, refuse to believe it’s really him, refuse to believe he was always blind, finally kick him out of the synagogue, and stand tall stating that they can see all things clearly—and Christ points out their problem.

Since they know they can see, they remain blind unable to see. They walk about with their eyes wide shut to their detriment: they think they know better.

Paul would call this the failure to retain the knowledge of God in their mind by rejecting the self-evident truth. The day will come that these people, who persist in this sort of activity, will find themselves locked into the Lie because they refused to love the truth. Darkness willingly embraced because the light was openly rejected.

And there Christ stands calling out: Stop thinking you know better. Stop judging according to your eyes but judge according to righteous judgment. Christ came from Outside and Intervened in our time and space by being a man, being handled and touched. He knows better. He points to himself as the source of spiritual life and blessing: to drink from him and to rejoice rightly as a person who can now finally see!

We interact with people across all spheres and the solution is always the same, even if the available word usage increases: we need to point these people to a person and thus exposing their presuppositions. Evidence is great, but it can all be reinterpreted. It’s only when you point to Christ, the source of Spiritual Waters, can you find the true healing of such foundations.

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Most gracious God, we give you thanks for your tender love in sending Jesus Christ to come among us, to be born of a human mother, and to make the way of the cross to be the way of life.

We thank you, also, for consecrating the union of man and woman in his Name. By the power of your Holy Spirit, pour out the abundance of your blessing upon this man and this woman. Defend them from every enemy. Lead them into all peace.

Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle about their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads. Bless them in their work and in their companionship; in their sleeping and in their waking; in their joys and in their sorrows; in their life and in their death.

Finally, in your mercy, bring them to that table where your saints feast for ever in your heavenly home; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Technorati Tags: book of common prayer, marriage, prayer mondays

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Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O divine master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Technorati Tags: "make me an instrument of peace", prayer mondays, st. francis

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