So far in this series, we have explored the theological and biblical paradigms surrounding our understanding of what it means to speak prophetically. It centers around God’s divine revelation to humanity and then becomes expressed through people who take up the message of God’s truth and speaking truth into new contexts. The model of discipleship we explored among the OT prophets and then with Jesus and his disciples helps us see that training the prophetic voice is very much an educational enterprise.
At this point in the series, we pivot to the formation of individuals in our classrooms. We will see that the tools available to us come in very familiar forms. We will also see how the classical art of rhetoric enables students to express their unique prophetic voices with thoughtfulness, skill and eloquence.
Previous articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:
Part 1: The Educational Heart of God
Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power
Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets
Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer
Internalizing the Prophetic Message
Before anyone can speak prophetically, one must be connected with the content of divine revelation. The Word of God is living and active, and therefore has the capacity to speak today in our lives personally as well as to speak to the needs of our society. I can think of no higher calling for a teacher than to impart to the students given into her care the internalization of God’s Word. Let’s explore what this means carefully.
Learning scripture is about more than gaining a knowledge of the content of the Bible. Throughout the Word the people of God are called to a proper affective response to the Word. So for instance, the worship of God is to be done with reverence and awe (Heb. 12:28). To be instructed in divine wisdom entails humility in our disposition (Prov. 15:33). The attitude we are cultivating in our students is one of seeking the Lord without pride or self-righteousness, so that they may walk humbly with God and care to live out his just commands (Zeph. 2:3). Cultivating the affective domain enables the student to avoid hypocritical legalism or entitled antinomianism.
Other affective responses to scripture that ought to be cultivated among students are joy and wonder. The Psalmist writes in the great acrostic poem about scripture that God’s testimonies are “the joy of my heart” (Ps. 119:111). Our tendency as educators may be to aim for interpretive exactitude as we teach the Bible. This may be the result of training students in proper interpretive methods or of promoting our theological tradition. However, we can sometimes steal the inherent joy and wonder the reader of the Bible can have. The Word is God’s communication to us, his people. I don’t want to place a false dichotomy here. We can strive for highly accurate interpretations of scripture without robbing our students of the joy they can take in the text. However, as we evaluate our students in an educational environment, it can be easier to determine whether they have “correct” answers, thereby implying that precision is more important than joy and wonder.
Ultimately, a full-orbed internalization of the prophetic message relies on good interpretive practices as well as a responsiveness to the prophetic message at an affective level. We as the people of God are called to be transformed by the message of scripture. This means that there needs to be a spirit-led responsiveness to the text that comes through an understanding that God’s Word speaks to us today. To cultivate this among my students, I have devoted time on a regular basis to have them personally reflect on scripture, journal their thoughts and pray about how God is speaking to them through scripture. Sometimes this happens at school, but I have also encouraged students to take a prayer walk in nature, opening their hearts and minds to listen to the still, small voice of the Lord.
Using Narration to Internalize the Prophetic Message
Scripture memory is a powerful tool for those who really want to live a disciplined Christian life. Mere memorization, though, can be a liability for a few reasons. One of the most meaningful phases of my growth as a young Christian occurred in college when I was involved in the Navigators campus ministry. It was there that scripture memory was allied to personal discipleship. I grew tremendously in my scriptural knowledge. But I also encountered two simultaneous temptations. One temptation was to view the discipline of scripture memory as a work of personal righteousness. If I hadn’t memorized as much as one of my peers, I felt as though I was somehow a lesser Christian. Another temptation was to take pride in my ability to memorize scripture. There were moments when I could show off all I had memorized. To be fair, despite these temptations, I have benefitted greatly from the scripture that was memorized largely because of the promise that God’s word “shall not return to me empty” (Isa. 55:11).
Here is where the practice of narration can be so effective in mitigating some of the temptation of rote memorization. When one narrates, the reader internalizes the sequence, phrases and ideas of the text and then tells it back. This act of assimilation can be more powerful than mere memorization, as Charlotte Mason explains:
“He will find that in the act of narrating every power of his mind comes into play, that points and bearings which he had not observed are brought out; that the whole is visualized and brought into relief in an extraordinary way; in fact, that scene or argument has become a part of his personal experience; he knows, he has assimilated what he has read. This is not memory work. In order to memorise, we repeat over and over a passage or a series of points or names with the aid of such clues as we can invent; we do memorise a string of facts or words, and the new possession serves its purpose for a time, but it is not assimilated; its purpose being served, we know it no more. This is memory work by means of which examinations are passed with credit. I will not try to explain (or understand!) this power to memorise;––it has its subsidiary use in education, no doubt, but it must not be put in the place of the prime agent which is attention.”
Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 16.
Note the liability of memorization she points out. Memorization can give the feeling that something has been assimilated, but it has not become a part of the personal experience of the learner. As we train the prophetic voice of our students, the internalization of scripture must engage the whole person of the child. It should excite the imagination by having the student visualize the scenery and the argument. The mind is most engaged by observing details set within the whole of the surrounding passage. What we most want is to enable the mind of the student to be filled with a storehouse of scripture not merely at the word-perfect level of memorization, but with a full comprehension of the text that is appropriated imaginatively.
Telling scripture back through narration trains the student to express the message and meaning of scripture immediately after an initial contact with scripture. In this way, we are cultivating a practice of speaking aloud God’s revelation on a daily basis. This is the essence of the prophetic voice and it occurs in small moments after reading the Bible each day. A child well practiced in narrating scripture is well on his way to using his prophetic voice in life.
Habit Training as a Means to Internalizing the Prophetic Voice
The assimilation of scripture is not only an intellectual exercise since the message of scripture is to be lived out. James challenges us to have an active faith since, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). Many have stumbled over this passage because of the Pauline doctrine of faith alone apart from the works of the law. However, James and Paul seem to be singing from the same hymn book. James is simply saying that a faith not lived out is not actually a living faith.
As teachers or parents, we can help children put feet to their biblical faith by carefully considering habits or practices to incorporate in daily life. Charlotte Mason devotes special attention to spiritual habits (we might call them spiritual disciplines) in her third book, School Education. She speaks about cultivating the habits of the religious life such that they begin with compelling ideas about God so that our practices are invested with the savor of communing with God. We can create little forms to express worship, reverence and devotion to God. She writes, “It is a mistake to suppose that the forms of reverence need be tiresome to them. They love little ceremonies, and to be taught to kneel nicely while saying their short prayers would help them to a feeling of reverence in after life.” (Vol. 3, pg. 141) Learning reverence is a delight to the child, and we can set up cues that enable the student to have a moment of personal connection with her Lord.
It is not surprising to find in our churches that there are cues and practices that draw us into a sense of God’s presence. We learn to habitually pray in certain ways and to find certain practices meaningful in our expression of worship. These kinds of cues and practices can be drawn into our homes and classrooms. Mason writes, “The chair, or the bedside, or the little prayer-table, or, best of all, the mother’s knee, plays no small part in framing the soul to a habit of devotion.” (Vol. 3, pg. 142) Note how the goal is not to make the chair or bedside a little temple. Instead, the soul is the actual temple for the indwelling Christ. Yet, establishing a place where a sense of God’s holiness can be experienced in a special way cultivates this habit of devotion to the Lord.
Paul instructs fathers in Ephesians to bring up children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4) The word for discipline here is παιδεία which means training or molding. We can contrast this word with Paul’s use of ὑπωπιάζω in 1 Cor. 9:27, which has the sense of beating the body into submission. In Ephesians 6:4, the job for parents is to positively set the child on a course toward the Lord. This happens when we place in their lives objects and practices that incline them toward God. Habit training envisions the best for the child and then sets up structures to realize this vision in daily practices. You can read more about the connection of habit training and our Christian faith in my article “Christ our Habitude.“
I have seen this at work in my son’s life. One summer we made it a practice to have a short devotional each morning after his breakfast. The Egan boys usually are up before everyone else, so we had this alone time. There was something special about moment each day, and we simply sat on the couch together reading short passages of scripture. Even though I created a structure, he soon checked in with me, “Are we doing devotional this morning?” He had internalized the specialness of that moment, and his heart was positively inclined toward the Lord. That lives with him even now, years later, as he has accumulated many moments of divine joy. A morning connection with God is a well-formed habit.
Clean Your Room
In this article, we have been discussing the concept of internalizing the prophetic message. That’s because before one can go out and prophetically speak to address the concerns of our world, the message must first be taken into the individual. In keeping with this idea, it is likewise important for the message to have its transformative effect first on the individual. Here I want to explore the idea that a person cannot begin to solve the world’s problems until the student has begun to address the problems in his or her own life.
Jordan Peterson in his book 12 Rules for Life lays out a perspective on responsibility taking as a prerequisite to prophetic speech. He articulates this in his sixth rule: “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” This rule has become something of an internet meme as it was expressed in various places by Peterson as “clean up your room.” You can watch his elaboration of this idea here. The point he is making is that the arena to practice applying the prophetic message is in the most immediate and personal sphere. If your room is in disarray, how can you possibly go about fixing a world in disarray?
To speak the truth, one must be completely aligned with the truth as it gets expressed in daily living. “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” (1 John 1:6) The first person truth must be proclaimed to is oneself. It is in the personal encounter with truth that the would-be prophet experiences the veracity of the truth to be proclaimed. This is where conviction gets set. The goal is not just to know true things, but to exert our wills such that our lives are conformed to the truth.
When I talk about internalizing the prophetic message, this notion of living out the truth in practical ways during daily life has something to it. If a child can learn to transform himself and his environment by being brutally honest with himself, then he has taken responsibility in the smallest and most immediate sphere. The little white lie must be confronted as the little tyke says to himself, “I am a dishonest person, and that must change.” Then he goes about rooting out falsehood, becoming an honest person. Perhaps the child looks about his room and sees the Legos strewn about. The light of truth reveals how much chaos and disorder is in his life. As he works to clean his room, he is learning responsibility and begins to marshal resources to solve problems in his little world.
Training the Prophetic Voice
For us as teachers we have many opportunities to cultivate the internalization of the prophetic voice in our classrooms. We should create environments where honesty and truth telling are highly valued. What I mean by this is that we expect of our students to say what they mean, and not accept little falsehoods, blame shifting or cute excuses. Speaking the truth is not about tattling on a classmate. Instead, speaking truth is about encountering the truth about oneself and then being given the support to do something about it.
Early in this article, we talked about learning the message of scripture and acquiring proper affective responses to God and his Word. One aspect of our environments should be a consistent and regular encounter with a personal and holy God. The spirit is there to comfort and convict. As we train our students, they must learn to be sensitive to God’s work in their life.
Using the tools available to us, such as narration and habit training, our students can be directed toward living lives consistent with the message of scripture. As teachers, we can often see avenues for their growth. There are insights we can share to help them “see the light” of truth. Are they consistently late to school? Is their math homework sloppy? Can their handwriting improve? Are they tipping in their chair? We teachers can speak truth to our students (or better have the students speak truth about themselves) in a supportive and caring way. Then we help them bring their lives into conformity with the truth by helping them come up with strategies be on time, tidy up their math homework, improve their handwriting or sit properly in their chair.
One day our students will go out into the world to encounter the problems they see there. They will need to use their prophetic voices to criticize and correct the world. Before they can do that, they will need to internalize the prophetic message. When we have this vision for our students, it adds meaning and purpose to our daily work in the classroom.
Other articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:
Part 1: The Educational Heart of God
Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power
Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets
Lovely