Category: Biblical worldview

Enjoying the Bible as Literature: 5 Strategies for Engaging Students in Reading the Canon

Guest article by Heidi Dean of Christian Schools International (See Jason’s article on CSI “7 Steps to Narrating the Bible”!) In biblical studies we seek to cultivate the habits of reverence, humility, submission to the text, and other qualities of faithful scholarship. But I propose another goal should rise to the top: enjoyment. The enjoyment that students have in reading a novel, or an eerie poem, or an adventure epic.  When students are engaging with the Bible, we should hear laughter and gasps. We should see quizzical eyebrows and wide-eyed shock. I love to see students jumping out of their

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Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 6: Classical Rhetoric for the Modern World

In my last post, I explored the concept of internalization. Students need to internalize the truth in such a way that it impacts their lives personally. Obviously this will look different for each individual, so there is no formula. I like to think of each person as embarking on a journey during which they will be transformed by their experiences of truth. It is the truths that are owned by the individual that become powerful messages that spring from the heart and soul of the modern prophetic voice. Having internalized the message of truth, we can now pursue a framework

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Three Premises for Teaching Theology

In March 1984, British missiologist Lesslie Newbigin delivered the Warfield Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary on the topic of the gospel and western culture. In these lectures, which were later compiled into a book entitled Foolishness to the Greeks (Eerdmans: 1986), Lewbigin considers what would be involved in a genuinely missionary encounter between the gospel and the peoples of the West.  The starting premise may be surprising to some, especially those who tend to think of Christianity as a western religion. How can missionaries bring the gospel to a culture that has lived and breathed it for two millennia? Indeed,

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Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message

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

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Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer

In my ongoing series on training the prophetic voice, we have looked at several biblical and theological aspects of what it means to speak with a prophetic voice. We have seen how speaking truth is the heart of the prophetic voice, and that God himself is the theological grounding of our conception of truth-speaking. In my last article, I developed the concept of the schools of the prophets in the Old Testament. The master prophets not only spoke truth to power, but they cultivated the prophetic voice among their disciples. In today’s article, we will explore how Jesus founded a

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Educating for Humility: Promoting a Classroom Culture of Excellence in Service to Others

Of the many ills that plague modern society, perhaps one of the most insidious is the wedge we have driven between character and excellence, or ethics and achievement. Contemporary examples abound of  “successful” men and women who have earned impressive accolades despite deep recesses in character, and occasionally, because of those recesses.  As a result, for many young people today, it remains an open question whether character actually counts, and if so, to what degree. Today’s sports stars don’t exactly illustrate this truth during their excessive victory celebrations. Nor do the upper echelon of celebrities and business moguls as they

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Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

In my previous two articles on training the prophetic voice, I laid some groundwork by establishing first that our understanding of prophecy (truth telling) is grounded in the character of God as a truth-telling God, and second that the kind of truth we are talking about is of a moral nature when we are considering prophetic acts and speeches. My goal with this series of articles is to promote the idea that our schools are aimed at developing the prophetic voice of our students. In this next article, we travel back to the Bible to make some observations about where

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Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

The God we worship and serve is an educating God. Our God has chosen to reveal himself to those whom he has created. God’s verbal communication with his creation is expressed in the opening of John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the Word.” Our God is a speaking God, which means he is continuously teaching people, taking them from a place of ignorance to a place of understanding. There are numerous implications emanating from this concept of God as an educator. In this article, we will explore the many facets of God’s educational heart. We will see that the foundational

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Class of 2020: The Next Greatest Generation

The class of 2020 has felt the full force of the disruption caused by the Coronavirus. Graduation ceremonies have been cancelled, postponed or held virtually online. Nothing about the spring of senior year went according to plan for the class of 2020. It has been described as catastrophic and traumatic by students, parents and teachers. In the face of such obstacles, how do we maintain a confident faith? Part of gaining the courage to lead, we must come to grips with our current circumstances. I myself find great meaning in the quote by Marcus Aurelius, “What stands in the way

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Teaching Confident Faith in an Age of Religious Uncertainty

Christianity, as a global religion, is at a crossroads. On the one hand, it remains the largest religion in the world: 31% of the world’s population is Christian, and sociologists predict this percentage to increase to 32% by 2060. [1] On the other hand, the religion is experiencing notable decline in the West. In 2010, 75% of Europeans and 77% of North Americans identified as Christian, practicing or non-practicing. The percentages in both continents are expected to decrease to 65% by 2050. [2] If Christianity is projected to increase globally, but decrease in the West, in what parts of the

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