Reading, Writing, Arithmetic
I love the beginning of school... new stuff, new relationships, new professors, everything starts fresh and everyone even starts with same grade. Tribes form in the area of ones interests, hobbies or major and it seems that each year holds such promise. Then, after we receive the syllabus with all the assignments, the new quickly wears off and we lament of too much work to do.
How are we to think of education as Christians? What does it have to do with following Jesus?
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
– Matthew 22:36–40, ESV
Loving God with everything includes the mind. Students sometimes seem to approach education as a burden and compartmentalize it as if it has nothing to do with following Jesus. The truth of the matter is that the gospel has implications in all things.
A failure of Christian thinking is a failure of discipleship, for we are called to love God with our minds. We cannot follow Christ faithfully without first thinking as Christians. Furthermore, believers are not to be isolated thinkers who bear this responsibility alone. We are called to be faithful together as we learn intellectual discipleship within the believing community, the church.
– Albert Mohler
Student, appreciate the grace afforded you in the privilege of learning. This is not only a gift from God, but it is also a privilege offered in America that is not available in many parts of the world.
He came to my desk with a quivering lip,
the lesson was done.
“Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher?
I’ve spoiled this one.”
I took his sheet, all soiled and blotted
and gave him a new one all unspotted.
And into his tired heart I cried,
“Do better now, my child.”I came to the throne with a trembling heart;
the day was done.
“Have you a new day for me, dear Master?
I’ve spoiled this one.”
He took my day, all soiled and blotted
and gave me a new one all unspotted.
And into my tired heart he cried,
“Do better now, my child.”Author anonymous, “A New Leaf,” James G. Lawson, compiler, The Best Loved Religious Poems (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1961).