Category Archives: Scripture

Education as a way of life?

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G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “Education is not a subject, and it does not deal in subjects. It is instead the transfer of a way of life.”

My mind has already turned to preparing for the coming school year — both in our home schooling, and in our church ministry. The above quote certain pushes one’s thoughts and plans to a whole new level. But then, again, shouldn’t Christians already be aware of this, that education is a whole life activity — engaging all areas, throughout one’s whole life? I think so. This is why we are called “disciples” (learner/followers) of Jesus.

And not only that, but we are disciples who have been commissioned to make more disciples! The passage at the end of the Gospel of Matthew now only gives the church this order, but in so doing reveals the essence of discipleship:

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

It would seem that discipleship (the education or ‘making’ of a Christian) aims to cover ALL that Jesus taught, and to make sure it is not only LEARNED but OBSERVED (practiced/obeyed). So, tweaking the Chesterton quote a litte, we could say this: “Christian discipleship is not a subject, and it does not deal in subjects. It is instead the transfer of a way of life.”

~ pdb

God’s great power!

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Romans 1:1–4, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord…. [esv]

“Had you realized that the power that was necessary to make believers out of you and me is the same power that God used in bringing up His Son from the dead and in raising Him and seating Him at His right hand in glory? Many people seem to think that to believe the Gospel is easy and simple; that a man sits as a kind of judge of the truth. Someone comes and preaches the Gospel to him, and then after some considerations he decides whether he is going to believe it or not. He has the power to do either, they believe; and he just exercises this poiwer. But, says Paul, it takes the power that brought the Lord Jesus Christ from the grave to deal with that man and change him. Nothing less than that power must be exercised in a soul to enable it to believe and to be saved. Nothing less! The natural man is totally incapable of this, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, ‘…neither can he know (the things of the Spirit of God) for they are spiritually discerned’. Were it not that grace is irresistable, not one of us would ever have believed the gospel.”
~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Romans 5 Commentary