I have been reading, and thus far thoroughly enjoying, a book by Jerry Bridges titled True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia. One of the things I like best about this book, other than getting it free for Kindle, is that his focus so far in the book is on the reality of our community in Christ by virtue of being in Christ rather than on how we meet or live with one another. If we get that wrong, the actual practice of living in community is irrelevant and I think that is where some community focused groups go astray, by putting community ahead of commonality in Christ.
While reading today I came across this quote and thought it was worth sharing....
The admonition of Hebrews 10: 24-25 — “Let us not give up meeting together” — is not fulfilled merely by attending church on Sunday morning, as is so often supposed. Rather, it is fulfilled only when we follow through with the instruction to encourage, spur on, or stimulate one another. This cannot be done sitting in pews, row upon row, listening to the pastor teach. It can be done only through the mutual interchange of admonishment and encouragement. This is not to diminish the importance of the teaching ministry of our pastors; the Bible makes it quite clear that their ministry holds a vital place in our lives (see, for example, Ephesians 4: 11-12; 1 Thessalonians 4: 1; 1 Timothy 3: 2; 5: 17; 2 Timothy 4: 2). But we need both the public teaching of our pastors and the mutual encouragement and admonishing of one another. It is the latter that seems to be the main thrust of Hebrews 10: 24-25.
Bridges, Jerry (2012-09-14). True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia (Kindle Locations 789-795). Navpress. Kindle Edition.
That is excellent. Even as he affirms the value of teaching from elders (although I would say that the teaching of elders is less about formal sermons and more about teaching through example) he also recognizes that the oft used canard that Hebrews 10:24-25 is talking about "going to church" on Sunday is missing the point. Most traditional church settings make it quite difficult to interact with one another at all, much less stir one another up or encouraging one another. We gather together but not for the reasons the Bible lays out. In fact I would say...
The gathering of the church is not about "worship", it is about mutual edification and encouragement
We miss this to our detriment. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that most Christians come out of the Sunday gathering feeling good but not one iota more equipped to engage the lost or serve the poor. We wonder why people don't share their faith or go on missions or serve the poor after years or decades of "worship services" but never get to the point where we question the "worship service" itself. We just prescribe more of the same and act puzzled at the results.
You may say that good teaching is equipping and I would conditionally agree. There are plenty of people with barely a basic understanding of the fundamental truths of the faith, including many people in the simple/organic church movement. I would go so far as to say that there are some prominent voices in the simple/organic church movement that go out of their way to deny fundamentals of the faith and see that as being a sign of maturity. So teaching is crucial and elders should be teaching but that teaching cannot be exclusively or even primarily traditional teaching methods. Most people just don't learn what they need to that way. What we see modeled in the Bible seems more like "on the job training", learning by imitation, than learning by lecture.
Bottom line, if we are not engaged in mutual edification and exhortation and encouragement when the church gathers, we aren' doing it right and something crucial and Biblical is missing. Likewise we cannot keep trotting out the same old substitutions for community and mutuality and then pine for a more active church. Sermons aren't enough!
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Monday, December 03, 2012
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Teacher Training
Very interesting article on the teaching of teachers and the need to raise the standards for those charged with educating the yutes of America in today's Wall Street Journal. The article, Teacher Training Is Panned, looks at the patchwork system for training teachers for America's schools and the efforts in a number of corners to improve that system to hopefully turnout higher quality teachers. Sounds nice but I think the article misses the mark.
There are two fundamental issues here. One, teachers are perceived to not be paid very well. I say “perceived” quite intentionally and I will address that in a moment.
Secondly, as the report implies, the perception that teaching is a lower paying professional position tends to discourage the “best and brightest” from pursuing teaching as a career.
Studies have shown that, historically, students who enter teacher-education programs generally have lower grade-point averages or lower scores on college-entrance examinations than students who enter other professions.
I would concur with this anecdotally from my own time in college. The only way to consistently encourage the very best students to choose teaching as a career is to change the pay perception and that takes money. Unfortunately money is in short supply these days for most school districts. Between lower property values and the explosion of extra staff that are not traditional classroom teachers, the odds of getting large pay increases for teachers are pretty poor and frankly not needed.
Compounding the problem is that the public is in no mood to keep giving more and more money to public schools. As more data comes to light and is more readily accessible, it is also apparent that teachers are not nearly as “underpaid” as folklore would claim. According to a report published by the Manhattan Institute in 2007, statistics show that the average public school teacher made $34.06/hour in 2005. If you were to annualize that hourly rate to 40 hours per week times 52 weeks per year that would be the equivalent of just shy of $71,000. That doesn’t mean that the average teacher makes $71,000 per year but then again they aren’t working 52 weeks per year either. There are 260 weekdays in a non-leap year. The average school year is 180 days or 36 weeks. Compared to a private sector employee with three paid weeks of vacation, public school teachers get the equivalent of 16 weeks of vacation. So they are really only “on the job” around 70% of the year. During the time that they are on the job they are paid an hourly rate that is much higher than most private sector workers who have full-time employment and a college degree. Because teachers only work a partial year, their annual income is perhaps low but frankly the per hour pay for actual work is much higher than most . Granted, many teachers spend a lot of time outside of school grading papers and other school related activities but those same teachers still have an enormous amount of time off compared to private sector workers. Perhaps for those reasons (lower pay that is offset by having 16 weeks off per year and a work schedule that corresponds to the school schedule of teachers children), it seems that teaching is more and more a female dominated profession that attracts women who expect to have a spouse who works to help offset the lower annual pay. The entire conversation about teachers being underpaid is framed by the talking points of teachers unions in a guilt trip scheme to continually add to the pay of teachers (and the coffers of teachers unions) but when you look at the facts as opposed to relying on folklore and emotional appeals, it is apparent that public school teachers are paid on an hourly basis far better than their higher achieving peers from college.
The other factor is that there is no real correspondence between pay and performance of students. If it were a simple mathematical formula, where X amount of additional money yields Y percent improvement in student performance, it would be far easier to make the case for paying teachers more. Unfortunately that is not the situation. Case in point from the same Manhattan Institute report, Detroit public school teachers have the highest average hourly pay at a whopping $47.28 per hour. That is an annualized rate of nearly $100,000 per year so if teacher pay was tied to educational quality, Detroit public schools should be leading the way in academic excellence. Alas that is not the case.
The education system is antiquated and it is broken. Merely throwing more money at it is not going to fix the problem and the public seems to be increasingly hesitant to rubber stamp millage increases on an annual basis for government services including public schools.
Maybe what is needed is a radical rethinking of the entire system. I am not suggesting that all parents should homeschool their kids but I do think that we have a system in place for educating children that has been virtually unchanged since I was a child and long before that. The four walls of a school building and the anachronistic schedule actually confine and restrict education instead of supporting it.
I am not sure what this radical rethinking looks like. Perhaps we see more out of classroom work, more online or interactive studies. What about asking someone who is a business person to come in once a month and teach economics or instruction from other subject matter experts from the “real world”? Why not pool resources in a given school district, instead of having a history teacher in each school have one history teacher who covers classes in multiple locations either in person or by video conferencing. I think the artificial, age based system of K-12 grades absolutely should go. Students should be grouped by ability and background, not age. Kids with an aptitude for math shouldn’t be restricted because a certain class is not offered at their “grade level”. I obviously don’t have all the answers or perhaps any of them. I do know that stubbornly trying to use 19th century methods and structures to teach children in the 21st century is foolish and self-defeating. We are no longer a primarily agrarian society so why do we still have academic years that are built around farming?
What are some ways to radically change the educational system in this country without increasing the costs?
There are two fundamental issues here. One, teachers are perceived to not be paid very well. I say “perceived” quite intentionally and I will address that in a moment.
Secondly, as the report implies, the perception that teaching is a lower paying professional position tends to discourage the “best and brightest” from pursuing teaching as a career.
Studies have shown that, historically, students who enter teacher-education programs generally have lower grade-point averages or lower scores on college-entrance examinations than students who enter other professions.
I would concur with this anecdotally from my own time in college. The only way to consistently encourage the very best students to choose teaching as a career is to change the pay perception and that takes money. Unfortunately money is in short supply these days for most school districts. Between lower property values and the explosion of extra staff that are not traditional classroom teachers, the odds of getting large pay increases for teachers are pretty poor and frankly not needed.
Compounding the problem is that the public is in no mood to keep giving more and more money to public schools. As more data comes to light and is more readily accessible, it is also apparent that teachers are not nearly as “underpaid” as folklore would claim. According to a report published by the Manhattan Institute in 2007, statistics show that the average public school teacher made $34.06/hour in 2005. If you were to annualize that hourly rate to 40 hours per week times 52 weeks per year that would be the equivalent of just shy of $71,000. That doesn’t mean that the average teacher makes $71,000 per year but then again they aren’t working 52 weeks per year either. There are 260 weekdays in a non-leap year. The average school year is 180 days or 36 weeks. Compared to a private sector employee with three paid weeks of vacation, public school teachers get the equivalent of 16 weeks of vacation. So they are really only “on the job” around 70% of the year. During the time that they are on the job they are paid an hourly rate that is much higher than most private sector workers who have full-time employment and a college degree. Because teachers only work a partial year, their annual income is perhaps low but frankly the per hour pay for actual work is much higher than most . Granted, many teachers spend a lot of time outside of school grading papers and other school related activities but those same teachers still have an enormous amount of time off compared to private sector workers. Perhaps for those reasons (lower pay that is offset by having 16 weeks off per year and a work schedule that corresponds to the school schedule of teachers children), it seems that teaching is more and more a female dominated profession that attracts women who expect to have a spouse who works to help offset the lower annual pay. The entire conversation about teachers being underpaid is framed by the talking points of teachers unions in a guilt trip scheme to continually add to the pay of teachers (and the coffers of teachers unions) but when you look at the facts as opposed to relying on folklore and emotional appeals, it is apparent that public school teachers are paid on an hourly basis far better than their higher achieving peers from college.
The other factor is that there is no real correspondence between pay and performance of students. If it were a simple mathematical formula, where X amount of additional money yields Y percent improvement in student performance, it would be far easier to make the case for paying teachers more. Unfortunately that is not the situation. Case in point from the same Manhattan Institute report, Detroit public school teachers have the highest average hourly pay at a whopping $47.28 per hour. That is an annualized rate of nearly $100,000 per year so if teacher pay was tied to educational quality, Detroit public schools should be leading the way in academic excellence. Alas that is not the case.
The education system is antiquated and it is broken. Merely throwing more money at it is not going to fix the problem and the public seems to be increasingly hesitant to rubber stamp millage increases on an annual basis for government services including public schools.
Maybe what is needed is a radical rethinking of the entire system. I am not suggesting that all parents should homeschool their kids but I do think that we have a system in place for educating children that has been virtually unchanged since I was a child and long before that. The four walls of a school building and the anachronistic schedule actually confine and restrict education instead of supporting it.
I am not sure what this radical rethinking looks like. Perhaps we see more out of classroom work, more online or interactive studies. What about asking someone who is a business person to come in once a month and teach economics or instruction from other subject matter experts from the “real world”? Why not pool resources in a given school district, instead of having a history teacher in each school have one history teacher who covers classes in multiple locations either in person or by video conferencing. I think the artificial, age based system of K-12 grades absolutely should go. Students should be grouped by ability and background, not age. Kids with an aptitude for math shouldn’t be restricted because a certain class is not offered at their “grade level”. I obviously don’t have all the answers or perhaps any of them. I do know that stubbornly trying to use 19th century methods and structures to teach children in the 21st century is foolish and self-defeating. We are no longer a primarily agrarian society so why do we still have academic years that are built around farming?
What are some ways to radically change the educational system in this country without increasing the costs?
Friday, April 09, 2010
Being word-centered doesn’t mean being sermon-centered
I am lifting a quote from a book I haven’t read, reproduced on someone else’s blog and I ain’t apologizing for it! It is such an excellent quote that it deserves to be widely reproduced and discussed. So with apologies to Alan Knox, here is the quote from “ Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community”.
All too often people equate being word-centered with being sermon-centered. People argue for sermons by arguing for the centrality of God’s word, assuming that the word and the sermon are synonymous in Christian practice. It assumes God’s word can only be taught through sermons. Or people assume that the alternative to sermons is anarchy or relativism with no place for the Spirit-gifted teacher of God’s word, as if Spirit-gifted teachers can only exercise their gift through forty-five-minute monologues.
But our concern is not to reject the sermon. Monologue continues to have its place as one of the ways in which the Bible can and should be taught. It stands alongside other complementary methods such as dialogue and discussion. Being word-centered is not less than being sermon-centered. Our contention is that being word-centered is so much more than being sermon-centered. (pg 114)
How excellent is that!?
I think there is a place for prepared, monologue teaching in the church. Sometimes it is the appropriate method, provided that the same person is not doing the monologue every week, that the monologue is not the only method of teaching utilized and that the entire body gets the chance to discuss what was taught. So I am not “anti-sermon” as much as I am “pro-every member priesthood”. I think the best two sentences from that quote are:
“Being word-centered is not less than being sermon-centered. Our contention is that being word-centered is so much more than being sermon-centered.”
This has been an area of real shift for me. I was a big advocate of more sermons and longer sermons (as long as they were expository sermons). My view now is that the week after week monologue by the same person week after week is unhealthy for the preacher and unhealthy for the congregation. An overemphasis on the sermon leads to pastoral burnout, pastoral pride, apathy in much of the local body and a view of the church that is focused on ritual instead of community. We need more teaching in the church, that is true, but we need not just more but better teaching and that means more people being involved in the teaching beyond listening and more teaching that puts action to the words.
All too often people equate being word-centered with being sermon-centered. People argue for sermons by arguing for the centrality of God’s word, assuming that the word and the sermon are synonymous in Christian practice. It assumes God’s word can only be taught through sermons. Or people assume that the alternative to sermons is anarchy or relativism with no place for the Spirit-gifted teacher of God’s word, as if Spirit-gifted teachers can only exercise their gift through forty-five-minute monologues.
But our concern is not to reject the sermon. Monologue continues to have its place as one of the ways in which the Bible can and should be taught. It stands alongside other complementary methods such as dialogue and discussion. Being word-centered is not less than being sermon-centered. Our contention is that being word-centered is so much more than being sermon-centered. (pg 114)
How excellent is that!?
I think there is a place for prepared, monologue teaching in the church. Sometimes it is the appropriate method, provided that the same person is not doing the monologue every week, that the monologue is not the only method of teaching utilized and that the entire body gets the chance to discuss what was taught. So I am not “anti-sermon” as much as I am “pro-every member priesthood”. I think the best two sentences from that quote are:
“Being word-centered is not less than being sermon-centered. Our contention is that being word-centered is so much more than being sermon-centered.”
This has been an area of real shift for me. I was a big advocate of more sermons and longer sermons (as long as they were expository sermons). My view now is that the week after week monologue by the same person week after week is unhealthy for the preacher and unhealthy for the congregation. An overemphasis on the sermon leads to pastoral burnout, pastoral pride, apathy in much of the local body and a view of the church that is focused on ritual instead of community. We need more teaching in the church, that is true, but we need not just more but better teaching and that means more people being involved in the teaching beyond listening and more teaching that puts action to the words.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Parents versus teachers
Trouble in paradise!
HONOLULU--At a time when President Barack Obama is pushing for more time in the classroom, his home state has created the nation's shortest school year under a new union contract that closes schools on most Fridays for the remainder of the academic calendar.
The deal whacks 17 days from the school year for budget-cutting reasons and has education advocates charging that Hawaii is drastically cutting the academic calendar at a time when it already ranks near the bottom in national educational achievement.
While many school districts have laid off or furloughed teachers, reduced pay and planning days and otherwise cut costs, Hawaii's 171,000 public schools students now find themselves with only 163 instructional days, compared with 180 in most districts in the U.S.
That poses a couple of problems. As the article points out, the Obama administration has made having kids in school more hours a year, starting earlier, one of the hallmarks of its “education” policy. So here is his home state cutting back on the school year. But I don’t think the big issue is “education”. Here is the real problem:
"It's just not enough time for the kids to learn,'' said Valerie Sonoda, president of the Hawaii State Parent Teacher Student Association. "I'm getting hundreds of calls and emails. They all have the same underlying concern, and that is the educational hours of the kids.''
Riiiight. Maybe it is me being cynical, but I am thinking that the real problem is not as much education as it is supervision. What are working parents going to do when their kids are not being warehoused by the state on Fridays? I imagine that the outraged parents are more likely outraged by the inconvenience of having their kids home 17 days of the work week unexpectedly. If the real concern was education, it is easy enough for teachers to assign extra homework (since home in the evenings is where an awful lot of school takes place anyway) or even, GASP, some independent reading projects that require more than scribbling notes and regurgitating information. Oh no, this has nothing to do with education and everything to do with inconvenience.
This event is not isolated, but is the very real direction we are heading. It is really interesting in that it pits two groups against one another because of a violation of an unspoken but very real social contract: Schools will continue to suck money out of the community in return for warehousing kids for most of the work day so that both parents can work outside of the home. That is the deal and it has been in force for all of my life. That is being broken as schools, bloated with bureaucracy and overpaid staff, find that revenue is not keeping up with expenses. So in the balancing act between keeping staff employed and “education”, keeping staff employed wins out.
It should be interesting to see how this pans out. The recession we are in is exposing the funding issues in education, as public schools keep coming with their hands outstretched to ask for more and more money at the same time people are losing jobs and their homes are losing value. The old system where housing prices kept going up and therefore property taxes, the main driver in most states of education funding, also kept going up is clearly broken. Ask a homeowner in Michigan who has seen the real value of their home plummet with no corresponding drop in their property taxes or even in many cases an increase in their taxes. I wonder if you put it to a vote, lay off some staff or close school on Friday, how parents would vote? I would bet the “lay of staff” stance would win out.
As the economic world changes and America’s dominance diminishes we are simultaneously seeing a precipitous decline in the birth rate in America along with a rise in the number of kids in private schools, charter schools or homeschooled. If there 1 million kids homeschooled in America and you figure an average class size of 30 pupils per teacher, that works out to some 33,000 teachers who are not employed because of homeschoolers. Add to that the millions more that are in public and charter school and you can see why teachers unions are so incensed whenever anyone mentions schooling alternatives that don’t include union teachers. As the teachers unions get more desperate, expect them to push even harder to restrict home education and fight tooth and nail to shut down charter schools. Lest you get the impression that I think teachers unions have no purpose, let me quote a few more lines from the article:
The new contract, approved by 81% of voting teachers, stipulates 17 furlough Fridays during which schools will be closed, with the first happening Oct. 23. The teachers accepted a concurrent pay reduction of about 8%, but teacher vacation, nine paid holidays and six teacher planning days are left untouched.
The new agreement also guarantees no layoffs for two years and postpones the implementation of random drug testing for teachers.
Now there is a noble goal for the union, negotiating out random drug testing for teachers! See, teachers union do have a purpose, protecting teachers who use illegal drugs from detection.
HONOLULU--At a time when President Barack Obama is pushing for more time in the classroom, his home state has created the nation's shortest school year under a new union contract that closes schools on most Fridays for the remainder of the academic calendar.
The deal whacks 17 days from the school year for budget-cutting reasons and has education advocates charging that Hawaii is drastically cutting the academic calendar at a time when it already ranks near the bottom in national educational achievement.
While many school districts have laid off or furloughed teachers, reduced pay and planning days and otherwise cut costs, Hawaii's 171,000 public schools students now find themselves with only 163 instructional days, compared with 180 in most districts in the U.S.
That poses a couple of problems. As the article points out, the Obama administration has made having kids in school more hours a year, starting earlier, one of the hallmarks of its “education” policy. So here is his home state cutting back on the school year. But I don’t think the big issue is “education”. Here is the real problem:
"It's just not enough time for the kids to learn,'' said Valerie Sonoda, president of the Hawaii State Parent Teacher Student Association. "I'm getting hundreds of calls and emails. They all have the same underlying concern, and that is the educational hours of the kids.''
Riiiight. Maybe it is me being cynical, but I am thinking that the real problem is not as much education as it is supervision. What are working parents going to do when their kids are not being warehoused by the state on Fridays? I imagine that the outraged parents are more likely outraged by the inconvenience of having their kids home 17 days of the work week unexpectedly. If the real concern was education, it is easy enough for teachers to assign extra homework (since home in the evenings is where an awful lot of school takes place anyway) or even, GASP, some independent reading projects that require more than scribbling notes and regurgitating information. Oh no, this has nothing to do with education and everything to do with inconvenience.
This event is not isolated, but is the very real direction we are heading. It is really interesting in that it pits two groups against one another because of a violation of an unspoken but very real social contract: Schools will continue to suck money out of the community in return for warehousing kids for most of the work day so that both parents can work outside of the home. That is the deal and it has been in force for all of my life. That is being broken as schools, bloated with bureaucracy and overpaid staff, find that revenue is not keeping up with expenses. So in the balancing act between keeping staff employed and “education”, keeping staff employed wins out.
It should be interesting to see how this pans out. The recession we are in is exposing the funding issues in education, as public schools keep coming with their hands outstretched to ask for more and more money at the same time people are losing jobs and their homes are losing value. The old system where housing prices kept going up and therefore property taxes, the main driver in most states of education funding, also kept going up is clearly broken. Ask a homeowner in Michigan who has seen the real value of their home plummet with no corresponding drop in their property taxes or even in many cases an increase in their taxes. I wonder if you put it to a vote, lay off some staff or close school on Friday, how parents would vote? I would bet the “lay of staff” stance would win out.
As the economic world changes and America’s dominance diminishes we are simultaneously seeing a precipitous decline in the birth rate in America along with a rise in the number of kids in private schools, charter schools or homeschooled. If there 1 million kids homeschooled in America and you figure an average class size of 30 pupils per teacher, that works out to some 33,000 teachers who are not employed because of homeschoolers. Add to that the millions more that are in public and charter school and you can see why teachers unions are so incensed whenever anyone mentions schooling alternatives that don’t include union teachers. As the teachers unions get more desperate, expect them to push even harder to restrict home education and fight tooth and nail to shut down charter schools. Lest you get the impression that I think teachers unions have no purpose, let me quote a few more lines from the article:
The new contract, approved by 81% of voting teachers, stipulates 17 furlough Fridays during which schools will be closed, with the first happening Oct. 23. The teachers accepted a concurrent pay reduction of about 8%, but teacher vacation, nine paid holidays and six teacher planning days are left untouched.
The new agreement also guarantees no layoffs for two years and postpones the implementation of random drug testing for teachers.
Now there is a noble goal for the union, negotiating out random drug testing for teachers! See, teachers union do have a purpose, protecting teachers who use illegal drugs from detection.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
One stop shopping
Is what should be going on "out there" going on "in here"?
I know that preaching is supposed to be the focal point of our church gathering based on our Protestant traditions. Especially expository preaching. But (and here I go again) is it Scriptural?
The question unfortunately often gets framed like this: either we have expository preaching or we have cutesy anecdotes and story time. As if there is no other option, as if you cannot have solid Biblical teaching and even exposition without a prepared 45 monologue sermon.
When I prepared a sermon, it was equal parts (more or less) declaring the Gospel and calling for repentance on the one hand and designed to impart teaching to believers on the other hand. I think that is true of most sermons on a given Sunday. If so, that implies that on any given Sunday either:
We are preaching the Gospel of repentance to those who have already been born again.
-OR-
We are teaching the things of God to people with unregenerate hearts to whom such teachings are meaningless.
That brings me back to my basic premise. Are preaching and teaching the same thing? If not, do we see preaching the Gospel as something that happens in the local gathering of the church? It seems that there was a great deal of teaching and edifying and encouraging going on when the church gathered but not preaching as we understand it. There was a lot of preaching going on in the New Testament, but it appears to be something happening toward groups that were clearly unbelievers (out in public, in the synagogues, in the temple, in the homes of unbelievers). I love good preaching but is what we know as preaching Biblical and appropriate in the local gathering of the church?
I know that preaching is supposed to be the focal point of our church gathering based on our Protestant traditions. Especially expository preaching. But (and here I go again) is it Scriptural?
The question unfortunately often gets framed like this: either we have expository preaching or we have cutesy anecdotes and story time. As if there is no other option, as if you cannot have solid Biblical teaching and even exposition without a prepared 45 monologue sermon.
When I prepared a sermon, it was equal parts (more or less) declaring the Gospel and calling for repentance on the one hand and designed to impart teaching to believers on the other hand. I think that is true of most sermons on a given Sunday. If so, that implies that on any given Sunday either:
We are preaching the Gospel of repentance to those who have already been born again.
-OR-
We are teaching the things of God to people with unregenerate hearts to whom such teachings are meaningless.
That brings me back to my basic premise. Are preaching and teaching the same thing? If not, do we see preaching the Gospel as something that happens in the local gathering of the church? It seems that there was a great deal of teaching and edifying and encouraging going on when the church gathered but not preaching as we understand it. There was a lot of preaching going on in the New Testament, but it appears to be something happening toward groups that were clearly unbelievers (out in public, in the synagogues, in the temple, in the homes of unbelievers). I love good preaching but is what we know as preaching Biblical and appropriate in the local gathering of the church?
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Heat, light and perceived gender inequality
When it comes to the issue of women in the church and the home, there tends to be a lot more heat than light. I want to take a step back and move beyond dueling prooftexts and look at the issue from a systematic way. When we approach this issue, it is easy to devolve into empty and angry rhetoric. It can be an emotionally charged issue in contemporary culture. One side claims that the other is capitulating to feminism and ignoring Scripture and the other retorts that their opponents are subjugating women and using the Bible to perpetuate an ancient patriarchal system. That isn’t very helpful. Let’s examine what the text says and make note of what the text does not say.
I want to start off in 1 Corinthians 14: 33-35. I think 1 Cor 14: 33-35 should be our baseline when we approach this issue because 1 Cor 14: 33-35 is the most restrictive passage when it comes to the role of women in the church. Let’s look at the verses in question:
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Co 14:33-35)
Lets look at what the text says and doesn't say. Paul says that in all of the churches of the saints (a universal principle), women should keep silent. Not at certain times, not in particular context. To clarify, Paul gives us an alternative. If women have questions, they should ask their husbands at home. It is kind of hard to reconcile that with a nonexistent context that permits them to speak. Paul closes with a similarly hard hitting statement that it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. He doesn't qualify that statement.
Taken at face value, women shouldn’t make a peep in church based on 1 Corinthians 14: 33-25. Silent is a pretty strong word in English and I assume it is similarly unambiguous in the Greek. So is shameful. There is nothing in the text itself or the surrounding context, nothing, that would imply that Paul means anything other than what he says here.
So we are left, taking 1 Cor 14: 33-35 in a vacuum, with women prohibited from so much as clearing their throats in church. When we are faced with a text like 1 Cor 14: 33-35, we have a couple of choices. We can decide it is just too draconian and that Paul must not have meant what the text says and find some way to disprove it or at least find a loophole around it. Or we can do the work of clarifying what Paul meant with the tools we have been given, i.e. the rest of Scripture.
In order to figure out what these passages in 1 Corinthians 14 mean and are intended to convey, we need to examine the context. By that I mean the context that is provided, not assuming a context that isn’t there. If the Scriptures are truly sufficient and inerrant, we must assume that the Holy Spirit led these men to write what was needed and in such a way that it would be clear to those who need to use it in the first century as well as the twenty first century. Fortunately, this is not the only mention of the “silence doctrine”. We also have 1 Tim 2: 11-15 which gives us a more complete picture.
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1Ti 2:11-15)
So Paul is clarifying here what is prohibited by giving two specific examples. This is not a complete prohibition on women speaking, but it is a prohibition nonetheless. Women are not to teach men and women are not to be in authority over men. Paul makes no mention of singing, he makes no mention of praying. Teaching and having authority regarding men. So when you take these two passages together, you get a picture and one that has been the standard in conservative Christian circles for a very long time. Something being around a long time never is proof in and of itself, but with passages like these two that are pretty unambiguous that have received pretty consistent treatment throughout the centuries, longevity and universality are excellent supports for the doctrine.
When it comes to women teaching men or being in authority over men in the church or the home, Scripture is unequivocal that this is not to take place. I feel quite comfortable in making that assertion without qualification.
Similarly, when we look at the issue of elders, there is no room for varying interpretation. Every mention of elders where we can draw a conclusion assumes that elders are only men. This makes sense given the above passages. Elders lead and elders should be able to teach. If women are permitted to be elders but not permitted to teach, that quality makes little sense (note: I understand and agree that the Paul’s letters to Timothy are not qualifications for being an elder, but they do contain qualities to be sought in an elder).
So what does that allow women to do? Watch kids in the nursery and prepare potluck meals? Hardly. Women have a cherished and valuable role in the church and in the greater Christian community. It is a patently false notion that because women are not called to lead and teach in the church, they have no value. Dare I say again that this is perhaps the result of the same sort of mindset that exalts clergy over the laity? It is another false dichotomy, either women must be allowed to teach and exert authority over men regardless of what Scripture says or women are unequal and being degraded in a patriarchal system. I say that is rubbish.
How about prophesy? There are several mentions of prophetic utterances by women in the New Testament. We read first of Philip’s four daughters prophesying. That is all we know about them, so we should be cautious to applying doctrine based on that verse. We also read that women should cover their heads when prophesying and praying in 1 Corinthians 11. (As a side note, if you are going to defend women speaking in church by using 1 Corinthians 11, you better have a wife who covers her head. Similarly, if you are going to use 1 Cor 14: 33-35 literally to prohibit women from teaching, you probably should have you wife cover.) This is important to emphasize: women prophesying does not negate the commands of Paul regarding women teaching or holding authority over men. That then raises another question: what do we know about prophesying and does that mesh with what Paul is saying in 1 Cor 14: 33-35 and 1 Tim 2: 11-15? In Acts 2: 17-18 we see a repeating of the prophecy of Joel that when the Holy Spirit comes upon people, men and women will prophesy. In Acts 19:6 we see prophesy being spoken of again in conjunction with the outpouring of the Spirit. In 1 Cor 14 we see prophecy alongside speaking in tongues, again a working of the Holy Spirit. We have the verse in Acts 21:9 about Philip's virgin daughters prophesying, with no detail and no specifics. I think it is safe to say that speaking prophetically is a miraculous working of the Holy Spirit and as such is different than the regular teaching that occurs when the church gathers. It certainly seems that prophesy is not limited to men. It also is equally clear that prophesy is a sovereignly designated event through the power of the Holy Spirit and is not normative in the church.
What about praying? We also know that women prayed when the church gathered. We see this from the depiction in Acts 1:14. We also see that women are involved in prayer in 1 Corinthians 11. What is not specified is if they were in silent prayer or if they audibly prayed. What would be consistent with the overall theme is that they prayed along with the men, but that the men audibly prayed and “led” the prayers in the assembled body. Again, this is seeking consistency in practice and not creating contradictions where none appear. Is a prayer uttered by a woman silently or in her home or in a group of women less authentic than one uttered in public by a man? If it is not, and it is clearly silly to even think so, why the concern? It strikes me that again we see a subconscious reverting to the idea of a clerical superiority.
As a side note, there are several excellent treatments of the prophesy/prayer issue at the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood site. Here is one I liked, Gender Based Boundaries for Gathered Congregations: An Interpretive History of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. I don't agree in lockstep with every conclusion but it covers a pretty wide range of topics including several from other viewpoints and even minor quibbles within the complementarian ranks.
Women are not only permitted to teach but are encouraged to teach other women. Titus 2: 3-5 speaks of this. No one ever would assume being a wife and mother is easy work. We have so many wise older sisters in the church and yet we also have a lot of young wives and mothers. Get them together. We don’t need more preachers and we don’t need more Sunday school teachers. We need more intergenerational wisdom being passed on.
There are some ancillary issues that we need to work on regarding the roles of the different genders in the church. When Paul is writing about restrictions of women, he is referencing the home/family and the church. So what does that mean for women in the secular world? What about women witnessing to men who aren’t Christians? There are plenty of issues that still need prayerful consideration. Our approach should always be to prayerfully consider what is in the text and if something is unclear, search the Scriptures for clarification. In our sinful state, the Scriptures are not always as clear as we would like. That is why we have a Bible instead of a pamphlet. We should seek clarification from within the text, not outside the text. I am confident that everything we need to know in this life can be gleaned from the Scriptures and that we should never find ourselves “filling in the blanks”. Our task is a difficult one, working through these issues in the Scriptures takes hard work. But to paraphrase Lionel Woods on an unrelated subject…
“Whenever we come to the bible and something is tough, we must find ourselves surrendering to it, or we find ourselves shaping the God of the bible in our own image.”
Amen to that brother!
I want to start off in 1 Corinthians 14: 33-35. I think 1 Cor 14: 33-35 should be our baseline when we approach this issue because 1 Cor 14: 33-35 is the most restrictive passage when it comes to the role of women in the church. Let’s look at the verses in question:
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Co 14:33-35)
Lets look at what the text says and doesn't say. Paul says that in all of the churches of the saints (a universal principle), women should keep silent. Not at certain times, not in particular context. To clarify, Paul gives us an alternative. If women have questions, they should ask their husbands at home. It is kind of hard to reconcile that with a nonexistent context that permits them to speak. Paul closes with a similarly hard hitting statement that it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. He doesn't qualify that statement.
Taken at face value, women shouldn’t make a peep in church based on 1 Corinthians 14: 33-25. Silent is a pretty strong word in English and I assume it is similarly unambiguous in the Greek. So is shameful. There is nothing in the text itself or the surrounding context, nothing, that would imply that Paul means anything other than what he says here.
So we are left, taking 1 Cor 14: 33-35 in a vacuum, with women prohibited from so much as clearing their throats in church. When we are faced with a text like 1 Cor 14: 33-35, we have a couple of choices. We can decide it is just too draconian and that Paul must not have meant what the text says and find some way to disprove it or at least find a loophole around it. Or we can do the work of clarifying what Paul meant with the tools we have been given, i.e. the rest of Scripture.
In order to figure out what these passages in 1 Corinthians 14 mean and are intended to convey, we need to examine the context. By that I mean the context that is provided, not assuming a context that isn’t there. If the Scriptures are truly sufficient and inerrant, we must assume that the Holy Spirit led these men to write what was needed and in such a way that it would be clear to those who need to use it in the first century as well as the twenty first century. Fortunately, this is not the only mention of the “silence doctrine”. We also have 1 Tim 2: 11-15 which gives us a more complete picture.
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1Ti 2:11-15)
So Paul is clarifying here what is prohibited by giving two specific examples. This is not a complete prohibition on women speaking, but it is a prohibition nonetheless. Women are not to teach men and women are not to be in authority over men. Paul makes no mention of singing, he makes no mention of praying. Teaching and having authority regarding men. So when you take these two passages together, you get a picture and one that has been the standard in conservative Christian circles for a very long time. Something being around a long time never is proof in and of itself, but with passages like these two that are pretty unambiguous that have received pretty consistent treatment throughout the centuries, longevity and universality are excellent supports for the doctrine.
When it comes to women teaching men or being in authority over men in the church or the home, Scripture is unequivocal that this is not to take place. I feel quite comfortable in making that assertion without qualification.
Similarly, when we look at the issue of elders, there is no room for varying interpretation. Every mention of elders where we can draw a conclusion assumes that elders are only men. This makes sense given the above passages. Elders lead and elders should be able to teach. If women are permitted to be elders but not permitted to teach, that quality makes little sense (note: I understand and agree that the Paul’s letters to Timothy are not qualifications for being an elder, but they do contain qualities to be sought in an elder).
So what does that allow women to do? Watch kids in the nursery and prepare potluck meals? Hardly. Women have a cherished and valuable role in the church and in the greater Christian community. It is a patently false notion that because women are not called to lead and teach in the church, they have no value. Dare I say again that this is perhaps the result of the same sort of mindset that exalts clergy over the laity? It is another false dichotomy, either women must be allowed to teach and exert authority over men regardless of what Scripture says or women are unequal and being degraded in a patriarchal system. I say that is rubbish.
How about prophesy? There are several mentions of prophetic utterances by women in the New Testament. We read first of Philip’s four daughters prophesying. That is all we know about them, so we should be cautious to applying doctrine based on that verse. We also read that women should cover their heads when prophesying and praying in 1 Corinthians 11. (As a side note, if you are going to defend women speaking in church by using 1 Corinthians 11, you better have a wife who covers her head. Similarly, if you are going to use 1 Cor 14: 33-35 literally to prohibit women from teaching, you probably should have you wife cover.) This is important to emphasize: women prophesying does not negate the commands of Paul regarding women teaching or holding authority over men. That then raises another question: what do we know about prophesying and does that mesh with what Paul is saying in 1 Cor 14: 33-35 and 1 Tim 2: 11-15? In Acts 2: 17-18 we see a repeating of the prophecy of Joel that when the Holy Spirit comes upon people, men and women will prophesy. In Acts 19:6 we see prophesy being spoken of again in conjunction with the outpouring of the Spirit. In 1 Cor 14 we see prophecy alongside speaking in tongues, again a working of the Holy Spirit. We have the verse in Acts 21:9 about Philip's virgin daughters prophesying, with no detail and no specifics. I think it is safe to say that speaking prophetically is a miraculous working of the Holy Spirit and as such is different than the regular teaching that occurs when the church gathers. It certainly seems that prophesy is not limited to men. It also is equally clear that prophesy is a sovereignly designated event through the power of the Holy Spirit and is not normative in the church.
What about praying? We also know that women prayed when the church gathered. We see this from the depiction in Acts 1:14. We also see that women are involved in prayer in 1 Corinthians 11. What is not specified is if they were in silent prayer or if they audibly prayed. What would be consistent with the overall theme is that they prayed along with the men, but that the men audibly prayed and “led” the prayers in the assembled body. Again, this is seeking consistency in practice and not creating contradictions where none appear. Is a prayer uttered by a woman silently or in her home or in a group of women less authentic than one uttered in public by a man? If it is not, and it is clearly silly to even think so, why the concern? It strikes me that again we see a subconscious reverting to the idea of a clerical superiority.
As a side note, there are several excellent treatments of the prophesy/prayer issue at the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood site. Here is one I liked, Gender Based Boundaries for Gathered Congregations: An Interpretive History of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. I don't agree in lockstep with every conclusion but it covers a pretty wide range of topics including several from other viewpoints and even minor quibbles within the complementarian ranks.
Women are not only permitted to teach but are encouraged to teach other women. Titus 2: 3-5 speaks of this. No one ever would assume being a wife and mother is easy work. We have so many wise older sisters in the church and yet we also have a lot of young wives and mothers. Get them together. We don’t need more preachers and we don’t need more Sunday school teachers. We need more intergenerational wisdom being passed on.
There are some ancillary issues that we need to work on regarding the roles of the different genders in the church. When Paul is writing about restrictions of women, he is referencing the home/family and the church. So what does that mean for women in the secular world? What about women witnessing to men who aren’t Christians? There are plenty of issues that still need prayerful consideration. Our approach should always be to prayerfully consider what is in the text and if something is unclear, search the Scriptures for clarification. In our sinful state, the Scriptures are not always as clear as we would like. That is why we have a Bible instead of a pamphlet. We should seek clarification from within the text, not outside the text. I am confident that everything we need to know in this life can be gleaned from the Scriptures and that we should never find ourselves “filling in the blanks”. Our task is a difficult one, working through these issues in the Scriptures takes hard work. But to paraphrase Lionel Woods on an unrelated subject…
“Whenever we come to the bible and something is tough, we must find ourselves surrendering to it, or we find ourselves shaping the God of the bible in our own image.”
Amen to that brother!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Interesting quote on homeschooling
I am almost finished with Why We Love The Church and have a lot to say about it, but after that is done there are a couple of other books I am going to work on. One of them is a book by Charles Murray, Real Education. Dr. Murray is best known for his book The Bell Curve which caused a huge stink back in the 90's. Dr. Murray tends to cut through the rhetoric and focus on reality, and the education system in this country could certainly use a lot more reality and a lot less rhetoric. I liked this quote regarding home-schooling:
Home-schooling has open-ended growth potential. To home-school when a parent (usually the mother) must work out a curriculum and teach it to her children without help requires exceptional motivation and effort. But when parents can purchase an excellent curriculum off the shelf, including books, lesson plans, and lectures on DVD, home-schooling suddenly becomes easier. When it is possible to teach that curriculum with the help of classes conducted online, home-schooling gets easier still. When a few dozen other children living within driving distance are being home-schooled, one of the major disadvantages of home-schooling-the social isolation of the home-schooled child-can be neutralized. Home-schooling is getting so much easier, and is evolving so quickly, that it suggests another provocative possibility: School choice might be driven not primarily by vouchers or charter schools, but by the evolution of home-schooling into thousands of small private schools operated through a combination of parental effort, one or two professional staff members, and the exploitation of increasingly sophisticated Internet educational resources.
I am not sure that home schooling is "getting so much easier" but I understand his point and recognize that it is a lot easier than it used to be. I think that his statement above is very prescient, and Dr. Murray is not really a home-school advocate as such. This book is not about homeschooling at all. In fact he is advocating reform in the school system through four points (the subtitle of the book is: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality) These are his points...
"...children have different abilities, half of the children are below average, too many children go to college, and America's future depends on the gifted."
So you can see he is not the typical homeschool advocate but he does recognize that something is wrong and throwing more money at the problem is not going to fix the education system in the same way that throwing more "stimulus" money out there is going to fix the economy.
Conservatives have been fighting the vouchers battle for a long time, but the war might already have moved past that. I think Dr. Murray is right in that while the teachers unions are fighting vouchers, the education reform movement is moving on to homeschooling.
Hmm, moving past a traditional, entrenched institution and moving on to a small, home and community based group. Where else have I heard that?
Home-schooling has open-ended growth potential. To home-school when a parent (usually the mother) must work out a curriculum and teach it to her children without help requires exceptional motivation and effort. But when parents can purchase an excellent curriculum off the shelf, including books, lesson plans, and lectures on DVD, home-schooling suddenly becomes easier. When it is possible to teach that curriculum with the help of classes conducted online, home-schooling gets easier still. When a few dozen other children living within driving distance are being home-schooled, one of the major disadvantages of home-schooling-the social isolation of the home-schooled child-can be neutralized. Home-schooling is getting so much easier, and is evolving so quickly, that it suggests another provocative possibility: School choice might be driven not primarily by vouchers or charter schools, but by the evolution of home-schooling into thousands of small private schools operated through a combination of parental effort, one or two professional staff members, and the exploitation of increasingly sophisticated Internet educational resources.
I am not sure that home schooling is "getting so much easier" but I understand his point and recognize that it is a lot easier than it used to be. I think that his statement above is very prescient, and Dr. Murray is not really a home-school advocate as such. This book is not about homeschooling at all. In fact he is advocating reform in the school system through four points (the subtitle of the book is: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality) These are his points...
"...children have different abilities, half of the children are below average, too many children go to college, and America's future depends on the gifted."
So you can see he is not the typical homeschool advocate but he does recognize that something is wrong and throwing more money at the problem is not going to fix the education system in the same way that throwing more "stimulus" money out there is going to fix the economy.
Conservatives have been fighting the vouchers battle for a long time, but the war might already have moved past that. I think Dr. Murray is right in that while the teachers unions are fighting vouchers, the education reform movement is moving on to homeschooling.
Hmm, moving past a traditional, entrenched institution and moving on to a small, home and community based group. Where else have I heard that?
Saturday, May 23, 2009
What makes teaching “good” teaching?
Every “church” teaches. Whether it is a Reformed congregation working through the Westminster Confession or a prosperity preacher teaching about why God wants you to be rich or a liberal church teaching that God’s love means anything goes, all churches teach something. The question is, what separates “good” teaching from “bad” teaching.
* It is not as simple as what I like is good teaching, what I don’t is bad
* It is not merely that the more Reformed the teaching, the better it is
* It is not the style or the ability of the one doing the teaching
* It is not how useful the teaching is to my daily life
It is much deeper than any of that and it all comes down to one thing, one Reformational principle: Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory.
Teaching is integral to the Christian life. Do a word search for “teach” or “taught” or “instruct” in the New Testament and you will see how often we see Christ and the apostles teaching. Teaching was integral to the life of the church from the earliest times, “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). They taught in the temple, in houses, in schools, in the open air, in synagogues. Being able to teach is a desirable quality in an elder (1 Tim 3:2). We teach one another (Rom 15:14) and we teach our children (Eph 6:4). Clearly though, not all teaching is profitable teaching.
Much of what passes for “teaching” is shallow, moralistic teaching that dumbs the Gospel down into something that makes us better, nicer people. In place of the stark sinfulness of man and the inestimable holiness of God, we get cheesy lessons on how to be a better (fill in the blank). Being a better husband/wife/friend/whatever is fine and dandy, but if we don’t know why we should do what we should do we inevitably will do what we do to glorify ourselves rather than God.
Whether at the level of children or with adults, a lot of teaching centers around what we should do or how we should act without first answering the question of why. It is easy for teaching to become man-centered or moralistic or meaningless and the only sure antidote to that is to strive to make sure that all teaching is done to and for the glory of God. As we talked about in a recent Bible study, we are not to be holy as He is holy, to be righteous in order to save ourselves or glorify our selves but because as His elect sheep when we are holy or righteous even in our flawed way we bring glory to Him.
Even Reformed teaching, which I love (except the infant baptism and ecclesiastical traditions), can fall into the trap of being less about Soli Deo Gloria and more about intellectual triumphalism. A recent episode of the White Horse Inn had a guy on who was railing against “bad preaching” and his definition was clearly based on intellectual snobbery. It is possible, and perhaps quite easy, to be perfectly orthodox and Reformed in your teaching and still have it be “bad” teaching.
There is another aspect of “good” teaching. Earnest teaching that sincerely seeks to glorify God but does so without the truth is not God honoring. You can be sincere and earnest as the day is long, but if you are sincerely and earnestly wrong that doesn’t bring glory to God. There is Biblical precedent for this in Acts 18:
Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. (Acts 18: 24-28)
Apollos was a great guy by all accounts, a skillful teacher, a sincere believer, full of enthusiasm but he was missing some key elements of the truth. Priscilla and Aquila didn’t feel the need to go long to get along, they took him aside and explained where he was in error. Listen, none of us are born (or born-again!) with an even semi-clear understanding of the Gospel. That is not en excuse to remain ignorant of the things of God. We all need to be open to correction and instruction and to constantly seek God in His Word.
Somehow we have gotten into a mindset that if someone is trying really hard and is a nice person, they ought not be corrected if they are in error. Nothing could be further from the truth! It is not being a good brother in Christ to let someone linger in error (Of course it is not Biblical to beat someone over the head and prove them wrong to make yourself feel superior) Great teaching is true and faithful to the Scriptures, it is accurate and the greatest teachers seek to constantly test what they say against the Word and welcome discussion and disagreement. I would much rather have a spirited, thoughtful disagreement among brothers than a bunch of people nodding their heads in mute agreement.
What qualifies as solid or good teaching in my reckoning is pretty broad but is always based on teaching from the Scriptures. Systematic and Biblical theology are great, but only so far as they aid our understanding of God’s Word. Similarly, teaching that focuses on application is great as long as it flows from studying the Word instead of moralism. When we let our teaching stray from the Word into hypothesis and conjecture, we cease to glorify God by proclaiming His Word and all we do should be done to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31).
What then is the standard by which we measure one man’s teaching to be “solid” teaching and another man to fall short? Teaching that is faithful to the Word and brings glory to God as its purpose and goal is good teaching. Anything else is not.
* It is not as simple as what I like is good teaching, what I don’t is bad
* It is not merely that the more Reformed the teaching, the better it is
* It is not the style or the ability of the one doing the teaching
* It is not how useful the teaching is to my daily life
It is much deeper than any of that and it all comes down to one thing, one Reformational principle: Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory.
Teaching is integral to the Christian life. Do a word search for “teach” or “taught” or “instruct” in the New Testament and you will see how often we see Christ and the apostles teaching. Teaching was integral to the life of the church from the earliest times, “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). They taught in the temple, in houses, in schools, in the open air, in synagogues. Being able to teach is a desirable quality in an elder (1 Tim 3:2). We teach one another (Rom 15:14) and we teach our children (Eph 6:4). Clearly though, not all teaching is profitable teaching.
Much of what passes for “teaching” is shallow, moralistic teaching that dumbs the Gospel down into something that makes us better, nicer people. In place of the stark sinfulness of man and the inestimable holiness of God, we get cheesy lessons on how to be a better (fill in the blank). Being a better husband/wife/friend/whatever is fine and dandy, but if we don’t know why we should do what we should do we inevitably will do what we do to glorify ourselves rather than God.
Whether at the level of children or with adults, a lot of teaching centers around what we should do or how we should act without first answering the question of why. It is easy for teaching to become man-centered or moralistic or meaningless and the only sure antidote to that is to strive to make sure that all teaching is done to and for the glory of God. As we talked about in a recent Bible study, we are not to be holy as He is holy, to be righteous in order to save ourselves or glorify our selves but because as His elect sheep when we are holy or righteous even in our flawed way we bring glory to Him.
Even Reformed teaching, which I love (except the infant baptism and ecclesiastical traditions), can fall into the trap of being less about Soli Deo Gloria and more about intellectual triumphalism. A recent episode of the White Horse Inn had a guy on who was railing against “bad preaching” and his definition was clearly based on intellectual snobbery. It is possible, and perhaps quite easy, to be perfectly orthodox and Reformed in your teaching and still have it be “bad” teaching.
There is another aspect of “good” teaching. Earnest teaching that sincerely seeks to glorify God but does so without the truth is not God honoring. You can be sincere and earnest as the day is long, but if you are sincerely and earnestly wrong that doesn’t bring glory to God. There is Biblical precedent for this in Acts 18:
Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. (Acts 18: 24-28)
Apollos was a great guy by all accounts, a skillful teacher, a sincere believer, full of enthusiasm but he was missing some key elements of the truth. Priscilla and Aquila didn’t feel the need to go long to get along, they took him aside and explained where he was in error. Listen, none of us are born (or born-again!) with an even semi-clear understanding of the Gospel. That is not en excuse to remain ignorant of the things of God. We all need to be open to correction and instruction and to constantly seek God in His Word.
Somehow we have gotten into a mindset that if someone is trying really hard and is a nice person, they ought not be corrected if they are in error. Nothing could be further from the truth! It is not being a good brother in Christ to let someone linger in error (Of course it is not Biblical to beat someone over the head and prove them wrong to make yourself feel superior) Great teaching is true and faithful to the Scriptures, it is accurate and the greatest teachers seek to constantly test what they say against the Word and welcome discussion and disagreement. I would much rather have a spirited, thoughtful disagreement among brothers than a bunch of people nodding their heads in mute agreement.
What qualifies as solid or good teaching in my reckoning is pretty broad but is always based on teaching from the Scriptures. Systematic and Biblical theology are great, but only so far as they aid our understanding of God’s Word. Similarly, teaching that focuses on application is great as long as it flows from studying the Word instead of moralism. When we let our teaching stray from the Word into hypothesis and conjecture, we cease to glorify God by proclaiming His Word and all we do should be done to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31).
What then is the standard by which we measure one man’s teaching to be “solid” teaching and another man to fall short? Teaching that is faithful to the Word and brings glory to God as its purpose and goal is good teaching. Anything else is not.
Friday, May 08, 2009
The Problem with Public Schooling: More of the same
By almost any measure, the public school system is failing. So what is the logical response to the failure of the system of government mandated and funded schooling?More of the same!
When you examine the education proposals of the new administration, one thing jumps out: More. More funding. More money for universal preschool. More money for college. More teachers (and consequently more union members and dollars). More and more and more. Many education “experts” have been calling for an extended school day and school year for decades. That is like trying to fix our infrastructure problems by having people spend more time at the DMV.
Is that really what we need? Do we need to trap kids for more time in a failed system? Johnny, the system is failing you now in the enormous amount of time you spend there. So let’s get you to school earlier, keep you later and extend the school year. If nine months of ineffective education are good, think how incredibly wasteful twelve months of the same would be! Why in the world would we think that more of the same would produce improved results? Without a fundamental change to the way public schooling is done, or doing away with it altogether, why would we expect different results? You don’t fix something that is broken that way. If a tractor trailer breaks down on the side of the highway because the engine blew up, putting a heavier load in the trailer and painting the cab is not going to make it run again.
Based on what the administration is proposing, not only are we looking at pumping an enormous amount of money into the system, nothing is being done that will actually improve that same system. So we should expect the same poor quality results but pay more for them (kind of like the car companies). Anything that might actually improve the whole system is done away with, especially when it comes to competition. The one thing that would make a huge difference in education (not schooling, education) would be to have real educational choice available to parents. As it stands now, lower income parents have really only two options: public school or homeschool. Private schools, religious and secular, are too expensive. Charter schools are being done away with. Where you live dictates the relative quality of the school your kids attend, so better school districts are more desirable which means that homes in that district are more expensive and thus become off limits to lower income families which traps kids from lower income families into disastrous schools. Introducing real competition would help this whole process. Poorly run schools would go away and well run schools would thrive in a free market. Unfortunately for kids, that is an uphill battle and especially so in an environment where teachers unions have gotten a huge boost in influence and power. In almost every decision we make for services, we have choices. You aren’t forced to shop at the Wal-Mart down the road because you are in that Wal-Mart’s “shopping district”. You go shop where you want. Even recipients of government food assistance can pretty much shop where they want. Not parents of school aged kids. This quote from a Wall Street Journal editorial captures the grim reality faced by many lower income parents, many of whom are black and supported Barack Obama…
So, does Mr. Obama care more about criminals than kids? Of course not. He just cares most about not upsetting a hugely important liberal special interest group that helped elect him and other Democrats. The raw political calculation is that poor black parents will forgive him long before the National Education Association does.
The problem is not that we don’t spend enough money or that kids don’t spend enough time in the public schools. The public school system IS the problem and forcing kids to spend more time there isn’t going to help anyone but the teachers unions and the Department of Education.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Love or Truth?
Must we choose?
Can we choose?
It is apparent that some who have rejected the institutional church have not become a more Biblical gathering but have instead become a “Not an Institutional” church body. There is a great danger in being defined by what you are not. We are not this. We are not that. Great, but what are you? So what then is church all about? It is not about dividing ourselves into factions based on where and how we worship, it is not about lording our education over the ignorant sheep (especially since even the most educated of men is no better than a sheep!). Nor is it about being condescending about our rejecting of the institutional church and reveling in ignorance.
What do I advocate? Simplicity in worship. The early church was not fancy. They met in homes because they frankly had nowhere else to meet (but there is nothing inherently correct in meeting in a home or incorrect in meeting in a building). Acts 2:42 tells us what the church was focused on and it was four things: the apostle’s teaching, the fellowship, praying and the breaking of bread. That is pretty simple. They didn’t give these four things passing interest while concentrating on committees or even, dare I say, while doing humanitarian acts of compassion. They were “devoted” to these things (ESV), “continually devoting “ themselves in the NASB, they “continued stedfastly” in the KJV. All of which demonstrates to us that this was not a minor aspect but rather an integral part of the life of the church. The role and life of the church has not changed in 2000 years despite our efforts to complicate it.
As I see it in the Scripture, the church exists to carry out these four functions: teaching one another in the apostles teachings (captured in the Word of God preserved inerrantly for the edification of the church and to convict the elect of their sins when preached). Fellowship among the saints which takes many forms, and in which the form is far less important than the fellowship. Our friend James is coming over to our house tonight, and in that we are in fellowship with the saints. Corporately praying with and for one another, not as a laundry list of aches and pains or other things that are best left to the sovereign mercy of God, but to exhort, lift up, rebuke and comfort one another. The breaking of bread in “love feasts” and in the coming together for the Lord’s Supper. When we add to this list, we risk diluting it. At the risk of causing a stir, is evangelism a function of the church? It certainly is a commandment to believers individually, but is it a role of the church? Think before you answer that one.
These are the four fundamental functions of the church. They are things which rightly cannot/should not be done alone or by the individual believer alone. It is hard to pray together by yourself. You can and should pray personally, but also corporately so that you can lift and be lifted up in prayer, and prayer itself is a vital form of worship. This is the area I struggle in the most. I am not sure what we need to do differently, but I know something needs to change in the prayer life of the church. I think it would certainly help if we knew each other better (see below) and had a more correct view of the sovereignty of God in relation to our prayer life (which can only come through study and teaching).
The apostles teachings are something shared and taught in the church. I don’t see any mandate or any room at all to ignore theology and doctrine in the life of the church. Being saved is not a mandate for being ignorant. Much of what Paul wrote was a reinforcement of doctrines, because evil men will creep in and teach false doctrines. Even in fellowship settings. Look at Jude 1:12-13 where we see the false teachers in te assembly and at the love feasts, pictured in the ESV as hidden reefs, lying under the surface to cause wreckage. False teachers always have and they always will threaten and seek to infiltrate the church, and if the church is not devoted to the apostle’s teachings preserved for us in the Word, they will have no idea when the false teachings are presented by these wolves. The big danger of the emergent church is not only that there are false teachers in their midst but that they have unilaterally surrendered the apostle’s teachings by de-emphasizing theology to such a degree. Certainly it is easy to overemphasize theology, as I have in the past and I still struggle with, and it is a danger that we have knowledge about God instead of a knowledge of God. But our frailties and proclivities should not dissuade us from learning and teaching accompanied with prayer and humility.
I have crabbed a lot about how little we focus on the Lord’s Supper in the (institutional) church. Not only that but just the general breaking of bread with one another is important as well. Think about the New Testament, especially the Gospels, and think how often food and meals are mentioned. It is an enormous part of the life of the church, to sit with one another and eat. Jesus first public miracle was at the wedding feast at Cana where He changed water into wine (John 2: 1-11). The Last Supper (Matt 26: 17-29). The parable of the Wedding Feast (Matt 22:1-14). The wondrous image of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev 19: 6-11). All of the food and wine images of the New Testament. We neglect this to our detriment. I don’t think that a quarterly ceremonial Lord’s Supper observance and a fellowship meal on the fifth Sunday really fulfill the spirit of the “breaking of bread” we see in Acts 2:42.
Fellowship encompasses all three of the above and more. Spending time together other than when mandated to do so by church schedules is an amazing blessing. How many people have you gone to church with for years and never stepped foot in their homes? I have been guilty for too many years of having my “friends” (many of whom were not in any way believers) and my “church family”. I would never take my friends to church and I really had little desire to hang out with the church family except when I was supposed to. I am getting better at this, but I still have a long way to go. The better I get to know someone, the more we share of our lives, the easier it is to pray meaningfully for and with them.
That brings us full circle to simplicity in worship and simplicity in the church. Simplicity and truth in concert. Worship in Spirit and Truth (John 4: 23-24). I yearn for a living, vibrant church life where we love one another because we know one another. A church life where we gather for teaching, for worship, for prayer, for fellowship. A simple church where simple sinners worship their infinitely just and holy God in the manner prescribed by Him in His Word. It is time to shed those things that complicate the church: budgets and salaries, dissension over schedules and silly stuff, committees and programs. We are called as Christians to evangelize a lost world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and as the church to assemble with the saints who have been called. The more stuff we try to pile on that, the more we lose sight of the purpose of the church. Yet we may not, we cannot sacrifice truth for the sake of simplicity in the church.
Can we fulfill the noble mandate given us while meeting in a building?
YES!
Must we meet in a building with an orderly, regulated worship service?
Certainly NOT!
Must we choose between loving one another and knowing more of our Creator?
Unequivocally NO!
Can we choose?
It is apparent that some who have rejected the institutional church have not become a more Biblical gathering but have instead become a “Not an Institutional” church body. There is a great danger in being defined by what you are not. We are not this. We are not that. Great, but what are you? So what then is church all about? It is not about dividing ourselves into factions based on where and how we worship, it is not about lording our education over the ignorant sheep (especially since even the most educated of men is no better than a sheep!). Nor is it about being condescending about our rejecting of the institutional church and reveling in ignorance.
What do I advocate? Simplicity in worship. The early church was not fancy. They met in homes because they frankly had nowhere else to meet (but there is nothing inherently correct in meeting in a home or incorrect in meeting in a building). Acts 2:42 tells us what the church was focused on and it was four things: the apostle’s teaching, the fellowship, praying and the breaking of bread. That is pretty simple. They didn’t give these four things passing interest while concentrating on committees or even, dare I say, while doing humanitarian acts of compassion. They were “devoted” to these things (ESV), “continually devoting “ themselves in the NASB, they “continued stedfastly” in the KJV. All of which demonstrates to us that this was not a minor aspect but rather an integral part of the life of the church. The role and life of the church has not changed in 2000 years despite our efforts to complicate it.
As I see it in the Scripture, the church exists to carry out these four functions: teaching one another in the apostles teachings (captured in the Word of God preserved inerrantly for the edification of the church and to convict the elect of their sins when preached). Fellowship among the saints which takes many forms, and in which the form is far less important than the fellowship. Our friend James is coming over to our house tonight, and in that we are in fellowship with the saints. Corporately praying with and for one another, not as a laundry list of aches and pains or other things that are best left to the sovereign mercy of God, but to exhort, lift up, rebuke and comfort one another. The breaking of bread in “love feasts” and in the coming together for the Lord’s Supper. When we add to this list, we risk diluting it. At the risk of causing a stir, is evangelism a function of the church? It certainly is a commandment to believers individually, but is it a role of the church? Think before you answer that one.
These are the four fundamental functions of the church. They are things which rightly cannot/should not be done alone or by the individual believer alone. It is hard to pray together by yourself. You can and should pray personally, but also corporately so that you can lift and be lifted up in prayer, and prayer itself is a vital form of worship. This is the area I struggle in the most. I am not sure what we need to do differently, but I know something needs to change in the prayer life of the church. I think it would certainly help if we knew each other better (see below) and had a more correct view of the sovereignty of God in relation to our prayer life (which can only come through study and teaching).
The apostles teachings are something shared and taught in the church. I don’t see any mandate or any room at all to ignore theology and doctrine in the life of the church. Being saved is not a mandate for being ignorant. Much of what Paul wrote was a reinforcement of doctrines, because evil men will creep in and teach false doctrines. Even in fellowship settings. Look at Jude 1:12-13 where we see the false teachers in te assembly and at the love feasts, pictured in the ESV as hidden reefs, lying under the surface to cause wreckage. False teachers always have and they always will threaten and seek to infiltrate the church, and if the church is not devoted to the apostle’s teachings preserved for us in the Word, they will have no idea when the false teachings are presented by these wolves. The big danger of the emergent church is not only that there are false teachers in their midst but that they have unilaterally surrendered the apostle’s teachings by de-emphasizing theology to such a degree. Certainly it is easy to overemphasize theology, as I have in the past and I still struggle with, and it is a danger that we have knowledge about God instead of a knowledge of God. But our frailties and proclivities should not dissuade us from learning and teaching accompanied with prayer and humility.
I have crabbed a lot about how little we focus on the Lord’s Supper in the (institutional) church. Not only that but just the general breaking of bread with one another is important as well. Think about the New Testament, especially the Gospels, and think how often food and meals are mentioned. It is an enormous part of the life of the church, to sit with one another and eat. Jesus first public miracle was at the wedding feast at Cana where He changed water into wine (John 2: 1-11). The Last Supper (Matt 26: 17-29). The parable of the Wedding Feast (Matt 22:1-14). The wondrous image of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev 19: 6-11). All of the food and wine images of the New Testament. We neglect this to our detriment. I don’t think that a quarterly ceremonial Lord’s Supper observance and a fellowship meal on the fifth Sunday really fulfill the spirit of the “breaking of bread” we see in Acts 2:42.
Fellowship encompasses all three of the above and more. Spending time together other than when mandated to do so by church schedules is an amazing blessing. How many people have you gone to church with for years and never stepped foot in their homes? I have been guilty for too many years of having my “friends” (many of whom were not in any way believers) and my “church family”. I would never take my friends to church and I really had little desire to hang out with the church family except when I was supposed to. I am getting better at this, but I still have a long way to go. The better I get to know someone, the more we share of our lives, the easier it is to pray meaningfully for and with them.
That brings us full circle to simplicity in worship and simplicity in the church. Simplicity and truth in concert. Worship in Spirit and Truth (John 4: 23-24). I yearn for a living, vibrant church life where we love one another because we know one another. A church life where we gather for teaching, for worship, for prayer, for fellowship. A simple church where simple sinners worship their infinitely just and holy God in the manner prescribed by Him in His Word. It is time to shed those things that complicate the church: budgets and salaries, dissension over schedules and silly stuff, committees and programs. We are called as Christians to evangelize a lost world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and as the church to assemble with the saints who have been called. The more stuff we try to pile on that, the more we lose sight of the purpose of the church. Yet we may not, we cannot sacrifice truth for the sake of simplicity in the church.
Can we fulfill the noble mandate given us while meeting in a building?
YES!
Must we meet in a building with an orderly, regulated worship service?
Certainly NOT!
Must we choose between loving one another and knowing more of our Creator?
Unequivocally NO!
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