Historically, Christians have rightly understood their obligation to be leaders in education, fulfilling the cultural mandate of Genesis while being faithful to the Great Commission, teaching people how they might conform to the image of Christ in all areas of their life. The church fathers were concerned with Christians remaining in pagan schools during the church’s infancy and worked over centuries to provide God fearing institutions dedicated to forming human souls. An early example of this can be seen in John Chrysostom’s concern with parents sending their children to public schools (these taught the liberal arts and three of the sciences but did not teach Christ); he believed that if parents or congregations could not find teachers among them to educate their children, they should send them to the monasteries,
…we ought not to send children to schools where they will learn vice before they learn science, and where in acquiring learning of relatively small value, they will lose what is far more precious, their integrity of soul…. Are we then to give up literature? you will exclaim. I do not say that; but I do say that we must not kill souls.
When the foundations of a building are sapped we should seek rather for architects to reconstruct the whole edifice, than for artists to adorn the walls…. In fact, the choice lies between two alternatives; a liberal education which you may get by sending your children to the public schools, or the salvation of their souls which you secure by sending them to the monks. Which is to gain the day, science or the soul? If you can unite both advantages, do so by all means; but if not, choose the more precious.”[1]
Over centuries, faithful Christians constructed the educational edifice of which Chrysostom spoke, though many today are again sending their children to be discipled in godless institutions. Understanding the primary responsibility of parents, education is a ministry of the church, both as an institutional responsibility (think Great Commission) and a personal responsibility (think progressive sanctification).
Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission
The church’s educational commission is given in the cultural mandate and in the Great Commission. In these commands, the body of Christ is called to participate in God’s mission to make all things new, this is not limited to Sunday School and Wednesday night potlucks. Regarding the mission of God’s people from Genesis to consummation, theologian John Frame writes,
People sometimes argue whether the Great Commission or the cultural mandate is more fundamental. I believe they are essentially the same. The Great Commission is the application of the cultural mandate to a fallen human race. As I said, the cultural mandate does not anticipate the fall. But what happens after the fall? People still try to subdue the earth. In Genesis 4 we find the development of civilization among the descendants of wicked Cain. But they are not filling and subduing the earth to God’s glory. So, the result is wars, pollution, sickness, and so on. If human beings are to fulfill the cultural mandate, their hearts must be subdued to God before the earth can be subdued to them. That’s what the Great Commission does. It brings about a transformation of people, so that they can go and fill the earth, subduing it to the glory of God.[2]
The mission of God still involves the development of a culture which glorifies Him through conformity to His will. However, being distorted images of God due to sin, humans cannot fulfill the cultural mandate apart from a work of grace, they must have the image of God restored in them so that they might participate in the building of God’s kingdom. This means that to fulfill the cultural mandate after the fall, the believer must continue to mortify his own sin, combat the sin of others (human and demonic), and strive to subdue nature. It is only through the grace of God and the power of the Spirit that man will be able to make progress in these tasks as he looks forward to Christ’s return and consummation of all things.
Education is often neglected in one’s view of sanctification. Anthony Hoekema defines sanctification as, “…that gracious operation of the Holy Spirit, involving our responsible participation, by which He delivers us as justified sinners from the pollution of sin, renews our entire nature according to the image of God and enables us to live lives that are pleasing to Him.”[3] If sin has corrupted all aspects of man – his moral, rational, and physical nature – one ought to see the Christian being delivered in some ways from the pollution of sin in these areas as well. The man who knows Christ, knows the Truth and he ought to grow wiser from it. The man who has the Spirit, bears fruit and he ought to be more virtuous from it. Jesus is the ultimate example of the image of God, Jesus is the ideal man. This is why the progressive process of sanctification is described as growing in Christlikeness. The Christian pursuit from regeneration to glorification is to become more like the perfect man, the ideal image of God. It is a restorative process to become as man ought to have been, to become more fully human. As the late-antique theologian Boethius pointedly states, “… those who are blessed are rightly called gods…And so it happens that a man who abandons virtue, since he can’t become godlike, turns into a beast.”[4] Boethius portrays unbelievers as the once glorious oarsmen of Ulysses, whom having been deceived by Circe, were turned into pigs eating acorns in the dirt without a semblance of the men they once were. The Christian having been saved from his beastliness ought to pursue blessedness (the unity of truth, goodness, and beauty in their purest form).
Sanctification includes the renewing of the mind, the heart, and use of the body; the teacher rightly disciples his students when the curriculum addresses all of these areas. The Christian is to take the Great Commission seriously, he is to mortify the sin in his life in order to become more like Christ, share the gospel with unbelievers, and cultivate within his home and his community a culture which reigns in accordance with the will of God.
The Teacher’s Role in the Cultural Mandate
Teachers have held an important role in the church since its foundation. As the gospel spread, teachers of the church instructed new believers in the faith and defended the faith against pagan philosophy in and outside of the church. Whether it had been against the Stoics and Epicureans or the Gnostics, the church needed to be able to repudiate the claims of false teachers and instruct believers in orthodoxy. Various traditions have historically recognized “teacher” or “doctor of the church” to be a distinct church office within their ecclesiastical structure.[5] Whether one believes that the role of “teacher” is its own separate and authoritative office or a unique gifting given to elders and/or laity, I simply want to point out the emphasis of the educational ministry and the important role lay teachers may play in the church as leaders seek to equip the saints for the work of ministry, building up the body of Christ, so that it is not carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, or craftiness in deceitful schemes (Ephesians 4:11-14).[6]
Because the world will seek to manipulate Christians in every way contrary to the revelation of God’s will, the teacher ought to provide a holistic education for citizens of the kingdom. As the Genevan Book of Church Order (1556) demonstrates, the Reformed tradition upheld the importance of a humane education for those in their community of faith. In describing the ministry of teachers in the church, the Genevans named the ministry the “Order of Schools” whose primary goal is the exposition of God’s Word, which is contained in the Old and New Testaments,
But because men cannot so well profit in that knowledge, except they be first instructed in the tongues and human sciences (for now God works not commonly by miracles), it is necessary that seed be sown for the time to come, to the intent that the church be not left barren and wasted to our posterity; and that schools also be erected, and colleges maintained, with just and sufficient stipends, wherein youth may be trained in the knowledge and fear of God, that in their ripe age they may prove worthy members of our Lord Jesus Christ, whether it be to rule in civil policy, or to serve in the spiritual ministry, or else to live in godly reverence and subjection.[7]
Here, the English congregation at Geneva explains that the teaching ministry of the church ought to include languages and the human sciences in order to reach out to those who will one day have vocations outside of formal ministry. In fact, it is necessary for such seeds to be sown so that the church not be left barren and wasted in the future.
It is important to note that such an education is for all children because all are image-bearers. The reality is that in a K-12 setting- whether a school leans toward an evangelistic model or a discipleship model- it is not likely, nor can it be known that all children in the class are saved yet. However, all children are made in the image of God and are subject to the Ruler of the universe. Therefore, all lessons should be conducted the same no matter the makeup of the class- under the authority of Christ, with a concern for repentance, and faith in the gospel. As Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans suggest, if the whole class is provided with instruction that is intended to strengthen the believing student, even the nonbelieving student benefits from the opportunity to be drawn closer to Christ,
The individual metaphysical benefit of this is eternal. The practical benefit of learning to think and live “Christianly” is that every person, regardless of theological conviction, profits by living in a society characterized by the same biblical norms- i.e., a truly civilized society…Or as Augustine of Hippo would have put it, we seek to lead citizens of earth toward citizenship in heaven, while instilling in them the desire to introduce the value of the heavenly kingdom into the kingdom they presently inhabit. In short, we aim to shape individuals who are both heavenly minded and capable of doing great earthly good.[8]
Because the proposed philosophy and practice of education is biblically informed, it is able to be used with any human being. The Body of Christ has the greatest ability and responsibility to form image-bearers for the sake of God’s kingdom on earth and in heaven.
Conclusion: Education in the Classical Christian Tradition
An education meant for human beings must conform to reality. All things have been created and designed with an intended purpose, a function, or a goal. When things work or live according to their designed purpose, they flourish, and when they do not, they become distorted images of what they ought to be. A true education is a Christian education, for it acknowledges that God has made all things, that reality is objective, and that man is a created image-bearer with the capacity to understand and responsibility to conform to his Creator’s will. Without understanding the nature of man and his place in the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, education fails to teach humanely. Though curricula and practices may have differing emphases, the body of Christ must seek to do the work of kingdom building with an understanding that a true education is the cultivation of biblical wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty, so that, the image of God might be restored in the student, and so that, in Christ they are better able to know, glorify, and enjoy God forever. May such formation take place in the body of Christ, and may we see man fulfilling his purpose, experiencing and participating in God’s love.
Notes:
[1] Patrick J. McCormick, History of Education: A Survey of the Development of Educational Theory and Practice in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Times (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic Education Press, 1915), 78.
[2] John M. Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 250–251.
[3] Anthony A. Hoekema, “The Reformed Perspective” Five Views on Sanctification. (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI 1987), 61.
[4] Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 119.
[5] See: Genevan Book of Church Order (1556), Scottish Second Book of Discipline (1578), The Church Order of the Synod of Dort (1619), Westminster Directory of Church Government (1645).
[6] For an interesting/more detailed take on the role of the office of teacher in Scripture and the early church, see John Owens’ “Of the Office of Teacher in the Church” in True Nature of a Gospel Church and its Government, Ch. 6.
[7] The Genevan Book of Order: The Form of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments, Etc., Used in the English Congregation at Geneva, 1556 (Presbyterian Heritage Publications: Dallas, TX 1993).
[8] Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans, Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006), 18.
The Classical Christian Tradition 