The Beautiful and the Grotesque

How do we value beauty? What does our evaluation of beauty tell us about nature of reality? And can we find beauty in the seemingly grotesque? The evaluation of beauty led Charles Dickens to eviscerate what was then a new art movement, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The conventions of what beauty constituted had stagnated into rote forms, so said the small band of English artists who looked back on the early Renaissance masters — figures such as Leonardo, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo — as their inspiration. The humanistic impulse of the Pre-Raphaelites matched that of the early Renaissance painters, meaning there was a penchant for emotional expressionism and an attention to realistic detail. For Dickens, the break from accepted norms was too much to bear, something he calls “the lowest depths of what is mean, odious, repulsive, and revolting” (Charles Dickens, “Old Lamps for New Ones,” Household Words 12 (1850), 12).

Consider how Dickens describes one particular painting:

“You behold the interior of a carpenter’s shop. In the foreground of that carpenter’s shop is a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown, who appears to have received a poke in the hand, from the stick of another boy with whom he has been playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for the contemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness, that (supposing it were possible for any human creature to exist for a moment with that dislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest ginshop in England. Two almost naked carpenters, master and journeyman, worthy companions of this agreeable female, are working at their trade; a boy, with some small flavor of humanity in him, is entering with a vessel of water; and nobody is paying any attention to a snuffy old woman who seems to have mistaken that shop for the tobacconist’s next door, and to be hopelessly waiting at the counter to be served with half an ounce of her favourite mixture. Wherever it is possible to express ugliness of feature, limb, or attitude, you have it expressed. Such men as the carpenters might be undressed in any hospital where dirty drunkards, in a high state of varicose veins, are received. Their very toes have walked out of Saint Giles’s.”

Charles Dickens, “Old Lamps for New Ones,” Household Words 12 (1850), 12-13

Now Dickens is known for his censure of industrial society, searching through the gritty streets of London for stories of genuine humanity. He can tend to exaggerate certain details and is given to biting sarcasm. So what shall we make of this particular painting he highlights for contempt? Christ in the House of His Parents by John Everett Millais was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850, where Dickens first set eyes on the painting. In fact, it was Dickens’s scathing review that put the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood on the map. Queen Victoria herself, in response to Dickens, requested a private viewing of the painting at Buckingham Palace. I can’t help but be reminded of Pope’s lines in “An Essay on Criticism:”

“But you who seek to give and merit fame,

And justly bear a critic’s noble name,

Be sure your self and your own reach to know,

How far your genius, taste, and learning go;

Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,

And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.”

Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”

The Millais, looked at afresh, has many qualities worthy of our consideration. Perhaps Dickens was too hasty in his judgment. (In fact time has been on the side of Millais.) The Christ figure, central in the painting, is garbed in all white. He holds up a hand that has been pierced. Why know not by what, but with the many sharp object and fragments of wood around the shop, one can only imagine cuts and nicks occur frequently in this space. Mary kneels down to kiss Jesus on the cheek, but it is hard to know whether the mother is comforting the child or the child comforting the mother, such is the ambiguous arrangement of their faces. The four figures encircling the scene of mother and child are all in some state of bowing. True, they are all bent over their work, but note how their eye lines all focus on the Christ child. The scene is unified by the earthy tones of the wood throughout the shop. The work bench, the door frame, and the lumber set aside is all rough. The bare feet of all the figures brush up against the wood shavings from the carpenter planing the wood upon his bench.

There is a rustic beauty in this scene. It is not the stylized beauty of aristocratic portraiture. Instead, we have a view into the domestic life of a carpentry shop. The real beauty comes in part from the masterful realism of Millais, but also in part from the theological insight Millais provides. Beginning with the cut on Jesus’ hand, we are reminded that this child’s journey will lead to pierced hands and feet. That same journey will see him bear the rough wood of the cross to the hill called Golgotha, the same kind of wood scattered around this carpentry shop. The wood and nails in the carpentry shop foretell the crucifixion of Christ. Outside the door of the shop, one sees two more theological reflections. One item is the rose bush beginning to bloom, which anticipates the crown of thorns. The other is pasture full of sheep, a reminder of the lamb who was slain.

Millais has provided a theological paradigm that enables us to consider the grotesque as something beautiful. The cross of wood is the epitome of the grotesque, being a torture device. Today we wear beautiful crosses around our necks. But this painting reminds us that there is pain, suffering and sadness associated with the cross. We would not be inclined to embrace a heavy beam of rough wood whose splinters would get under our skin. And yet that is exactly the call, to embrace the cross and follow him. A profound kind of beauty is found in the grotesque as we embrace that which the means of our salvation.

Cruciform Christianity

Western Christianity, particularly in its North American iteration, has at times tended toward the triumphalistic. We live in light of the resurrection. We anticipate our future glory. We emphasize the “already” of God’s heavenly kingdom more than the “not yet.” This creates a framework for our perspectives on economics, politics and culture. I am mindful, though, of the centrality of the cross and the alternative perspective this brings.

Paul embraced the cross wholeheartedly. He writes to the Galatians, “far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). Is Paul triumphalistic? Yes. But his boasting centers on the cross, which gives a very different kind of framework for viewing the world. How much would our perspectives on economics, politics and culture change if we were to view the world as dead to us and us dead to the world? Morbid, yes. And yet there is a beauty, profound and invigoration, that opens to us through this perspective.

Despite generations of dispute over the nature of the atonement, Evangelicals of the past few centuries have largely agreed that the cross is central to our Christian faith. David Bebbington in his work Evangelicalism in Modern Britain spells out the lines of dispute and debate:

Learn more about Christian worldview training in the article Educating for a Christian Worldview in a Secular Age

“The Evangelical ranks were riven in the eighteenth century by controversy between Methodists, who were Arminians, and most others, who were Calvinists. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, this debate was dying down. Most Evangelicals were content to adopt a ‘moderate Calvinism’ that in terms of practical pulpit instruction differed only slightly from the Methodist version of Arminianism.”

David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 16.

I think this assessment of British Evangelicalism holds true broadly for North America as well, inasmuch as we have seen the rise of reformed Baptists and the like over the past few decades. What I find interesting about this historical perspective is that the cross itself is the point of commonality in different theological systems. It is where we come together in our Christian faith. By embracing the cross we draw closer together to one another.

Much of the dispute and debate of our current moment in the West has little to do with theology as we see the pull of politics sweeping into matters of faith. It could be that in a post-Christian society, politics becomes the new religion, which means that we must be ever vigilant to keep the realms of politics and faith separate. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Here is where I think embracing the cross offers a solution to the hostile divide we have experienced in society. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). How much impact could we have on society if this were our fundamental orientation? In the face of identity politics, we become the people who lay down our identity to embrace the cross and follow Jesus. For Christ to be our identity, though, is not an easy road. We are reminded of the raw lumber, full of splinters, that must be carried daily.

The Cross and the Good Life

Embracing the cross implies the loss of our lives. But the deeper truth – what we might call the “deeper magic” in the vein of Narnia – is that embracing the cross leads to a life of flourishing. Last year I reviewed Jonathan Pennington’s book Jesus the Great Philosopher in which he compares Christian philosophy to alternative philosophical traditions, including Stoicism. I admit that Stoicism has its attractions. Yet all the attractions of Stoicism have their analogue in Christianity. In addition, Christianity answers the problem of sin through the cross of Christ. The Stoic works to have a dignified death, whereas the Christian dies to self to have a right relationship with God. On the difference between Stoicism and Christianity, Pennington writes:

“But I believe there is a philosophy of the emotional life that is more comprehensive and effective than even the best of Stoicism – the Christian philosophy. And beyond practicality, the Christian philosophy also has the distinct advantage of being true – rooted in the historical and theological reality of the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. It is a philosophy for the whole of life rooted in a metaphysic more comprehensive than Stoicism.”

Jonathan Pennington, Jesus the Great Philosopher, 122-123.

Emotions are a significant part of life. Pennington’s claim is that whereas Stoicism promotes detachment from emotions, Christianity views emotions as controllable. His view is that Christianity as a life philosophy “recommends a measured and intentional detachment from the world and its circumstances for the sake of living a tranquil life” (114). To put it another way, our emotions are plugged into a higher reality and in this framework emotions are good and valuable. This higher reality is connected to the cross. To embrace the cross is to direct our passions toward something visceral that is both tragic and triumphant at the same time.

One of the mantras of the Stoic philosophy is memento mori. It means “remember that you will die.” The Stoic takes on a mindset that life is short and meaning is derived from fully embracing the present moment. There is real power in this kind of mindset because it snaps into focus what is meaningful from what is trivial. However, a more profound mantra for the Christian comes from Paul: memento mortui. True, this is a bit manufactured from the Vulgate. In Colossians Paul exhorts his audience to “set their minds on things above, not on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2). Then he reminds his congregation that “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3). The Vulgate translates the Greek (ἀπεθάνετε γὰρ) with mortui enim estis, both meaning “for you have died.” As Christians, our philosophy is not based on a view of our own future death, but a remembrance of our death with Christ on the cross followed by our new life in Christ in the resurrection. Thus, our mantra can truly be memento mortui, “remember you have died.” Being hidden in Christ takes us to Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” When we embrace the cross of Christ, making it our own, we follow in the footsteps of Christ in the ways that Paul advises the churches under his care.

The Beauty of the Cross

There are many ways in which the cross, a tool of torture, is beautiful to those who embrace it. To begin with, the cross is the place where our atonement was accomplished. Repeatedly Jesus told his disciples that he would be delivered up, killed and then rise again in three days (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33 and parallels). His life and teachings were crucially oriented toward this objective, to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins. There is something beautiful in the act of sacrifice, especially as the crucifixion of Christ is the most profound expression of God’s love for us.

I find in the cross another aspect of beauty, which is intermingled with the grotesque: the mortification of the flesh. We are called as followers of Christ to “put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13) such as immorality, evil desires, covetousness, etc. (Col. 3:5). The cross is emblematic of this, with Christ laying down his life and inviting us to follow him in this manner. If we are to be his disciples, we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him (Matt. 16:24). There is something freeing in this radical discipleship. We confront the worst parts of ourselves and in so doing we see ourselves transformed into the image of Christ.

Read more about discipleship in the article, Christ Our Habitation.

Finally, the beauty of the cross is found in they way the cross serves as a beacon to all believers. In many, and perhaps most, of our churches, there is a cross raised up usually at a focal point such as the altar. The act of entering church moves us closer to the cross. I am reminded of the hymn Lift High the Cross, which speaks about how the Lord, “once lifted on the glorious Tree, As Thou hast promised, draw men unto Thee.” The cross becomes the gathering point for believers. When we embrace the cross, we share in an ingathering of the saved, in the knowledge that this splintered wood is where our sins were forgiven.

In a sense, Dickens was correct to comment upon the grotesque in Millais’s painting of the boy Jesus in carpenter’s workshop. Yet, beauty is often intermingled with the grotesque. The Millais shows us this dichotomy and in this way serves as an apt meditation on the very tactile nature of what it means for Jesus to suffer on the cross for our sins as well as for us to bear our cross daily. My hope is that during this Eastertide, we may have a renewed sense of how our embrace of the cross places us at the intersection of the grotesque and the beautiful.

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Consider the painting Marble Champion. This 1939 piece features three children, one girl and two boys. It is painted in such a way that one only sees the children and the marbles. There is no physical context given. The viewer is drawn into a world solely inhabited by children at play. The faces of the children tell a story of triumph and indignation as the red-haired girl seems about to win to the dismay of the black-haired boy. The blond-haired boy expectantly awaits the final throw. Imagine how such a idyllic scene warmed the hearts of Americans in the midst of the Great Depression and on the cusp of war in Europe.

Childhood has not always been idyllic and has undergone transformation over the centuries. Among one of the greatest achievements over the last century was the dramatic increase in the survival rate of children. As recently as 1950, the global youth mortality rate was as high as 27%, meaning that only three of every four children could be expected to live to 15 years of age and beyond. In 2020 the World Health Organization reports global youth mortality at 3.7%. Keeping children alive has been one of the significant factors in growing the world population, which has not been a bad thing. With a greater population, we have seen the rise in new technologies, an expansion of available food, and an actual diminution of deaths by warfare.

One of the great landmarks in the history of childhood was a fresh perspective on children as persons that emerged during the Renaissance era. In this article I intend to explore the ways in which childhood, or the perception of childhood, changed during the Renaissance with a view of understanding better what it means to view children as whole persons.

Renaissance Childhood

The transformation of society from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance has been variously understood. In many respects, we can see a tremendous amount of continuity between the ancient world, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance era. However, certain landmarks differentiate the old world from the new. The fall of Constantinople, for instance, ushered in a new era of learning in the West, as Byzantine scholars fled military conquests of the Ottomans. These scholars brought with them manuscripts of ancient authors that were either unknown or forgotten in the West. The Italian Renaissance, centered in Florence, brought a cultural renewal based on a flourishing of interest in classical texts.

Renaissance humanism during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries applied the great works and artifacts of Greece and Rome to reconsider the social institutions of the day. This focus on what we might call the humanities contributed to an emphasis on virtue ethics and paideia. With virtue ethics, the humanists saw that the cultivation of moral character emancipated the individual from duties or rules. Virtue went hand in hand with paideia, a view of education as the training of young persons as virtuous members of the state. The humanists envisioned the liberal arts as the means of liberating the individual from the constraints of social institutions prominent during the Middle Ages. Writes:

“The writings of Dante, and particularly the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom and individual expression. In the essays of Montaigne the individualistic view of life received perhaps the most persuasive and eloquent statement in the history of literature and philosophy.”

Steven Kreis, “Renaissance Humanism” at historyguide.org

One can trace transformations in society, from the Protestant Reformation to the democratization of nations, to the humanist impulses of the Renaissance. So, too, the transformation of the view of childhood. Although viewed as an extreme view, Philippe Aries, a prominent French medieval scholar during the 1960s and 1970s, argued that “in medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist.” (Ariès, Centuries of Childhood (1962): 125.) He reasons that works of art and literature depict children as little adults. In a largely agrarian society, children were expected to work from the earliest ages. The high infant mortality rate also meant adults were less inclined to become attached to an idealized view of childhood. Aries’s view that childhood is largely a social construct is potentially problematic, but there is some veracity that Renaissance humanism went a long way toward transforming what childhood meant.

Viewing children as whole persons emerged during this era. The humanist impulse to train children in virtue considers them as having moral agency even during their youth. Similarly, there was a somewhat sentimental view of the emotional bonds between children and their parents. Educational thinkers of the Renaissance period encouraged the emotional connection between parent and child. Writing about Leon Alberti, the Italian educationist, Julian Vitullo contextualizes his work:

“Male pedagogues in Renaissance Florence participated in debates about different styles of discipline with the assumption that the emotional bonds that children form with adults would influence their own behavior as citizens. Pedagogues stressed the importance of recreation when they discussed the need to raise children with love, joy, and serenity.”

Julian Vitullo, “Fashioning Fatherhood: Leon Battista Alberti’s Art of Parenting.” Pages 341-353 in Albrecht Classen, ed. Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 347.

Notice how discipline goes together with love, joy and serenity. Vitullo spells this out in more detail with regard to Alberti’s educational philosophy, “Alberti makes clear in his dialogue that he is aware of different notions of pedagogy and chooses a model of affection and positive enforcement that had already been detailed by classical thinkers such as Quintillian” (352). Alberti may have in mind here the advice given by Quintillian to fathers in his Institutio Oratio, “I would, therefore, have a father conceive the highest hopes of his son from the moment of his birth. If he does so, he will be more careful about the groundwork of his education” (Inst. 1.1).

This transformation of childhood spread from Italy to other locales in Europe as the Renaissance spread. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a brief treatise on the education of children. In this he concludes:

“Consider how dear a possession you’re son is, how diverse a thing it is and a matter of much work to come by learning, and how noble also the same is, what a readiness is in all children’s wits to learn, what agility is in the mind of man how easily those things be learned which be best and agreeable to nature, especially if they be taught of learned and gentle masters by the way of play.”

Erasmus, The Education of Children, transl. Richard Sherry, P.iii.

We see here a recognition that children are ready and eager to learn. Erasmus advises that children be taught by masters who both exhibit expertise but also gentleness, which in this context means a lack of harsh punishments. The word “play” is interesting, and I wonder if there is a play on the word ludus in the original Latin, a term that can mean both play and school.

Connecting the Traditions

The Renaissance holds many compelling connections to our educational renewal movement. The reappropriation of classical texts led to a renewal of educational theories and a reappraisal of the child as a whole person. Yet, we can see echoes of this view of children at other stages in the traditions, both ancient and modern.

To begin with, when we consider the biblical view of children, there are multiple passages that promote a high view of children. Take, for example, Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The English translation is somewhat misleading, as it literally says to train the child “about his pathway.” There seems to be an indication that the child is fully capable of walking in the right moral pathway in his youth.

The prophet Malachi promises that in the renewal of Israel, God will turn “the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers” (4:6). The emotional connection between parent and child sounds here similar to the advice of the Renaissance pedagogues. The essence of a renewed society resides in the home where there’s a bastion of deep emotional bonds.

Jesus admonition to “let the little children come to me” (Matt. 19:14) speaks to a profound capacity in childhood for faith. Jesus’ view of children is profound indeed. Consider his an earlier passage in Matthew in which Jesus declares, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (11:25). The deepest matters of heaven and earth revealed to little children. As we consider a biblical theology of childhood, statements like these point to an understanding of the child as having great capacity for faith and learning.

Viewing children as whole persons – capable of profound thought, faith and moral direction – implies a form of education that trains children in their affections. I like how Christopher Perrin connects ordo amoris to the teachings of Christ. He writes:

“Jesus often signals an ordo amoris, telling the rich, young ruler there is one thing he lacks (Matt. 19) and telling Martha that though she is busy about many things, Mary has chosen what is best: to converse with him rather than prepare dinner (Luke 10). When Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, he responds that there are two: to love God with your whole heart and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22). Jesus seems to believe that there is a divinely ordered hierarchy of loves and pleasures.”

Christopher Perrin, “I Would Like to Order… an Education,” Inside Classical Education.

In the City of God, Augustine expresses how a person can have a properly ordered love for what is good. But this takes training in the affections. He writes, “For though it be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately” (Augustine, City of God, XV.22). This leads, then to his classic statement, “It seems to me that it is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love (quod definitio brevis et vera virtutis ordo est amoris)” (Augustine, City of God, XV.22).

In his essay “Men without Chests,” C. S. Lewis builds his argument on Augustine’s dictum, “St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it” (C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 16). The child must learn to regulate his or her affections based on an evaluation of objective value. The thesis of Lewis’s The Abolition of Man comes down to whether one views education in modernist terms (facts, figures, pure reason, critical analysis, etc.) or as a means to train children to have proper emotional responses to what is true, good and beautiful. Lewis writes:

“Hence the educational problem is wholly different according as you stand within or without the Tao. For those within, the task is to train in the pupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists. Those without, if they are logical, must regard all sentiments as equally non-rational, as mere mists between us and the real objects. As a result, they must either decide to remove all sentiments, as far as possible, from the pupil’s mind; or else to encourage some sentiments for reasons that have nothing to do with their intrinsic ‘justness’ or ‘ordinacy.’”

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 20-21.

Now, Lewis uses the term Tao to indicate the most basic universal principles without recourse to theistic language. In doing this, he dispenses with a critique that his argument depends on Christian moral virtue. Instead, by looking to natural law, he is able to demonstrate that the affections are universal in nature and inherent in what it means to be human.

Children as Persons

The educational value of viewing children as whole person is tremendous. The Renaissance humanists reconsidered the purpose of education in light of their philosophical commitment to viewing children as having moral character and emotional capacity. The biblical view of children corroborates this insight. As educators today, we may need a renewal once again to understand the full capacity of every child to think, feel and believe.

Charlotte Mason understood this principle to be foundational when she writes:

“If we have not proved that a child is born a person with a mind as complete and as beautiful as his beautiful little body, we can at least show that he always has all the mind he requires for his occasions; that is, that his mind is the instrument of his education and that his education does not produce his mind.”

Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education, 36.

From the earliest ages, children show a capacity to learn. Consider how easily a child learns language, without any other help than to imitate the language users around them. Mason goes on to illustrate this point.

“Reason is present in the infant as truly as imagination. As soon as he can speak he lets us know that he has pondered the ’cause why’ of things and perplexes us with a thousand questions. His ‘why?’ is ceaseless. Nor are his reasonings always disinterested. How soon the little urchin learns to manage his nurse or mother, to calculate her moods and play upon her feelings! It is in him to be a little tyrant; “he has a will of his own,” says his nurse, but she is mistaken in supposing that his stormy manifestations of greed, wilfulness, temper, are signs of will. It is when the little boy is able to stop all these and restrain himself with quivering lip that his will comes into play; for he has a conscience too. Before he begins to toddle he knows the difference between right and wrong.”

Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education, 37.

Notice how many capacities are within the child: rationality, imagination, morality, conscience, emotions. All of these need to be trained for the person to grow, but the educational point is that training the child does not instill these. Instead, these capacities are already in the child. Our educational renewal movement has the opportunity to bring forward a renewed vision of the child as a whole person, to enact a Renaissance of education in our day.

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You are likely familiar with the following stanza:

O come! O come! Emmanuel!

And ransom captive Israel;

That mourns in lonely exile here,

Until the Son of God appear.

This hymn speaks both to the longing we all have to be reached by God and to the manner in which he reaches us: through his Son, Jesus Christ. So the first point to establish is more than just a theological dogma, but a profound existential reality. We are limited people who mourn due to our ignorance, weakness and rebellion. Understanding the advent season as a time of preparation for celebrating the birth of Christ drills down into this sense we have that apart from God, all is lost.

And yet as we recollect so many advent hymns and carols, they are rich in the testimony of scripture. God has already spoken abundantly to give us a promise and a hope. Consider some of these verses:

Isaiah 7:14 – Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Zechariah 6:12 – Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD

Isaiah 9:6 – For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Micah 5:2 – But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.

Together these verses and many others are clues to God’s plan. He has taught his people his thoughts. Yet, the verses require of the reader a heart that is open to receive knowledge from God. As captive as we are to ignorance, weakness and rebellion, we might be prone to ignore or discount what it is that God has taught. And so this advent season as a time of preparation rehearses the many passages that point to the revelation of Christ, reminds us of how we are prone to go astray and requires of us the mindset and disposition to receive from God.

The Educational Heart of God

In my reflection on God over the years, a key idea has emerged: God is an educator. God has revealed himself to us verbally. This implies that he communicates in such a way that he expects some amount of comprehension. It also implies that we have been made to comprehend what he communicates. Praise God for not keeping his thoughts to himself. He has made known his intentions. Praise God also for making us receptors of his communication, fallen though we may be. We turn with gratitude to our creator and redeemer for telling us our condition, for sharing with us our salvation plan, and for instructing us in the best way to live. This is the educational heart of God.

The repeated refrain of Genesis 1 is “And God said.” (1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26) All of creation was spoken into existence; the universe is an act of communication. The heavens and earth show for God’s glory. It is no surprise that we have gleaned so much from scientific study, all of nature is packed with meaning. What a shame that the scientific method has been so based on atheistic assumptions. In bringing up science, it is not my intention to pit faith against science. Rather, it is to point to an alternative epistemology, one in which science can fully flourish on the basis of theistic assumptions. It seems arbitrary that Enlightenment scientism concluded that because God cannot be proven by reason or evidence, one must rule God out as a fundamental tenet of the method. Yet, could one not also conclude that if God cannot be proven, perhaps it is best to assume God’s existence? Does it not take an equal amount of faith to accept or reject God’s existence? And is there not compelling evidence for our faith?

“Every conclusion of science requires presuppositions, just as necessarily as every conclusion of science requires evidence. Indeed, without appropriate presuppositions, evidence loses its evidential role, and that undoes science.”

Hugh Gauch, Scientific Method in Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 112

If we take the alternative presupposition that the natural world is an act of communication, the evidence of all of our fields of scientific enquiry point not only to new understandings in the natural realm, but also to ultimate meaning as communicated by God.

Creation, as magnificent as it is as an act of communication, pales in comparison to the clarity and specificity we gain from God’s communication through scripture. The Westminster Confession is so helpful at expressing this, “Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation.” (1.1) We need something more sufficient than the general revelation of nature can provide. And thus God has spoken through scripture to spell out for us everything necessary for a right relationship with God. The Psalmist writes: “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;” (Ps 19:7-8) Notice how God’s communication to us addresses us as whole persons. Every part of us is nourished by the education God provides. We see this also in the New Testament: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Heb 4:12) And also in Paul’s writings: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16-17). God’s educational program is not to get some sort of certification or occupational outcome. Instead, it is an education fitted to propel us into lives of flourishing.

The Advent of Christ as an Act of Teaching

John’s gospel presents the incarnation in profound theological terms. Jesus is presented as “the Word” in language echoing Genesis 1. The person of Jesus Christ is a speech act. He is not merely a mouthpiece, he is the essence of God, the impulse behind all of creation as well as the centerpiece of God’s salvation plan. Just as creation was an act of communication, so salvation is likewise an act of communication. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news,” (Isa 52:7) The good news speaks to the verbal transaction of speaker and listener. Consider how frequently Jesus says in the gospels, “Truly, I say to you.” So when John calls Jesus the Word, he is encapsulating the dynamic of the incarnation as God’s most profound verbal communication to us.

To go a step further, we can add that God as a communicator has not simply spoken esoteric messages that tickle our highest thoughts. His communication is to be lived out. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) God’s communication is embodied, living and active. The thrust here is that God is not some distant professor lecturing on and on. Instead, God shares with us his very heart and does so in such a way that it meets our most fundamental needs, giving us guidance as to how to best live our lives. John calls Jesus the “light that shines in the darkness.” (John 1:5) He illumines our pathway. This is exactly what Zechariah expresses about Jesus in the gospel of Luke: “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:79)

This season as we celebrate the advent of Christ, we should reflect on how much Jesus’ incarnation is an act of teaching. Christ comes into our world to illumine our hearts and minds; to enlighten us. The incarnation is the inflection point of salvation history. God made man, dwelling among us, Immanuel; this is the act of teaching. What we are talking about here is not simply anticipating the teachings of Jesus, although that is both important and relevant. At a deeper level, the moment of the incarnation is mystery made obvious all along in the testimony of the Old Testament. It is the connection between heaven and earth that is impossible apart from a miraculous act of God. This embodied Word in and of itself is the grand act of teaching.

Advent and Our Educational Program

There are three calendars in my life that are asynchronous. There is the civil calendar which starts in January, ends in December and is celebrated on New Year’s Day. In many ways this is the least relevant time-telling calendar in my life. The second calendar is the school year. It starts with the first day of school in August and ends with graduation in June. This is the calendar that most impacts my working life. The third calendar is the church year. It begins with Advent in December and drives toward Easter in the Spring. This is the calendar that most impacts my devotional life. These offset cycles of time-telling demonstrate how the different aspects of our lives can get out of sync. Perhaps that is not an altogether bad thing, just a reality of being in the world and not of it.

The three calendars illustrate for me the three kinds of knowledge we work with as educators. The knowledge of the universe, the knowledge of man, and the knowledge of God. I am drawing these categories from Charlotte Mason, who writes:

“Of the three sorts of knowledge proper to a child, the knowledge of God, of man, and of the universe,––the knowledge of God ranks first in importance, is indispensable, and most happy-making.”

Charlotte Mason, Towards A Philosophy of Education (Volume 6, 158)

Even though the knowledge of God is ranked first in importance, it is often out of sync with the other objectives in our curriculum. Reading, writing and arithmetic have well defined texts and methods of instruction. This means that the knowledge of God takes second, even third place when it comes to the daily warp and woof of school life.

Mason recommends a very thorough reading of the Old and New Testaments throughout the educational program. If we believe that God makes himself known through his Word, and if we believe that he has made us in such a way that we can respond to this knowledge, then we really can do nothing less than provide as much of God’s revelation as we can to them. The result, when they truly encounter the stories and poetry of the Bible, is a training not only in intellectual knowledge, but also the affections.

“By degrees the Person of Our Lord as revealed in His words and His works becomes real and dear to them, not through emotional appeals but through the impression left by accurate and detailed knowledge concerning the Saviour of the World.”

Charlotte Mason, Towards A Philosophy of Education (Vol 6, 165)

Reading the Bible in order to know a Person is such a compelling educational objective!

One of the traditions we practice every year during advent is a course of readings that guide our devotions and prepare our hearts for Christmas. There are many different listings of readings available online. We place an advent wreath in the center of the table and light the proper candles following the weeks of advent. What I love about this practice is the way we as a family prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ. What we are doing is opening ourselves to a deeper knowledge of God. It is not as though we have not already received Christ. But through this practice we make ourselves available to know him in a deeper and more personal way.

Simple practices like these can likewise be implemented in the classroom. As educators, we can establish traditions that enable an encounter with God. The season of advent is particularly enticing as it has such a wide array of affections associated with it: awe, silence, joy, simplicity, humility, majesty, wonder. Even though the school calendar and church calendar are sometimes out of sync, we can still take advantage of moments when the church calendar offers up new seasons for us to practice our faith in new ways.

I conclude with this beautiful and profound hymn written by Ambrose of Milan, usually set to the tune Puer Nobis Nascitur. This link will take you to a lovely recording by The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge.

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In the previous article in this two-part review of Jonathan Pennington’s book Jesus the Great Philosopher, I spelled out the first two sections of his book dealing with the ancient philosophers (chapters 1 and 2) and then the Old and New Testaments (chapters 3 and 4). Here I will dive into the final three sections on emotions, relationships and the flourishing life. In each of these sections, Pennington provides insights that help us understand better the nature of our roles as teachers to educate formationally the students given into our care.

The thesis that emerges through my review is a sense that we are apprenticing students in the craft of living flourishing lives. There are so many points of connection between what Pennington has written and our educational renewal movement. Even though he didn’t write this book solely with our context in mind, it resonates so much that I highly recommend this as one of your must reads in the coming year.

Training the Emotions

It is difficult to get a handle on our emotional lives. Think about how true this is in your own life as a teacher. The vicissitudes of the school day and the school year impact us at an emotional level constantly. If this is true in our own lives, how much more do our students feel a range of different emotions? And yet we rarely consider how much emotional training is part of our job as educators. Pennington does a great job laying out a sophisticated view of emotions from a Christian philosophical perspective.

To begin with, the philosophical discussion surrounding emotions goes all the way back to the ancient philosophers. Plato and Aristotle had significantly different views on our emotions. Plato “saw emotions (or passions) as impulses that come upon us as an uncontrollable force.” (86) His noncognitive understanding of emotions weaves its way through history down to our modern era of chemical and neurological research. Pennington writes, “Even if one doesn’t take an entirely chemical approach to emotions, today emotions are largely viewed as negative and the enemy of sound thinking.” (88) Aristotle saw things very differently, taking an “integrated, cognitive approach.” (89) Our whole being works together. “We feel emotion in our bodies and souls through cognition, through using our minds in dialogue with our bodies.” (89) Now obviously the chemical and neurological insights gained by modern research has contributed to our understanding of numerous factors contributing to both emotions and cognition. But Pennington correctly draws forward and understanding of emotions as something that can be educated. There is a certain amount of control we have over our emotions. Our emotions can be trained.

To what end, though, are we training our emotions? Is it to gain complete detachment from emotional response as modern Stoic philosophy would have it? Emotions or feelings are actually necessary for navigating life successfully, so the kind of training envisioned is not to root out emotions but to feel with understanding. Pennington writes:

“Philosophical reflection and psychological research have also shown that emotions are central to aspects of our lives that we may not immediately recognize – specifically, our ethics and morality. . . . To state it most clearly: Emotions are central to our morality (1) in enabling us to determine what is right and wrong, and (2) as indicators of our moral character. Therefore, paying attention to and educating our emotions is crucial to the Good Life.”

Jonathan T. Pennington, Jesus the Great Philosopher, 95

Our development as integrated beings means bringing together our feeling self, our thinking self and our acting self (emotions, reason and behavior). Pennington posits that Christianity takes a cognitive approach to emotions similar to the Aristotelian tradition. Emotions are fundamentally good in part because they reflect the nature of God who has emotions and is entirely good. (105) As Christians we are called to control our emotions, not simply detach from them. “While promoting the good of emotions, Christianity also recommends a measured and intentional detachment from the world and its circumstances for the sake of living a tranquil life.” (114)

So how does one go about educating the emotions? One of the keys highlighted by Pennington is “the habit of intentional reflection.” (123) He demonstrates through readings in Deuteronomy, the Psalms and Matthew that “This habit of intentional reflection has a shaping effect on the belief, faithfulness, obedience, and thereby emotional health of the Israelites.” (124) Christian virtue, then, relies on training in specific habits to shape our emotional response to God leading toward true happiness.

Training New Citizens

The philosophy of the Good Life involves not only a coherence of one’s own integrated self, but a coherence of relationships with others. The next section in Pennington’s book delves into relationships and once again synthesizes ancient wisdom with the teachings of the Bible. Relationships are a central teaching in the philosophical tradition. (135) Philosphers like Plutarch, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero all see how marriage and families are the bedrock of a good society. Thus for the society as a whole to be well ordered, “the household was to be ordered well.” (139) So as we consider the philosophical tradition as it teaches about relationships, we can see that relationships span the most intimate and the most global arrangements.

Aristotle once again takes center stage. Pennington writes, “Aristotle argues that the end goal of enabling virtuous citizens to flourish must be the evaluative tool for determining which form of government is best.” (143) From this we can gather that the individual and the many live in a dynamic relationship that ought to aim at a singular goal: “the flourishing of virtuous individuals.” This is a challenging proposition in a society that desires individual autonomy while it remains confused about moral virtue. I think this is where classical Christian education can best serve society by training new citizens to understand what it means to live virtuously as individuals and to engage in public discourse about how to promote the wellbeing of all in light of what it means to be a good person.

The Bible provides a nuanced perspective, however, on what it means to be a citizen. “Jesus’s life and teaching can fairly be described as a re-forming and renewing of all kinds of relationships – between God and humanity and between humans of every language, ethnicity, gender, and class.” (156) The revelation of God’s divine Word breaks down our understanding of such things as family, friendship and society, and build them up into a new kind of structure centered on Christ Jesus. I think Pennington is most helpful in laying out the fact that the Bible is thoroughly political. What he means by this is that it expresses several nuanced points about a philosophy of politics. For instance, “Christians must understand that they are now citizens of two reams, or two cities, as Augustine would famously describe it – the city of humanity and the city of God.” (166) Our first loyalty is to our citizenship above. We pray fervently that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Yet, these two realms exist in conflict. As citizens of an earthly realm, we prioritize our heavenly citizenship while also participating in the betterment of our earthly society. “Therefore, the Christian’s relationship to the state is one of respectful participation and honor where honor is due (1 Pet. 2:17), praying for even ungodly leaders (1 Tim. 2:1-4).” (166) Our civic duty is real and earnest because we are emissaries of our Lord Jesus Christ and carry the diplomatic message of the good news of the gospel.

Training up new citizens is a difficult task. Even though our present state of cultural discourse feels overwhelming and dysfunctional, I am certain that this feeling is not unique to our day. As educators, our task is not to teach a number of talking points from whatever political party our constituents agree with. Instead, we are to help our students understand their dual citizenship, learning to walk as Christ walked and working toward the transformation of society in light of the gospel. Pennington puts it well:

“Jesus and the New Testament regularly paint a picture of what the true politeia modeled on God’s kingdom should be. Christian teaching is a vision that resocializes people’s values and habits, that creates a new community of people, a new covenant people who will live together in love and serve as a model for the world of God himself. This is a sophisticated philosophy of relationships.”

Jonathan T. Pennington, Jesus the Great Philosopher, 171

Training in Happiness

One of the claims I persistently make that differentiates our educational renewal movement from conventional education is that we train up students to live lives of meaning and purpose. The factory model of education focuses on technology and techniques that provide for better jobs with the assumption that a highly trained workforce is the chief end of society. But as classical Christian educators, we have a higher vision that transcends career. We believe that educating the whole person entails addressing life’s biggest questions and launching our students into a pursuit of true happiness.

Pennington closes his book with two chapters that align with what makes our movement unique. He demonstrates that “happiness and meaningfulness entail each other” (189) by reviewing ancient and modern philosophers. Our modern world with its largely scientific worldview struggles to provide the kind of comprehensive view of life that produces meaning and purpose. This is why we benefit so much from going back to the great philosophers of the ancient world. They “all pondered the great questions of happiness and offered practical, real-life wisdom on how to live well.” (191) The antidote to our modern malaise comes through intentional reflection on the big questions of life. He writes in summary of the ancient wisdom:

“So they disagreed on lots of habits and beliefs, but they all shared this central idea: We long for flourishing, and the only way to find it is through living intentionally and thoughtfully in particular ways. Neither virtue nor its eventual fruit, happiness, come to us accidentally.”

Jonathan T. Pennington, Jesus the Great Philosopher, 193

The ancient wisdom stands in stark relief with what we might call the self-help industry. We have modern YouTube gurus offering tips and tricks to live better lives. In certain cases, really thoughtful programs synthesize philosophical sophistication with modern science, attempting a nonreligious, “whole-life philosophy of happiness.” (200) But “the gurus that people look to today offer only a limited kind of happiness.” (200) It seems to me that our society reflects the educational norms of conventional education: technology and techniques have soft pedaled a less-than-satisfying philosophy of life.

Pennington’s final chapter masterfully explores Christianity as a superior life philosophy full of meaning that promotes flourishing. He writes, “Jesus in the actual Logos – the organizing principle of the world, the agent of creation, the being that holds the whole universe together – this means that his philosophy alone is whole, complete, and truly true.” (201) Two key words stand out in Pennington’s exposition of Christian philosophy: grace and hope. Despite the fall and despite the limitations we face as human beings, God’s grace is poured out on humanity in the form of wisdom. We are recipients of divine wisdom: not only what we might call special revelation, but the wisdom that permeates all creation. “Any wisdom in the world is from God who created all.” (203) Together God’s creation and God’s Word provide answers to life’s greatest questions. This is grace.

Hope is perhaps the single greatest factor when comparing the self-help philosophy of today with the whole-life philosophy of the Bible. Pennington writes:

“The Christian hope is that God is going to return to restore the world to right, to bring light into darkness, to create a new creation of shalom and peace, to be present fact-to-face with his creatures. It is this hope alone that can bridge the eudaimonia gap between our experience now and our deepest longings.” (216)

To understand what he means here, it is helpful to consider the eudaimonia gap. All humans desire to experience happiness or eudaimonia. However, we face a world of suffering, whether it be physical, mental, relational or otherwise. The gap we experience between the happiness we want to achieve and the reality of the obstacles that interfere with us experiencing that happiness is what we might call the eudaimonia gap. Christianity offers a satisfying solution by presenting us with a future hope. “Christian philosophy emphasizes precisely this – an honest assessment of the brokenness of life that is always oriented toward a sure hope for God’s restoration of true flourishing to the world.” (218) Christian hope is not a detachment from the problems in our world nor does it trivialize suffering. Instead, Christian hope finds profound meaning in this life through the recognition that suffering and pain are where God meets us as he leads us toward eudaimonia.

This review of Pennington’s book Jesus the Great Philosopher has hopefully stimulated your thoughts on what it means to be a classical Christian educator. A book like this helps contextualize daily classroom life with the long view of living the Good Life. In the liberal arts tradition, discrete subjects (if that is even the correct word) cohere around philosophy. So when we are teaching mathematics, literature or science, we should have in view that the subject matter is not limited to one domain of knowledge. Education is a science of relations, as Charlotte Mason has so famously put it. Pennington’s book serves as a convenient and accessible manual for bringing into conversation the liberal arts and a biblical worldview. I highly recommend you reading this for yourself to be inspired as a classical Christian educator.

Beyond this, I could see this book being adopted in a theology or humanities class at your school. The way he brings the many streams of wisdom together will benefit students who have had many years of tutelage under the writings of Aristotle, Augustine, Lewis and many others. Even if you don’t bring this into your curriculum, I could see this being a great read in a book club, contributing to lively discussion and thoughtful interaction.

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If you attended the Society for Classical Learning conference this past summer in Charleston, South Carolina, you may have attended the plenary session with Jonathan T. Pennington. He presented on “Jesus the Classical Educator.” The presentation was drawn from his new book Jesus the Great Philosopher. I think this is a really important book that classical educators need to read and grapple with. In this and the following post I will review the book and lay out several of the ideas that we well worth your attention.

But first, a disclaimer. I am not an unbiased reader. Jonathan is a good friend. We both attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and later University of St Andrews. At both places he preceded me by a few years. At each stage he played a key mentoring role, helping me to consider studying overseas in Scotland and then introducing me to his and my doctoral supervisor, Richard Bauckham. There’s a real kinship Bauckham’s advisees share, striving for excellence in biblical scholarship while desiring to produce work that will prove valuable for the church. Prof. Pennington has been one of the leading lights among Bauckham’s students, so it’s exciting to see him produce a work that now speaks into the kind of project we are doing in our educational renewal movement.

Pennington is associate professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. has previously written extensively on the New Testament, publishing Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew, the research he had done during his PhD studies. He has written and contributed to several other books, including Reading the Gospels Wisely (Baker, 2012), The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing (Baker, 2017) and Reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture with Con Campbell (Baker, 2020). With the publication of Jesus the Great Philosopher (Brazos, 2020), Pennington has shifted slightly away from writing exclusively academic biblical studies volumes and presenting ideas that have a more popular-level appeal. In this latest book you’ll find that Pennington is able to adeptly bring his scholarly prowess into connection with contemporary issues and cultural motifs.

Here in part 1 of this review, I’ll explore the foundational work he present on ancient and biblical wisdom. Later in part 2, we’ll see how he builds on this foundation to address matters such as the self-help industry, our current political discourse, perspectives on justice and the role of emotions in our lives.

The Renewal of the Ancient Philosophical Tradition

Pennington diagnoses a major problem in modern Christianity as a result of not viewing Jesus Christ as a philosopher. His major claim is that “there are four significant things that have happened to the church as a result of this loss of ‘philosophy’ language.” (Jesus the Great Philosopher 10) What are those four things. First, Christians experience disconnected lives. “Our Christian faith is often disconnected from other aspects of our human lives.” The Christian life today is compartmentalized such that we haven’t connected all aspects of our lives to an overarching philosophy of human flourishing centered on Christ Jesus. Second, Christians are prone to search for answers to life’s biggest questions from popular culture. “We naturally look to other sources – alternative gurus – to give us the wisdom needed to live flourishing lives, to find the Good Life.” It is all too easy to swipe open an iPhone to watch a YouTube video of a TED Talk than it is to pore over the text of the Bible. Third, Christians are untrained to answer the difficult questions of life. “We have stopped asking a set of big questions that Holy Scripture is seeking to answer.” I will delve into this third point in greater length in a moment. And fourth, Christians are not able to share the gospel in its fullness. “We have limited our witness to the world.” When we short circuit the philosophical power of the gospel, we actually miss out on the way redemption in Christ helps people makes sense of all of life.

Now, this matter of asking profound questions of the Bible is worthy of further deliberation. Pennington writes, “So, with our high view of Scripture in hand, we go to the Bible and ask important questions – religious, vertical questions – and that is good. But because of habits and training, we have stopped asking another set of questions – the human, horizontal, philosophical ones.” (15) To be clear, as Christians we have tended to approach our Bibles with a view to learn about God and then apply it to daily life. But our metaphysical musings have largely tended to not include a major set of philosophical questions. These questions include, “What is the nature of reality? How do we know this? What does it mean to be human? How do we order our relationships and emotions? How do we find true happiness?” (15) Notice how these questions are different than questions pertaining to doctrines of the Trinity, the sacraments or church order. Furthermore, we often skip from those heady theological insights to highly practical practices like daily Bible reading and listening to Christian music. The important questions that Pennington highlights enable the Christian to masterfully build lives of meaning and purpose in all domains of life.

The second chapter of Jesus the Great Philosopher traces the ancient philosophical tradition, identifying how philosophy wasn’t some esoteric, exclusive club. Instead, philosophy sought to guide people toward “true happiness; it was the vision for life itself.” (18) Pennington looks at the role of virtues in developing human flourishing. He explains what he calls the “four main compass points” of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. (28) The renewal of the ancient philosophical tradition has been a key component of our own educational renewal movement. This chapter sets the stage for what comes next, an examination of the Bible in light of the major philosophical questions Pennington points to.

The Bible as an Ancient Philosophical Text

The Bible itself is shown to be a thoroughly philosophical text. Pennington spans both the Old and New Testaments demonstrating how the four compass-point questions are extensively present throughout the Bible. From creation to new creation, the Bible provides a grand view of the universe. Pennington writes, “This world that we experience is actually created and upheld by the incarnated and now-risen Jesus, in unity with God the Father. This is a radical metaphysical claim not only for Jews but also for Greeks and Romans, who also had a highly developed metaphysic of both the cosmos and humanity’s place in it.” (70) Biblical metaphysics also points to how all reality is moving toward an end or telos. History is “heading toward a restoration of what was lost, a restoration that will even supersede the goodness of the original creation.” (71)

How we know what we know is the domain of epistemology. Pennington shows how the Bible puts forward a consistent yet nuanced understanding of knowledge. In the ancient philosophical tradition, knowledge is experienced, practical and lived out (43). The garden shows how knowledge of God is experienced by walking with God. Yet sin through the fall obfuscates our ability to know God. The Old Testament establishes a pattern of “forgetting God and coming to know God again.” (44) The New Testament builds on this pattern by providing a pathway in Christ Jesus to truly know God. Our minds, clouded by the fall, are transformed through regeneration. “The knowledge of God the Father revealed in God the Son is only accessible through God the Spirit.” (73) This trinitarian formulation of biblical epistemology addresses how the all-encompassing nature of God – who is beyond our comprehension – can be knowns and experienced personally.

Epistemology leads to ethics, or an understanding of right and wrong. The heartbeat of ethical thinking in both the ancient philosophical tradition of the Greeks and Romans as well as the Bible is virtue. We’ve written at length about virtues and habits here at Educational Renaissance. And Pennington confirms the high congruence between ancient and biblical wisdom. “An ethics of virtue, which is shared by ancient philosophy and the Bible, focuses on the development of our sensibilities, values, and habits.” (47) Ethics is not about adherence to a set of rules or mere obedience to a command. Instead, the virtue ethic of the Bible is characterized by imitation and agency. “Virtue ethics focuses not just on the external issues of right and wrong but on our interior person and our development to be a certain kind of people. In the Bible, this means becoming more like God himself.” (75) It is clear, then, that ethical reasoning is highly dependent on one’s epistemology. True knowledge of God provides both insight into what it means to be good and direction about how to live out the good in our lives.

The fourth big idea considered from a biblical perspective is politics. Even though this word is perceived negatively in modern culture, there is a rich philosophical tradition standing behind the political structures of Western society. If we want human flourishing to occur in a stable and sustainable way, we need to consider the societal structures and institutions that are consistent with ancient and biblical wisdom. One of the principles Pennington brings out is that “humans need friends.” Even if we our metaphysics, epistemology and ethics worked out, if we are alone, we simply cannot experience the kind of good life we might otherwise experience in fellowship with others. Pennington writes, “This older, constructive aspect of ‘politics’ was a natural and crucial aspect of the ancient philosophical perspective because the philosophers understood that (1) flourishing is not possible apart from societal stability and structures that promoted beauty, goodness, and virtue; and (2) humans need each other to flourish.” (48)

Such ideas as the rule of law, justice and limited government stem from Hebrew political philosophy. In the ancient Near East as well as Greek and Roman societies, kings and emperors founded imperials cults, insisting on being worshipped as gods. But “the Hebrews’ ultimate allegiance was to God himself, not to the human king.” (49-50) In the New Testament, this idea gets expanded into what might be called “dual citizenship.” (166) We will expand on this in part 2 of this review. But for now we can point to a distinctively Christian political philosophy that promotes involvement in our earthly society, yet our allegiance lies with our heavenly kingdom. As worshipers of the one true God, we have a philosophy of “a politeia rooted in the just and good way.” (50) But the Bible does not promote some sort of separatist alternative society, it seeks the just and the good for all nations. Pennington writes, “This divinely revealed political philosophy was not just for the sake of the Hebrew people but was also a model for all the nations. It is a picture of how the true God has structured the cosmos and the means by which humans may experience flourishing or shalom.” (50)

A Synthesis of Ancient and Biblical Wisdom

Thus far we have covered almost half of Pennington’s book. In part 2 we will look at how will expands this basis of ancient and biblical wisdom bringing it into conversation with some of the big issues we face in our modern era. And as we think about what has been covered so far, a few considerations can already be formulated.

First, as a classical Christian educational movement, we have the obligation to bring together ancient wisdom and biblical wisdom. What Pennington highlights are the areas of congruence between ancient near Eastern, Greek and Roman philosophy and the Old and New Testaments. Now, we must be aware that not all we find in non-biblical and non-Christian sources will agree with biblical convictions. However, there is a synthesis we can achieve when we examine sources of knowledge with courage and humility, looking for truth wherever it may be found. The catchphrase, “All truth is God’s truth” is relevant here. Students trained with this impulse to search for truth wherever it may be found will have the tools to think biblically when encountering not only the great works of the Western tradition, but even interact with non-Western writings.

Second, the approach Pennington takes in arriving at his synthesis points to the whole-life relevance of ancient and biblical wisdom. The liability of placing such powerful texts in the hands of teachers and students alike is that the level of analysis remains abstract and theoretical. I know this is something I needed to overcome in my professional role in biblical studies. Analyzing the text with more and more sophisticated models of interpretation can stimulate the mind but can also leave the heart cold. The motto on my school’s crest reads veritas pro vita, “truth for life.” This is not merely truth for truth’s sake, but truth for the sake of living lives of meaning, purpose and direction. As we arrive at a synthesis of ancient and biblical wisdom, there ought to be practical wisdom that shows us how to live out the gospel day to day.

Finally, we cannot live out lives of meaning, purpose and direction apart from the one who calls himself the way, the truth and the life. Pennington’s formulation of Jesus as the great philosopher places our Lord and savior at the center of this grand synthesis of ancient and biblical wisdom. God has made his revealed wisdom personal through the incarnation of The Word. The personal nature of divine wisdom then is received in us through our encounter with Christ Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

So, I clearly haven’t finished my review yet, but already you can sense how highly I recommend this book. If you are an educator who wants to contemplate how to bring together spiritual formation and classical curriculum, I think this book is well worth your time and attention.

The post A Synthesis of Ancient and Biblical Wisdom: Book Review of Jonathan T. Pennington’s Jesus the Great Philosopher, Part 1 appeared first on .

In today’s article, we will explore how Jesus founded a school of the prophets by gathering to himself a group of disciples. Thinking about Jesus not only as a prophet, but as a leader of a new prophetic schools will help us see his training methods in a new light. The insights we gain from this study of Jesus can transform our own classrooms into places where our students are cultivated to reach their full potential.

Previous articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

Prophets as Master Teachers

In my previous article in this series, we saw how the classic prophets were leaders in the schools of the prophets. The passing of the baton from Elijah to Elisha was a case in point, as the students – designated as the “sons of the prophets” – saw how Elisha bore Elijah’s mantle and accepted him as their new master prophet. The Old Testament establishes a mode of discipleship that is taken up in the New Testament. In the case of Elisha, we learn of the call of Elisha as a disciple of Elijah, who then follows Elijah on his prophetic mission. We can imagine that Elisha joined a number of other adherents to Elijah, but none of the other “sons of the prophets” is named or given a call narrative.

The article I wrote on Jesus as a learner proposed that Jesus joined the disciples of John the Baptist. This seems to have been an important fact to establish, since each of the gospels place John the Baptist at the very beginning of Jesus ministry. In fact, we can see ways in which Jesus’ early ministry is patterned after that of John the Baptist. When Jesus begins calling his own disciples, several are drawn from the group of disciples surrounding John the Baptist. In this way, the transition from John the Baptist to Jesus mirrors the transition from Elijah to Elisha.[1]

So a major insight into the person of Jesus Christ is that he is a master teacher in the tradition of the classic prophets who oversaw the schools of the prophets. This helps us understand why the gospels relate so many episodes of Jesus’ teachings. On one level, the teachings of Jesus are a storehouse of divine wisdom for all of his followers to live in light of the kingdom of God. On another level, the teachings of Jesus operate as a sign of a new work of God through Jesus to inaugurate a new people of God with Jesus gathering about him a new prophetic school.

Another major insight into the person of Christ is his nature as message itself. Not only is he the teacher, he is the teaching. From the beginning, the second person of the trinity was the mouthpiece of creation and the source of all revelation. In my book Ecclesiology and the Scriptural Narrative of 1 Peter, I make the case that in 1 Peter 1:12 we learn how Jesus spoke through the Old Testament prophets.

“The Spirit of Christ manifests the prophetic message of salvation and grace proclaimed by the prophets. Literally, the pre-existent Christ ‘pre-witnesses’ (προμαρτύρομαι) the work of Christ. While the prophets were mediators of divine messages regarding the Christ, it was Christ himself who spoke through them.” (53)

Patrick Egan, Ecclesiology and the Scriptural Narrative of 1 Peter (Pickwick, 2016), 53.

From this we gather that Jesus, as the incarnation of the second person of the trinity, was always the vessel of divine wisdom. It is in his nature to reveal prophetically. Therefore, we could say that from the beginning of time, Jesus was the master prophet in charge of prophecy, and that the process by which he assumed the role of prophetic leader was a mere formality.

The Disciples as a School of Prophets

The call of the twelve disciples can now be seen as a reinstatement of the discipleship pattern established in the old prophetic schools. Just as the prophets of old had disciples, Jesus calls to himself a group of disciples who will learn from the master prophet about the kingdom of God. The disciples walk and talk with Jesus during his travels throughout the Palestinian region. They bear witness to his miraculous works of healing and learn from his teachings. Sometimes his teaching episodes are exclusively for the benefit of the twelve, but often Jesus’ teachings unfold amidst the gathering crowds. The disciples sometimes asked probing questions after these large group teachings, clarifying difficult aspects of Jesus’ divine insights.

A stunning aspect of Jesus’ mentorship of his disciples is the fact that he sent them out on short missions. Matthew 10:5-15 records one such mission for the twelve. They were sent out with specific instructions. What I find particularly interesting is the correspondence between the message of the twelve and the first message of Jesus. The twelve are instructed to proclaim, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (10:7). Minus the initial charge to repent, this is the exact message of Jesus in Mathew 4:17. In my article on Jesus as learner, I noted how Jesus first message corresponds with that of John the Baptist, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (3:2) The modeling and rehearsing of the simple prophetic message gives us a profound insight into Jesus’ role as the head of a new school of the prophets.

The Gospel of Luke also contains the sending of the twelve (Luke 9:1-6). This is followed up with a mission on a much larger scale. In Luke 10, seventy-two others were sent in pairs. The message and procedures are very similar to the other commission narratives in the gospels. This next group is six times as large as the core group of disciples. Jesus seemed to be having a good season of enrollment in his school of the prophets! At the very least, we can say that the message of Jesus was being disseminated through the careful training of quite a number of students who were given opportunities for genuine field practice.

Prophetic Discipleship

In Peter’s second sermon in Acts, speaking in Jerusalem at Solomon’s Portico he carefully defines the role of prophecy for the people of God. He grounds prophecy in the speech of God, such that divine revelation is the true power behind prophecy (Acts 3:18). He also demonstrates that the proper response to prophecy is repentance (3:19). Peter then develops the concept that the entire lineage of prophets spoke about the restoration of the people of God through Jesus. In this context, Peter uses the phrase “sons of the prophets” to tell his audience that they are the sons of the prophets inasmuch as they respond appropriately to the call of God (3:25). From this we could say that the call to discipleship is a call to join the school of the prophets. This does not mean that we will have the kind of dynamic ministry that, say, Elijah had. But it does mean that we will live our lives in accordance with God’s revelation and that our speech aligns with this divine wisdom.

There is a pattern of discipleship throughout the Bible. One of the most meaningful passages for me has been 2 Timothy 2:2 where Paul advises Timothy to entrust the deposit of faith with faithful followers who will in turn teach others. In the prophetic tradition, discipleship does not make a follower into the image of the mentor. Instead, discipleship seeks to help the follower to learn the words of God and to be able to handle them well. This is actually the heart of effective teaching.

The Church as a School of the Prophets

Whether we draw upon the principle of discipleship in 2 Timothy 2:2 or consider the implications of the written Gospels, present-day followers of Jesus are part of a school of the prophets, so to speak. Jesus’s teachings were such that his disciples learned, shared and recorded them so that generations could learn from him. As the incarnate Word of God, we have that direct contact with God’s revelation through Jesus Christ in the gospels. The careful preservation of this word is expressed well in Richard Bauckham’s landmark work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Jesus the teacher carefully crafted his teachings to be easily memorable to promote preservation. Bauckham writes:

“In a predominantly oral society, not only do people deliberately remember but also teachers formulate their teachings so as to make them easily memorable. It has frequently been observed that Jesus’ teaching in its typically Synoptic forms has many features that facilitate remembering. . . . These teaching formulations were certainly not created by Jesus ad hoc, in the course of his teaching, but were carefully crafted, designed as concise encapsulations of his teaching that his hearers could take away, remember, ponder, and live by.”

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans, 2006), 282.

We see this encapsulation in the early message of Jesus (“Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”) which has been shown to match exactly the message of John the Baptist and is then handed to the disciples as their message. Jesus deliberate teaching strategies has enabled generations of Jesus followers to continue to teach his words. The church has been handed the words of prophecy and the charge of prophecy. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) is the passing of the baton to the disciples to take upon themselves a prophetic ministry. This commission is handed down to us, the church, to proclaim in the world God’s message of salvation.

Training the Prophetic Voice

There are several practical implications for us as teachers today when we think about Jesus as a teacher as well as the founder of a school of the prophets. First, our schools should be inundated with God’s word. Scripture is God-breathed and “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2 Tim 3:16) C.S. Lewis was concerned that modern education, with its focus on job training, was producing “men without chests.” One of the best ways to build up our students with warm-hearted Christianity is to help them learn the Bible as God’s message to them.

This leads to my second practical implication, which is very close to the first. We must help our students understand how to handle God’s word. It can be tricky learning about an ancient text with multiple authors and various genres. Some episodes in the Bible can be indelicate for young ears. We also need to be cautious about collapsing all subjects into a Bible lesson. So, we need moments in the day when we are intentionally training our students in how to interpret the Bible effectively. This doesn’t need to be done comprehensively, forming them into Bible scholars. But we do need to provide enough to stimulate their natural curiosity and interest as well as to enable them to engage in fruitful study on their own. We can also demonstrate in our different subject areas how to view the subject with a biblical worldview. How do we, as bible-believing Christians, think about mathematics, science, literature, or history? For me, I rarely bring in a specific Bible passage, but demonstrate through discussion that biblical faith is consistent and compatible with what we are exploring in different subjects.

Okay, so your students have learned lots of Bible passages and they’ve learned methods to interpret the Bible effectively, the next practical implication is for them to know how to translate God’s message for today. Most of my students walk in the door hearing lots of perspectives on the news today. It might be political in nature or it might pertain to the latest gossip out of Hollywood. There are moments when I need to divert the conversation away from controversy when I know the students can’t handle these things effectively. However, there are times when I take on board whatever topic they’ve brought in order to ask them, “What does the Bible have to say about this?” or “Is there a divine perspective on this?” or “What do you think God thinks about this?” Guiding students in this way helps them to see that a biblical worldview can help them navigate the complex issues of today. The goal is for them to make the connections between God’s divine wisdom and the contemporary problems that need to be addressed. Here’s where they get to practice their prophetic voices. Even though I am not sending them out two by two, they still get that training expressing God’s message for today.

Finally, as Christian schools, we should cultivate a Christ-centered approach to schooling. If Jesus is the eternal message – in John’s terms, the Word – spoken by the prophets of old and speaking through his followers today, then we should be constantly refocusing ourselves on the reality of his presence in our schools each day. “For where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matt. 18:20) This becomes the life blood of our schools. We cling to the cross of our salvation, being prompt to apologize and ask forgiveness. We celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, trusting in the transforming power of his holy spirit in our lives and the lives of our students.

Other articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message

Part 6: Classical Rhetoric for the Modern World

[1] Most commentators see a connection between the Elijah-Elisha narrative and the depiction of the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus. Perhaps Thomas Brodie has taken this idea the furthest by proposing that the Elijah-Elisha narrative was instrumental as a literary model behind each of the Gospels. See Thomas L. Brodie, The Crucial Bridge (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000).

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 In a previous article on Jesus’ student-teacher relationship with John the Baptist, we mentioned that there is so much that can be learned about education from Jesus’ example. The mystery of the incarnation is packed with significance for the process of learning, human maturation and discipleship. As it says in Hebrews,

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.” (Heb 5:8-9 ESV)

The idea that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered” includes the cross as the culminating event, but it also consists in his whole life from cradle to grave. The author of Hebrews argues at length for Jesus’ role as high priest, and this too implies that Christ’s humanity necessarily includes the common human experiences of learning, growth and development.

It’s unfortunate that we don’t have much of a record of Jesus’ childhood, because that would no doubt be a gold mine for reflection on educational ideals. What insights we could mine on the ideal learner by studying Jesus’ boyhood! Of course, to talk of fortune is silly when we know that God providentially preserved for us exactly the information he wanted us to know about Jesus’ early years. And therefore we have all the more reason to mine the one significant passage on his boyhood, and that is the story from Luke of the boy Jesus being left behind in Jerusalem at twelve years old.

Borrowing from Hebrews’ identification of Jesus as our great high priest, we’ll unpack the passage by focusing on Jesus’ priestly learning, his priestly lineage and his priestly humility, before stepping back at what Jesus’s example as the ideal learner can teach us about education generally.

The Ideal Learner Left Behind in the Temple

41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 44 but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

Luke 2:41-52, ESV

Luke, the writer of this Gospel narrative, sets the scene for us well. It’s a classic case of lost child. I’m sure many parents have similar stories of losing or almost losing track of a child in a busy place. My mother tells the story of almost losing my brother in a crowded airport. I have some friends who often tell the story of leaving one child of several behind at a gas station in the midst of a long journey for a few minutes before doubling back to get him. There are few experiences more frightening or dismaying for a parent.

Some indications from the beginning of this Gospel suggest that Luke has had a chance to interview Mary, late in her life, after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Can you imagine what it would have been like to sit down with Mary, Jesus’ mother, and hear her tell story after story about his early life? Of those stories that could have been told, this one made it in the Gospels because of its significance in pointing to Jesus’ identity and self-awareness as God’s son.

Jesus, along with his mother and father, had joined a group of Jewish pilgrims every year travelling from Nazareth up to Jerusalem. And this was such a commonplace yearly occurrence for them, amongst the jostling crowds, with a set of fellow Nazarenes in all likelihood, that when all the rites had been fulfilled for the festival of Passover and it came time to head home, Joseph and Mary thought nothing of it as they all departed with the group. As Luke tells it, they simply assumed that Jesus was with their relatives somewhere in the caravan that was heading toward Nazareth. You can imagine how the slight uneasiness of the parents at not seeing him would grow throughout the day as they are journeying on, how they might begin to actively search for him, asking their neighbors and relatives in the caravan if they’d seen their son. And then at last as uneasiness turned to downright panic, they realized that he was not anywhere in their group and so they had to turn around and head back on their own to the incredibly busy and likely dangerous capital to search for their lost son. Undoubtedly this would become a memory engraved on a mother’s mind beyond all the other trivial occurrences of day to day life.

Well, what is striking about this episode is not his parents’ fear and three-day long search, which are understandable enough given the circumstances. No, what caused this story to be recorded is where Jesus actually was and what he was doing the whole time his parents were frantically searching, which brings us to our first point and that is his priestly learning.

1. Priestly Learning

Jesus had spent those four days in the temple sitting among the teachers and asking them questions. And as it says in verse 47, “all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” In spite of being from the Podunk town of Nazareth, not from a priestly or rabbinic family of any significance whatsoever, not even having had the opportunities of any formal education in the scriptures, aside from what could be picked up at the local synagogue or the yearly trip to Jerusalem, Jesus was apparently remarkable for his learning.

Now I mean that in two senses. First and perhaps most important is that Jesus has sought out the learning; he is, we might say, an active learner. After all, he’s the one that got so caught up in questioning the teachers who would daily come to the temple courts that he failed to go with the departing caravan. He displays a youthful eagerness for learning all that he can about God and the scriptures, listening carefully and thoughtfully to the priests and scribes and rabbis, asking them questions. He is engaged in the type of learning process that would have been reserved primarily for those training to be priests or teachers of the law of Moses. He has sought it out and claimed this priestly learning as his own.

But secondly, there is his learning, in the sense of his own insight or understanding based on what he has learned or known. The ability of his questions to drive at the core issue and his own insightful answers to the questions of these teachers were a source of amazement to everyone watching this unique teacher-student dynamic in the temple. Even without a priestly education, Jesus had a priestly wisdom and a depth of understanding about the relationship of God and humanity that would have fit him for the priesthood.

It might feel strange to discuss Jesus learning about the Bible, God and the priestly duties and sacrifices of the Mosaic law, and that’s because as modern Christians we tend to stress and emphasize Jesus’ divinity—the fact that he is fully God, different and set apart from us. And there’s a good reason for that: those who don’t believe in Jesus, non-Christians, are perfectly fine with talking about Jesus as a man, as a human being, and so we are inclined to emphasize the important truth of his divinity that they wouldn’t agree with, but which we hold so dear. But it’s important for us not to forget Jesus’ full humanity, that he was a baby, that he grew up as a boy, and learned things, experienced life and suffered just like we do. In some mysterious way Jesus is both: fully God and fully man, 100% God, 100% frail human being.

And that is so important, because that mystery is precisely what enables Jesus to be our great high priest. As a human being, Jesus shares in all of our experience, in all that it means to be a human in this world; and that includes learning. He can sympathize with our weakness and struggle, with our questions and heartache, with our everyday challenges of school life and the process of learning, because he himself learned as a child, just like we all did… just like our children and students do.

2. Priestly Lineage

By priestly lineage I don’t mean to say that Jesus was born into a priestly family, of the line of Levi or Aaron. In fact, the Gospel writers are very clear that he was of the tribe of Judah, from which no priest in Israel’s history ever came. No, Jesus wasn’t of priestly lineage in that sense. What I’m referring to here is the startling and prophetic response that Jesus the twelve-year-old boy gives to Mary when she starts her scolding.

After scouring Jerusalem for three days, Mary has as good an excuse as any to go into lecture mode, “Your father and I have been worried sick?! Why have you done this to us? Do you have any idea the anxiety we’ve experienced while looking all over for you?!” she says, more or less. And Jesus answers them enigmatically, as if in a riddle, saying, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to be in my father’s courts?” Most translations say “in my father’s house” and that gets at it well, but the Greek is a very general expression like “at my father’s place,” only it’s plural, which would give some hint that it implied the holy places or sanctuary.

In hindsight we can see how Jesus’ cryptic statement points not only to his self-understanding as God’s Son, but also to his priestly role as the mediator between God and man. After all, God’s house would naturally be home to priests, like Samuel of old, who was dedicated to the Lord after his miraculous birth, when God heard his mother Hannah’s prayer and opened her womb. In a way, Jesus is saying that he has come home, that he should have always been here in his Father’s holy places, and his earthly parents should have known that.

Luke makes clear that Mary and Joseph had no idea what he meant by that at the time. You can imagine that they weren’t in the mood for interpreting riddles, and you get the impression that this wasn’t the only time Jesus said something puzzling or enigmatic. Of course, Mary and Joseph would have known the mystery of Jesus’ divine parentage, the fact that his true Father really was the God of Israel himself—how the angel had proclaimed to Mary that the child to be born to her would be called the Son of the Most High. If anyone had a right to be a priest in God’s house, it was Jesus. Where else would he be found than in his Father’s sanctuary, devoting himself to learning in the rabbinic discussion-based format?

3. Priestly Humility

Well, in spite of Jesus’ divine and priestly lineage, in spite of his astonishing priestly learning, Jesus does not immediately embark on the trajectory of a child prodigy, seeking the best teachers in Jerusalem, taking advantage of his claim to fame in the nation’s capital. Jesus simply and humbly goes back home with his parents to the small out-of-the-way town of Nazareth, where he has no hope of becoming famous for his learning or advancing to the top of the priestly hierarchy of Israel. And he even, says Luke, “was submissive to” his parents, obeying them, from the heart, even if his learning and pedigree was beyond their own.

Try to imagine for a moment what that would have been like, to be Jesus, and to submit humbly to poor, ordinary, sinful parents, without great learning or skills or resources; to learn from Joseph the rudimentary skills of carpentry, when he had the ability to study with the best rabbis of Israel. Jesus exercised an incredible priestly humility. I wonder what would have happened if the boy Jesus had pushed for more advancement and influence. It certainly wouldn’t have followed the God-ordained plan that Jesus would grow up like “a root out of dry ground” and that he would have “no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2 ESV). But more than fulfilling prophecy, it would have short-circuited the normal human process and development.

Perhaps that’s why Luke closes out this section by stating that “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” Perhaps it’s actually in the humble submission of obeying your parents and teachers, of apprenticeship into a trade, of humble service and labor, day in and day, that human beings grow. Wisdom, that priestly wisdom of maintaining a right relationship with God, comes through humility. Indeed Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered.”

Applications to Teaching and Learning

Well, we’ve already mentioned some ways that this passage can speak to our educational renaissance by offering a picture of the ideal learner. But let’s draw out some implications just a touch further in terms of the content, method and purpose of Jesus brief stint of priestly learning.

Content: Text-centered Instruction

Our first implication for education relies on a historical inference. What were Jesus and the teachers of the law discussing for all those days as Jesus lingered in the temple courts? I’ve already made allusion to the Mosaic law and the scriptures, reflecting my view that the instruction was focused on the text of scripture and its interpretation. While this isn’t stated explicitly in Luke, from a historical perspective it is almost certainly the case. Rabbinic focus on the exact meaning and application of the Hebrew scriptures did not pop out of nowhere after AD 70. The teachers of the law and the priests in the temple had the books of the Pentateuch as a fundamental starting point.

Education focused on passing on this cultural and religious heritage, alongside the oral torah, or spoken instruction about the text as passed on from generation to generation of religious leaders and teachers. We don’t need to embrace an authoritative view of this tradition to appreciate its relevance for education. For both the highly skilled and the normal Jew, the centerpiece of education focused on a text. There was content to be known and understood and that content was found in the rich literature recording Israel’s cultural history.

Of course, in this case the texts also revealed God and were inspired by Him in ways that no other body of literature could. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point that the content of education was traditional, in the sense that it focused on passing down a cultural heritage of wisdom through instruction in particular texts. This is an important point because in our culture active experiences get so much hype that we tend to downplay the centrality of learning a body of literature through the hard work of sitting down and reading it with focused attention.

Method: Discussion-based Learning

There are many different terms for discussion-based learning today, from the socratic dialogue (which means any number of different things to different teachers, not many of which have a close relationship to Socrates’ actual method) to partner talk, harkness tables, or the dialectic of the liberal arts tradition. The description of Jesus both listening to the teachers and asking them questions, and amazing them with his insight and answers seems to point to some sort of multifaceted learning process that had discussion as its base. This is not a one-sided set of interactions; teachers and students both ask questions and also give answers to each other. It is therefore a fundamentally different mode of education than one that is primarily one-way at its base. Jesus does not sit and take notes while the teachers of the law lecture, only to be tested later on his ability to spew up the identical factual content he received. Instead, they discuss the content of scripture together.

We want to be careful here not to claim that there isn’t a place for direct instruction. Jesus himself will go on to teach to the crowds in sermons and parables at length, with no dialogue mentioned. However, the Gospels do record that he would then often discuss the details at length with his inner circle of disciples, showing that the ideal method of learning was discussion-based, not simply hearing-based, and that in fact the public telling of the parables was meant to conceal the full reality from the crowds, not showcase an optimal teaching method as some today claim (see e.g. Mark 4:10ff.). At the very least Jesus’ own practice as a boy points to how the ideal learner interacts, asks questions and responds with full engagement in the learning process.

Purpose: Wisdom, Stature and Favor

Luke’s final comment about Jesus’ submission to Joseph and Mary signal a broader purpose for both his education and his sonship. The first thing to notice is that there is a focus on “increase” or growth in particular qualities or attainments. The purpose of childhood and education is therefore subjective in the sense that it aims to develop this particular child. Second are the qualities themselves. Wisdom is intellectual, no doubt, but also spiritual, moral and relational, if the book of Proverbs is any clue to what Luke has in mind here. Stature is clearly physical, referring in the Greek to age or time of life development, but also to the maturity and bearing of an adult. Favor with God and man focuses on his reputation and relationships. Here in a nutshell we have a holistic educational goal of personal development in physical, moral, intellectual, spiritual and relational components of what it means to be a mature human being.

Jesus, the ideal learner, learned obedience through suffering and submission as a child, grew in wisdom, stature and favor, and thus illustrates for us the trajectory of a holistic education in content, method and purpose.

Please let me know your responses in the comments! Is there something I missed? How else do you see Jesus in the role of learner?

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