I then went on to offer two general ways a Christian school can engage in the discipleship of its students. The first way is what I deemed holistic discipleship. Holistic discipleship is the integration of faith into the thoughts and activities of everyday life: habits, meals, learning, and leisure, for example. Holistic discipleship in a Christian school can include Bible studies and prayer meetings, but more often, it occurs organically. One teacher may choose to end her literature class in prayer after an intense debate. Another teacher might catch a student after class to keep the conversation going about the relationship between science and faith. And so on. 

The second way I suggested a Christian school can engage in discipleship is through training students to think through a Christian grid, or worldview. We all approach knowledge and questions with particular assumptions and presuppositions about how the world works. Our students are no different. Likely formed through popular culture and social media, students have grown up within the milieu of a secular society and naturally see the world through this lens. Teachers can disciple their students to think Christianly about the world by drawing attention to secular worldview assumptions that often go unchallenged and going on to lay out a compelling biblical alternative. 

But are these two approaches to discipleship sufficient? Are there additional ways? What about the idea of spiritual formation and the impact it could have on the Christian school’s approach to discipleship? In this article, I will explore the use of spiritual disciplines in the context of discipleship and take a special look at the spiritual discipline of study.

Transformation Through the Disciplines

In his classic book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster argues that spiritual disciplines are the gateway to spiritual transformation. Interestingly, in my first article on discipleship, I mentioned nothing of being transformed spiritually. And yet, is this not central to the aim of discipleship? If growing as a disciple is being conformed to the image of Christ, it will be nothing less than the utter transformation of a person into someone new.

Foster believes spiritual transformation happens first and foremost through receiving the free gift of righteousness. But he goes on to caution that this grace is received, not through passive antinomianism, but through active “sowing to the spirit” (Gal. 6:8). He writes, “Once we clearly understand that God’s grace is unearned and unearnable, and if we expect to grow, we must take up a consciously chosen course of action involving both individual and group life. That is the purpose of the spiritual disciplines” (7).

In a similar way, Dallas Willard begins his book Spirit of the Disciplines with the statement that modern Christianity has failed to take human transformation seriously. Therefore, the church must clarify and exemplify realistic methods of human transformation, thereby showing “how ordinary individuals…can become, through the grace of Christ, a love-filled, effective, and powerful community” (ix). Willard goes on to contend that the church today largely misunderstands how experiences and actions enable us to receive the grace of God. His solution: pursue a life of spiritual disciplines.

It seems to me that Foster and Willard are on to something. If the goal of discipleship is to help someone follow Jesus and grow in conformity to his image, we need to equip disciples with practical ways they can do that will lead to the transformation we desire. Just as a soccer coach has a collection of drills and exercises to strengthen the skill of his players and overtime to develop them into better soccer players, it seems that the would-be disciple-maker would possess a similar collection. And yet so often today, students growing up in Christian homes proceed through their young adult years without this training.

Types of Disciplines

So what are the disciplines that lead to spiritual transformation and which ones can be promoted in a Christian school context? Richard Foster divides the disciplines into three groups: inward disciplines, outward disciplines, and corporate disciplines. 

Inward disciplines focus on cultivating one’s inward life through prayerful contemplation and reflection. These practices include meditation, prayer, fasting, and study. Outward disciplines, on the contrary, are oriented toward one’s interaction with the external, often physical world. These practices include simplicity, solitude, submission, and service. Finally, the corporate disciplines underscore the practices that occur in community with others: confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. 

Interestingly, Dallas Willard groups the spiritual disciplines into only two categories: disciplines of abstinence and disciplines of engagement. Disciplines of abstinence are the practices we employ to gain control over “…the satisfaction of what we generally regard as normal and legitimate desires” (159). He is careful to point out that these desires are not necessarily sinful in and of themselves. But in our sinful human condition, it is these desires that often run “…a rebellious and harmful course.” The goal is to bring these desires back into coordination of a life aligned with Christ. Willard’s list of the disciplines of abstinence include solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice. 

Conversely, the disciplines of engagement are those that realign our desires and practices with proper engagement with God. While disciplines of abstinence counteract tendencies of commission (the things we ought not do), disciplines of engagement counteract tendencies of omission (the things we ought to do). Willard’s list here includes study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission (158).

Whether you prefer Foster’s groupings or Willard’s, the upshot is that there is an arsenal of disciplines at the disciple’s disposal for growing in Christ. While these disciplines take effort and intentionality, when pursued in and through the power of the Holy Spirit, they contain the elements for real spiritual transformation. For those new to the topic, let me clarify that Foster and Willard do not necessarily recommend implementing a spiritual regimen of all these disciplines at once. Rather, they are providing a menu of strategies that encompass a fully-orbed view of a person, and how every facet of what it means to be human can be placed under the transformative lordship of Christ.

The Discipline of Study

It is worth exploring the different ways a Christian school can implement these disciplines for the spiritual growth of their students, but I do not want to be misinterpreted to suggest that all these disciplines should be implemented. Again, we need to draw distinctions between the discipleship approaches of the church and school, and the home as well.

But I do want to suggest that schools are uniquely able to facilitate the spiritual discipline of study. In education today, the act of study is associated with the preparation for an upcoming examination, usually with high-stakes consequences. Thus, study is a word infused with connotations of labor, stress, and deadlines.

But Foster encourages us to step back and think of study as a broader approach to engaging the objective world and, in doing so, to be transformed. It is a discipline that facilitates a state of rest and peacefulness as one contemplates truths that are unchanging, good, and often beautiful. This is quite the opposite of our modern view of study!

Foster frames his chapter on study with Paul’s words to the Philippian church: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). In the Book of Romans, we see Paul’s vision for this discipline, namely, that believers will be “transformed by the renewal of their minds” (Rom. 12:2).

How does this happen? The idea is that as we focus on truth, we align our beliefs and belief processes to the objective structures of knowledge. The things we focus on conform our habits and thinking to the order of the thing studied. The more we fill our minds with God’s goodness, truth, and beauty, the more oriented toward him we become in our intellectual and cognitive disposition. Conversely, the more we saturate ourselves with the opposite, the more oriented we will be toward the cares of the world.

This is one reason why gaining control over one’s consumption of shows and social media is so important. It is temping to think that we can watch whatever we want to and it will have no effect on us. Or that endless scrolling of social media is a harmless activity. But the reality is that these behaviors can and will change us, literally rewiring our brains, as the science has shown, and changing us over time.

What to Study

So what should we study in order to experience spiritual formation for ourselves and for our students? Here are five suggestions:

The Bible: I am sure you saw this coming. The study of God’s Word should be the primary source we engage in this discipline. We want to teach students to study scriptural passages, not merely as a scholarly pursuit, but as an endeavor to connect personally with God. On this note, Willard writes, “Our prayer as we study meditatively is always that God would meet with us and speak specifically to us, for ultimately the Word of God is God speaking (177).

Experiential Classics: In our individualistic culture, we often assume that growing spiritually is a solo journey. We view spiritual growth as a single path that a traveler journeys down alone. But the better metaphor is not a path, but a pilgrimage. Pilgrims travel together. The reality is that there is a nearly endless list of Christ followers who have been transformed spiritually and have written about their experience. From Augustine’s Confessions to Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ to Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God, we can select texts to add to the curriculum that form our students spiritually as they study these works.

Nature: The intentional study of God’s creation is one of the most life-giving and peaceful experiences I have come across. In a world that champions the conquering of nature for pragmatic ends, we can help students reconnect the natural world with the spiritual through slowing down and observing the beauty and order of nature. The addition of Nature Study as a scheduled part of the school week is a strategic way to help students grow spiritually as they respond with wonder and worship.

Relationships: While the first three suggestions for study are rather conventional, Foster suggests we can grow spiritually by learning to study the relational interactions around us. How do we speak to one another? How do we use our words and interactions? Are we participating in healthy friendships or discouraging ones? By training students to study and reflect on their relationships, they can grow in their understanding of how these relationships are influencing their spiritual walks.

Culture: While it is true that the heart of the spiritual discipline of study is to align our beliefs and belief processes with objective reality, it is important to be reflective about one’s surrounding culture. We often inhabit our world like fish who are fully submersed in water, yet, if asked, haven’t the slightest clue what H20 is. As with worldview thinking, we can facilitate moments for our students to study the culture they live in and thereby grow in discernment of various cultural elements, from moral values to entertainment.

To conclude this article, Christian schools can contribute to the growth of their students as disciples of Christ by encouraging and, in some occasions, facilitating spiritual disciplines. A central component of being a disciple of Christ is being spiritually formed over time. But this sort of transformation does not happen by accident, even if it ultimately a gracious gift of God. As Paul writes, “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:8). May we help our students reap eternal life through providing daily opportunities for them to practice the sort of disciplines that are the pathways to real and lasting spiritual transformation.

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Like most good questions, we must begin by defining our terms. What is discipleship?

According to Mark Dever, a pastor in the Washington D.C. area, we can define discipleship simply as helping someone follow Jesus. As an expanded definition, he writes that discipleship is “…deliberately doing spiritual good to someone so that he or she will be more like Christ” (Discipling, p. 13). Greg Ogden, a pastor who served for many years in the Chicago suburbs, defines discipleship as “walking alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip, and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ” (Discipleship Essentials, p. 17). Taking these two definitions together, the heart of discipleship is encouraging others in their pursuit of Christ. Disciple-makers possess an others-focused mentality and a Christ-centered end goal.

It seems fairly intuitive to me that discipleship, as defined above, happens in Christian schools. Christian teachers who care about young people growing in wisdom and virtue will naturally care about them growing in their faith as well. And yet, it must be stated that the school is not the church. There is an important distinction between these two institutions, which will impact, and potentially limit, the forms discipleship can take in these contexts.

So I move on to the second half of my question: how does discipleship happen in a Christian school?

A Holistic Approach

To begin, I want to differentiate between what I call focused discipleship and holistic discipleship. Focused discipleship is what we most likely think of when we picture discipleship taking place. Two men drinking coffee in Starbucks, having a Bible study and challenging one another to submit their whole lives to Christ. Women getting together to pray and exhort one another with scriptural truths. In these situations, the meetings are intentional, focused, and usually for a particular duration of time. There may be a set agenda for these meetings or there might not be, but the time has been intentionally set apart by the participants to grow toward maturity in Christ.

The alternative to focused discipleship is holistic discipleship. This approach can be less easy to nail down. In holistic discipleship, believers are doing life together as they integrate faith, habits, meals, learning, and leisure into everyday life. Holistic discipleship includes elements of focused discipleship–prayer meetings, Bible studies, 1-on-1 conversations–but it encompasses these gatherings within a broader context of extended relationship.

It seems to me that there is great potential for holistic discipleship at Christian schools. With the amount of time teachers and students spend together each day, the opportunities for faith integration into daily life are practically limitless. With intentionality, teachers can inspire and lead their students to integrate their walk with Christ into speech, habits, routines, interactions, school work, class discussions, assignments, conversations, recess, and meals on a daily basis.

Incorporating Worldview Thinking

So one way discipleship can happen in Christian schools is through this holistic approach. Another potentially more tangible way is through the intentional formation of a Christian worldview.

In Wisdom and Eloquence (Crossway, 2006), Robert LittleJohn and Chuck Evans explore in their chapter entitled “Worldview and the Liberal Arts” what it looks like for a school to teach and learn Christianly. They begin by defining the term “worldview.” Typically, when we think of worldview, we envision holding the correct or biblical positions on key issues of the day. For example, we want to help students develop a biblical worldview on the topic of abortion, forming the conviction that life in the womb is sacred and worthy of protection.

However, the authors argue, worldview is not reducible to positions or even values. It runs much deeper than what propositions we believe or why we believe them. Worldview is a fundamental aspect of our sense of being that orients us toward a particular vision of the good life (44). It is essentially an inner honing device formed over time by our culture and upbringing. As a result, parents and teachers cannot simply teach a Christian worldview through didactic instruction as useful as this can be. Rather, it is passed on, or “caught,” through enculturating and embodied practices. These can include specific routines like attending worship services and prayer meetings as well as more mundane practices like singing, eating, discussing, gardening, and playing. In this way, harnessing the enculturating power of wordview formation is another avenue for schools to disciple students in a holistic manner.

Holistic Discipleship in the Classroom

In the classroom, holistic discipleship begins when teachers integrate their Christian faith into all subjects, not restricting their faith to explicitly religious moments, such as chapel or Bible class. Teachers welcome their students into a life of discipleship when they lead classes and promote classroom cultures in which there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular. In this way, studying literature, science, math, and history becomes an avenue for exploring God’s created world. Empowering students to use their creative capacities to cultivate beauty is a way of living out their identity as image-bearers of God. When teachers make these connections between faith and learning explicit, students are led forward in their journey of following Christ with their whole lives, beginning with their minds.

While each Christian tradition has their own framework and vocabulary for expressing the heart of discipleship, the end goal is the same: helping believers be conformed to the image of Christ. When teachers approach their subjects through the lens of faith, invite their students to think and interact with an idea from a biblical perspective, pointing to the truths of the gospel, and at times including prayer or scripture in their lessons, they are playing a key role in the disciple-making process.

A Paradigm for Thinking Christianly

So how does a teacher ensure she is not only thinking Christianly, but passing it on to her students? LittleJohn and Evans suggest that all people, regardless of faith, interpret life through a particular grid or framework. While there are a myriad of ways to succinctly articular a biblical “grid” through which life is interpreted, as we think about educating students, we will be most successful if the grid we use is clear, coherent, and concrete. For this reason, I recommend the Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation paradigm:

Creation: God created the world good and perfect in order to bring glory to himself. He designated human beings with the specific vocation of bearing his image as the steward and caretakers of his good creation.

Fall: Human beings, endowed with free will, chose to pursue their own desires over God, thereby introducing sin and destruction into the world. This fall impacted not only the soul of humanity, but all of creation and even social institutions. There is not a single aspect of reality–relationships, nature, government, churches, schools, relationships–that is left untainted by sin.

Redemption: God commissioned Jesus, the eternal son of God, to become human and bear the punishment of sin that humans deserve. Through trusting in the sufficiency of Christ’s death on the cross, humans can find forgiveness for their sin, eternal life, and membership in the everlasting family of God. As God’s kingdom breaks in, Christians can serve as agents of reconciliation, sharing the good news and living out their identity as the people of God.

Consummation: While Christ has come and redemption is possible now, believers await with the hope the day when Christ returns and makes everything right. God’s kingdom will be consummated, evil will vanquished, and the people of God will flourishing on a restored earth for eternity. 

This grid is likely familiar to you and for good reason. While imperfect, this fourfold approach to the story of scripture simply yet powerfully explains the message of the gospel. Additionally, it is broad enough to provide the scope for all of life’s experiences and, relevant to schools–academic subjects, to be understood through this grid. As one example, when studying the history of colonialism in the British Empire, students observe the patriotism and duty exhibited amongst the British as they establish colonies across the globe. Using the gospel grid above, a teacher can lead a discussion in which the benefits of a widespread Empire are properly assessed while also underscoring that no human institution can provide the sort of lasting peace and security we all desire. Only when Christ returns will all be made right.

Discipling Students in a Secular Worldview

While the grid above may be familiar, there is another grid you may not have heard of that could be even more familiar nonetheless. It is the grid for secular thinking. If teachers are going to helping their students follow Jesus through the formation of a biblical worldview, they need to be aware of the counter worldview that is ubiquitous in our world today. This is the secular worldview and here are its tenets:

Existence: There is no transcendent purpose or story behind reality that is beyond reality itself. People, animals, plants, and objects exist as a brute fact. It is up to humans themselves to weave together their own tapestry of meaning. 

Individualism: Each human exists as an individual, endowed with the autonomy to think and live however they please. While humans often flourish in communities, the individual self can come and go as it pleases in order to live out its authentic identity.

Identity: Humans are not only individuals physically-speaking. Each human possesses a sacred inner identity that is unique to the person. This identity is fundamentally good and must be respected by fellow humans. External forces, such as religions, moral philosophies, social systems, and governments, are not to encroach upon this identity. 

Happiness: If there is an objective purpose for human existence, it is to be happy. Happiness is not necessarily related to any particular moral or religious vision. Given the brevity of life and the simplicity of biology, happiness is fundamentally about pleasure and well-being. The moral imperative, if there is one, is to do what makes you happy, and pursue the very best life possible, be it through wealth, status, professional achievement, or experiences. 

The reality is that most of our students have been formed by culture to think according to this grid. Therefore, a central way Christian schools can support the discipleship of their students is through bringing this grid to their attention and regularly referring back to the Christian alternative.

Conclusion

In this article, I have been thinking through how discipleship happens in a Christian school. The school is not the church, and we should not, therefore, expect these discipleship approaches to look identical. And yet, discipleship is not a complicated concept. It is the task of helping others follow Jesus. In Christian schools, teachers can take advantage of the life-on-life opportunities they have as they spend multiple hours with their students each day. This opens the door for what I have been calling holistic discipleship, the sort of encouragement to follow Jesus in all facets of life, be it in the classroom, during mealtime, or at recess. In addition, teachers can disciple their students specifically in their thinking through approaching the curriculum through a biblical lens. As schools train students to “submit every thought captive to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5), they will prepare them to not only grow in wisdom and virtue, but Lord-willing, maturity in Christ.

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Interestingly, Augustine of Hippo, the great medieval theologian, observed that the lives we live and the things we love are inextricably linked. What we love impacts if, and how, we embody the virtues. In this way, seeking to live a virtuous life is both a moral enterprise and an affective one.

In fact, Augustine defines virtue in one of his writings as the possession of rightly ordered loves. If Augustine is correct, then our classical classrooms are incubators for not only the intellect and conscience, but the heart. Or to put it better, the classroom can be a place where the intellect, conscience, will, heart, and even body can grow into an integrated whole.

In this article, I will examine one key passage in Augustine’s City of God to examine closer his notion that virtue can be understood as rightly ordered loves. Then I will offer some practical takeaways for classical educators today.

Origins of the City

In The City of God Against the Pagans, or The City of God for short, Augustine offers a defense against pagan accusations that the fall of Rome is the poor result of the empire’s conversion to Christianity. This magnificent work, earning its place in the western canon of Great Books, is composed of twenty-two books, the first ten of which critique paganism while the final twelve tell the story of the City of God vis a vis the earthly city.

Augustine begins his account of the City of God with creation and, soon after, the fall. Following a fascinating discussion on angels, he examines the sinfulness of humanity and how death is the consequence for Adam’s sin. Augustine’s writing here will serve as the groundwork for the doctrine of original sin, the idea that all humans are born with a fallen nature.

A Proper Response to Reality

It is within this context that Augustine discusses beauty, the good, and the idea of properly ordered loves. In his explication of the early chapters of Genesis, specifically the Nephilim episode, Augustine writes, “For bodily beauty is indeed created by God; but it is a temporal and carnal, and therefore, a lower, good; and if it is loved more than God is…that love is as wrong as the miser’s when he forsakes justice out of his love for gold” (Book 15, Section 22).

In this quotation, Augustine introduces the idea that within objective Goodness, there are various types of individual goods, each of which fall upon a plane of gradation. In other words, gradations of goodness and beauty are hard-wired into reality. This reality generates particular moral obligations for human desire, namely, that we ought to love these goods in a way that is commensurate with their value.

Considering the example of a miserly obsession with gold, Augustine writes, “The fault here, though, lies not with the gold, but with the man; and this is true of every created thing: though it is good, it can be loved well or ill; well when the proper order is observed, and ill when that order is disturbed.”

Virtue as Properly Ordered Loves

Augustine goes on:

But if the Creator is truly loved – that is, if He Himself is loved, and not something else in place of Him – then He cannot be wrongly loved. We must, however, observe right order even in our love for the very love by which we love that which is worthy to be loved, so that there may be in us that virtue which enables us to live well. Hence, it seems to me that a brief and true definition of virtue is ‘rightly ordered love.’

City of God, XV.22

Augustine makes two important points here. First, he points out that in order to love God well, we must love Him most, more than anything else. To love God second, third, or behind any other good, is to mis-love Him. 

Second, after ordering love for God as uppermost amongst our loves, we must properly order our subsequent loves. This affective work, we might call it, will serve as the foundation from which virtues can emerge. If Augustine is correct, then one cannot be truly courageous or just or exhibit any other virtues, without some general proper ordering of loves in place.

Takeaways for the Classical Classroom

Augustine’s words are both helpful and convicting for the classical classroom. We talk often about the pursuit of wisdom and the cultivation of virtue. Here at Education Renaissance, we have written extensively about the role of habit training in the project of moral formation and helping our students grow in virtue. If we can help our students rightly order their loves, I believe we will only grow stronger in these endeavors.

One way we can do this is by weaving questions of love and desire into class discussion. What do the different characters in the literature text we are reading love most? Are any of these desires mis-ordered? How have these mis-ordered desires contributed to the problems the characters face?

We can also take the opportunity outside of class to speak into the lives of our students, asking them questions to help them take inventory of their own loves. This should start with affirmation: “I have noticed that you do really well in x. Tell me more about that. Why do you love it so much?” Through these kinds of conversation starters, we can get to the heart and help students begin to monitor and tailor their loves appropriately.

As teachers seek to build class culture and rightly order loves in their classrooms as a whole, here are some additional questions one might ask:

• Do students love learning for the pursuit of knowledge or for the grade that comes with it?
• Do students serve others out of love for neighbor or from a desire to be recognized?
• Do students pursue mastery of some sport, instrument, or other discipline out of a love for the goodness and beauty they create? Or is their motivation driven by modern notions of success?

For most of these questions, the answer is probably both, just as it is for many of us. The goal is not to expect perfection in this area instantaneously, but to consistently plant seeds over the longterm, challenging students to go deeper and consider how they are growing in virtue as people through the way in which their loves are ordered.

For, as the apostle Paul writes, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1-2 ESV).

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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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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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