Which%20Story%20is%20Shaping%20Your%20Home-Education?%20The%20Biblical%20Story%20and%20Education

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Which Story is Shaping Your Home-Education?The
Biblical Story and Education

• Michael Goheen
• Burnaby B.C.

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Romans 12.1-2

• Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of
  Gods mercy, to offer your bodies as living
  sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is
  your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform
  any longer to the pattern of this world, but be
  transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then
  you will be able to test and approve what Gods
  will is--his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

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Mark 1.14-15

• . . . Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the
  good news of God. The time has come, he said.
  The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and
  believe the good news.

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Announcement of kingdom

• God is now acting in love and power through
  Jesus and by his Spirit to restore all of
  creation and all of human life to again live
  under the benevolent reign of God himself
  (Bartholomew and Goheen).

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Four observations

• Power of God unto salvation
• Climax and centre of a story
• Gods people essential in its transmission
• Restoration of all human life and creation

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First observation

• Gospel is power of God unto salvation
• Provides empowerment for home-educating task

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Power of God unto salvation

• . . . the Kingdom of God is the redemptive
  reign of God dynamically active to establish his
  rule among human beings, and that this Kingdom .
  . . has already come into human history in the
  person and mission of Jesus to overcome evil, to
  deliver people from its power, and to bring them
  into the blessings of Gods reign (Ladd).

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The Gospel . . .

• is an announcement about what God is doing in
  history in Jesus Christ through the Spirit
• is the announcement that God is active to
  restore all of creation and all of human life to
  live again under his rule
• is the power to transform the whole of our lives

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Second observation

• Gospel is climax and centre of a story
• Provides ultimate context for home-education

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Gospel as . . .

• Centre, climax, and fulfillment of Old Testament
  story
• Revelation of goal of universal history
  (kingdom)
• Accomplishment of end of universal history
  (kingdom)

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Bible as one story

• I do not believe that we can speak effectively
  of the Gospel as a word addressed to our culture
  unless we recover a sense of the Scriptures as a
  canonical whole, as the story which provides the
  true context for our understanding of the meaning
  of our livesboth personal and public.
• - Lesslie
  Newbigin

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• The Bible tells one unfolding story of
  redemption against the backdrop of creation and
  fall.

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Story of the whole world

• . . . the whole point of Christianity is that it
  offers a story which is the story of the whole
  world. It is public truth (Wright).
  

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Bible as universal history

• I can't understand why you missionaries present
  the Bible to us in India as a book of religion.
  It is not a book of religion-and anyway we have
  plenty of books of religion in India. We don't
  need any more! I find in your Bible a unique
  interpretation of universal history, the history
  of the whole of creation and the history of the
  human race. And therefore a unique interpretation
  of the human person as a responsible actor in
  history. That is unique. There is nothing else in
  the whole religious literature of the world to
  put alongside it (Chaturvedi Badrinath).

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Biblical story . . .

• Universally valid True for all people in all
  times and places
• Comprehensive scope Story claims the whole of
  human life

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Importance of reading Bible as one story

• If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it
  is in danger of being absorbed into whatever
  other story is shaping out culture, and will thus
  cease to shape our lives as it should. Idolatry
  has twisted the dominant cultural story of the
  secular Western world. If as believers we allow
  this story . . . to become the foundation of our
  thought and action, then our lives will manifest
  not the truths of Scripture, but the lies of an
  idolatrous culture. Hence, the unity of Scripture
  is no minor matter a fragmented Bible may
  actually produce theologically orthodox, morally
  upright, warmly pious idol worshippers!
  (Bartholomew and Goheen).

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Drama of Scripture

• Act 1 God establishes his kingdom Creation
• Act 2 Rebellion in the kingdom Fall
• Act 3 The King chooses Israel Redemption
  initiated
• Act 4 The coming of the King Redemption
  accomplished
• Act 5 Spreading the news of the King The
  mission of the church
• Act 6 The return of the King Redemption
  completed

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Third observation

• Church and its mission central to the gospel
• Provides purpose for home-education

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Our place in the story

• Kingdom already here but not yet fully arrived
• Continuing Jesus mission (John 2021 As the
  Father has sent me, I am sending you.)
• Embody the end of the story and invite others
  into it
• Witness to the kingdom

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Education for witness

• Given foretaste of salvation
• Actual taste of salvation of future kingdom now
• Promise of salvation in future
• Charged to be previews of kingdom
• Actual footage
• Interest viewer of coming attraction
• All of life

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Sacred/Secular dualism undermines kingdom witness
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Purpose of our educational endeavours

• Pass along insight into Gods world in light of
  gospel
• To equip children for witness in Gods world
• To live whole life under Lordship of Jesus
  Christ
• Curriculum What do they need to live faithfully
  in todays world?

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Lord of all creation

• There is no thumb-width of the entire domain of
  our human life of which the Christ, the Sovereign
  over everything does not proclaim It is mine!
  (Kuyper)
• There is no neutral ground in the universe
  every square inch, every split second, is claimed
  by God and counterclaimed by Satan. (CS Lewis)

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Educating to form a contrast community

• A community of justice in a world of economic and
  ecological injustice
• A community of generosity and simplicity (of
  enough) in a consumer world
• A community of selfless giving in a world of
  selfishness
• A community of truth (humility and boldness) in a
  world of relativism
• A community of hope in a world of disillusionment
  and consumer satiation
• A community of joy and thanksgiving in a world of
  entitlement
• A community who experiences Gods presence in a
  secular world

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Fourth Observation

• Gospel is about the restoration of all of human
  life in the context of the whole creation
• Lens for home-education

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Most basic structure of Biblical story

• Creation God creates a good world giving
  humanity a special place
• Sin The creation is polluted and twisted by
  human rebellion
• Restoration God sets out on the long road of
  redemption to restore the whole creation and all
  of human life back to its original goodness.

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Salvation is restoration

• Salvation is not salvation from the creation
• Salvation is salvation of the good creation
  (including human life) from sin
• Salvation is the restoration of all of human
  life and the whole creation to live again under
  Gods rule

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Salvation is comprehensive

• For God was pleased to have all His fullness
  dwell in Him Jesus and through Him to reconcile
  to Himself all things... (Col. 1.19-20).
• He Jesus must remain in heaven until the time
  comes for God to restore everything... (Acts
  3.21).
• Cf. Eph. 1.10 Rev. 21.5 Rom. 8. 19-21.

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Comprehensive scope

• ...for if redemption does not go as far as the
  consequences of sin, it is a misnomer, and fails
  to be redemption... The salvation of any number
  of individuals... is not the redemption of what
  fell but the gathering up of a few splinters...
  Satans mischief goes further than Christs
  restoration (Seiss).

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Salvation reduced

• The early Christian belief that the Fall and
  Redemption pertained not just to man, but to the
  entire cosmos, a doctrine already fading after
  the Reformation, now under secularism of 19th
  c. disappeared altogether the process of
  salvation, if it had any meaning at all,
  pertained solely to the personal relation between
  God and man.
• -Richard Tarnas
  (unbeliever!)

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Disaster of reduced salvation

• Reduction of salvation to a personal
  relationship with God has been disastrous to our
  witness to Christs Lordship over all
• Gospel reduced to future, otherworldly salvation
  
• Gospel not brought to bear on much of life
• Church shaped by idolatrous cultural story

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Part of a kingdom battle


Kingdom of darkness
Kingdom of God
Creation
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• Nothing matters but the kingdom . . .
• . . . but because of the kingdom
  
  
  
  
• everything
  matters!

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To be transformed by the renewing of our mind in
education we . . .

• need to know story of Bible, our place in it, and
  how it shapes the educational task
• need discernment to reshape educational forms by
  the gospel to achieve Christian education

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Further information

• www.biblicaltheology.ca www.genevasociety.org
• mike.goheen_at_twu.ca
• Books available

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Books available