Purpose of Christian Education

It is a common thing to hear that the educational system is falling apart. There are all sorts of solutions, from increased pay to teachers to four day school weeks. But all of the solutions seem to be slapping band-aids on gaping wounds and not even touching the issues. To address the problem, we have to go back to what is the purpose of education?

The word "education" means to "draw out."

I am reminded of Plato’s story of the cave. Deep in the cave, people are chained so they look at the back wall of the cave. They cannot turn around to the light, but they see the shadows of things cast onto the rough wall of the cave. They learn to recognize what the shapes they see and believe that those shadows are the real things. But what they see are shadows, and deformed shadows at that. Plato argued that it was the philosopher’s job to educate people to understand not only that they are seeing shadows, but also to help them turn around and see the thing casting the shadow, the real things.

In this story, education is drawing humans out of the darkness of misconception and misunderstanding into the light of reality. 

Christian Education adds another layer to this illustration. Again and the again, the Bible uses metaphors that illustrate we don’t see things clearly. “Now we see in part, then we shall see in full,” “What is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” “We see dimly as through a glass,” and so on. Clearly there is a world that is outside what we see, feel, touch, and even think about. 

So like Plato's cave, humanity is in the dark and needs to be drawn out, but unlike Plato, the condition needs more than philosophy.

The purpose of Christian education is to become more human.

This begs the question, what does it mean to be human? And how can humans become more or less human?

In Genesis, the Bible starts with describing humanity designed to live in a relationship with God. This primary relationship was supposed to shape every other relationship that a human could have--with other human beings and the world we live in. God created this, and it was good. 

But humans wanted, and we still want, to decide for ourselves what is good and evil. So we disobey God’s standards and try to set up our own. Instead of letting God be God, we try to make ourselves Mini-gods. Unfortunately, by stepping out of our place, we end up becoming less human; we are not being who we were created to be.

Jesus steps into this broken relationship. Very God, as the Nicean Creed says, becomes very man. He is the only one who can be what we have tried to become, but he does it by submitting himself to the Father. By dying in our place, our great Teacher and Savior, can draw us out of the darkness, not just of ignorance, but also sin and the desire to control our world. 

Therefore, the purpose of Christian education is to imitate Christ as we step down from the pedestal of mini-gods, and become human again: to live in the relationship with God, others, and the world as we were designed to live.

Note: This is not the end, but this is all I can write for right now.