CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.
WHATSOEVER is not Christian, is not
becoming to Christians. A Christian
education is the only education that can
possibly be becoming to Christians. In Christian
education the Book of Christianity must be
preeminent. The Bible is the Book of
Christianity.
The purpose of Christian education is to
build up Christians. Nothing that is not
Christian can ever properly be brought into
the education of a Christian, any more than
can anything that is not Christian be
properly brought into any other phase of the life of
the Christian. Therefore, the Book of
Christianity, -- the Bible, -- must be the standard of
Christian education; it must be the test of
everything that enters into the education of a
Christian; and it must supply all that is
needed in the education of the Christian. And this
contemplates education in the highest,
broadest, and best sense -- the all-round, practical
development of the individual, mentally,
physically, and morally.
It has been, and it is, too much supposed
that Christianity has to do only with a sort of
spiritualized existence, apart from the
real occupations and practical things of life. This
will never do. Christianity belongs in the
deepest sense as a vital working force, in all that
ever rightly can go to make up the sum of
human life upon the earth. And Christian
education is true to its name and
profession only when it demonstrates this all-pervading
power of Christianity as a vital element in
all that can properly enter into the course of
human life.
It can not be denied that the life of
Christ is the demonstration of Christianity. He
is the model Man: the Pattern of what every
man must be to be a perfect Christian. And it
is certain that Christ in human flesh
demonstrating the Christian life on earth, put Himself
in vital connection with every true
relationship of human life upon this earth. He came
into the world an infant; He grew up from
infancy to manhood, as people in this world do;
He met all that human beings in this world
meet as they grow up; He met all the
vicissitudes and experiences of human life,
precisely, as to the fact, as all people meet
them; for "in all things it behooved
Him to be made like unto His brethren." He was "in
all points tempted like as we are;"
and He worked as a carpenter with Joseph, until the
day of His showing unto Israel in the
active work of His preaching, healing, ministry.
And He was just as much the Saviour of the
world when He was sawing boards and
making benches and tables, as He was when
He was preaching the sermon on the mount.
And this demonstrates that Christianity
just as truly and as vitally enters into the
mechanical or other affairs of every-day
life as it does into the preaching of the divinest
sermon that was ever delivered.
And yet, in all this Jesus was only the
Word made flesh. The Word of God, in
written form, was in the world before Jesus
came in the flesh; but through the blindness
and hardness of heart of men, that Word was
not allowed to manifest itself truly in the
flesh. He came that this might be allowed.
In Him, the Word that was here before He
came, was made flesh, and dwelt among men,
as the model Man. Since, then, Jesus was
the Word made flesh, nothing appeared in
His life on earth that was not already in the
Word. And since that which He was in the
flesh was only what the Word was that was
here before He came, it is certain that it
was by the Word of God, through the Spirit of
God, that He was made to be what He was, in
the flesh. And this demonstrates that the
Word of God, the Bible, the Book of
Christianity, contains that which will completely
educate mankind in an allround, symmetrical
life; and that no education is Christian that
does not enter vitally into all the
occupations and affairs of human life upon the earth.
The life of Christ, therefore, as it
appeared upon the earth -- that life being only
the expression of the Word of God -- causes
to stand forth clearly and distinctly the great
truth that the Bible, the Book of Christianity,
is the greatest educational element, the
greatest educational agency, the greatest
educational Book, in the world. It is therefore
true, that in the Word of God, the Bible,
are "hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge," as truly as in Him, who in
the flesh was but the expression of that Word.
Accordingly, the Word of God is given, in
order "that the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good
works."
This is the position which the Word of God
occupied as an educational factor in
the view of Christianity in ancient time,
and this estimate is grandly echoed by that
eminent Christian, the morning star of
Christianity in modern times, John Wycliffe:
"There is no subtlety, in grammar,
neither in logic, nor in any other science that can be
named, but that it is found in a more
excellent degree in the Scriptures."
Social Plugin