In the April 2011 issue of Tabletalk magazine from Ligonier Ministries (www.ligonier.org) there is an interview with R. Albert Mohler, Jr., the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In the interview Dr. Mohler is asked about what the church can do to better prepare its members to meet the cultural challenges of the 21st century. His answer is excellent, and is just as applicable to the Christian school as to the church.
“For far too long, evangelical churches have simply assumed that it is our task to give our church members a basic level of biblical knowledge, to create opportunities for Christian fellowship, and to encourage parents in the Christian nurture of their children. But what we have failed to understand is that Christians in the twenty-first century are being thrown into a world in which just a little bit of Bible knowledge is simply not going to be enough. Simply having positive fellowship and nurturing experiences in the church and in the Christian family will not be enough. The church must prepare people to be able to think Christianly in a world where the intellectual rules have fundamentally changed. They are going to have to learn to be faithful in terms of every-day decision making, in terms of profound moral questioning, and in terms of political, economic, and cultural issues. It is not that the church needs to be constantly talking about the culture; rather, it is that with the cultural challenge around us, we need to talk more and more about the Bible and coming to a deeper understanding of the Scriptures. The church must equip its members to be deeply biblical so that the theological mode of thinking is something that comes naturally to believers. Such Christians will be saturated with biblical truth, sustained by the life of the congregation, and encouraged into faithfulness by the communion of the saints.”
What Dr. Mohler describes is exactly what effective Christian educators and Christian schools seek to instill in each of their students. A biblical worldview is the ability to think Christianly–it is the lens or the filter through which we see and understand everything around us. Some Christian schools (and some churches) are content to sprinkle their classes (or their services) with a few Bible verses here and there, probably a prayer, and then to spend the rest of their time trying to act like, look like, and be attractive to the world. The Bible makes it very clear that we are not to be of the world. A deeper understanding of Scriptures is exactly what is needed if we are to make an impact for Christ.
At Sunshine Bible Academy, and at other Christian schools faithful to God’s design for education, every subject is presented with a biblical worldview. We do not hide from or ignore the realities of the world around us, but we ensure that our students understand what is taking place in the world by understanding how it fits into God’s plan and/or is a result of man’s fallen nature. Every subject is interconnected–to each other, and to the Bible. Yes, there is a Bible class that each student takes, but biblical instruction is not restricted to that class. When instructors teach math, science, history, literature, music, physical education and art they do so with a biblical worldview. Students learn to see the orderliness of God in math, the power, wonder and majesty of God in His creation, the importance of good health in maintaining our bodies for the Lord’s service in physical education, and so on.
Education from a biblical worldview equips students to meet the challenges of the 21st century, both academically and biblically.
THINKING OUT LOUD 