Since this is my first post, I’m making it a simple one, nice and straight forward. Nothing objectionable a certain site administrator might be embarassed by.

We offer ourselves, our lives and our labors, to God. We live our lives sacrificially, whether we acknowledge it or not. As Christians, every sandwich we make is a sacrifice to God. Every diaper we change is done to his glory. And so, prayer ought to book end every action done in the Christian life. We ought to go into the action giving thanks and praise to God. We ought to finish it, giving the glory to him. (I have a book of eastern prayers. A suggested short prayer on beginning any action is, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” Implicit in this is a confession that we are incapable of completing an action without God. A suggested prayer on completing the action is, “Glory be to you, O Lord.” Here is a prayer giving God glory for what he accomplished in us.)

In the classroom, incorporating prayer is easy. Start your class with prayer. End it with prayer. Offer up that hour or so to God as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. God demands that we live sacrificially to him, so pray your life and your class meeting as a continual sacrifice to him.

hwhy rme)yo,wa “And God said”

This short Hebrew phrase (pronounced va-yo-mer Yahveh) is extremely common in the Old Testament. In fact, these two words, God’s name and the verb “to speak”, make up about 4% of the entire vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible. This is obviously significant. Why is it that speech is such a common theme in the Scriptures, and why is God so often depicted as speaking? It seems that words and speech are essential to our understanding of who the God of the Bible is. Scripture tells us numerous things about God, and many of them are described in terms of words and speech. God is the Creator, but how exactly did He create the heavens and the earth? Genesis 1 shows us that He spoke them into being. God is our Redeemer, but how did he accomplish our redemption? John 1 says that Christ is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. God has made Himself known to His people, but just how do we know things about Him? 1 Cor. 2 says that God reveals Himself to us through His Word, the Scriptures, and enables us to understand it by the Holy Spirit.

Since language and speech are an important attribute of God, I think it is safe to assume that they are important attributes of us as well, being created in His image. Language is something that we use to create, to convey knowledge and meaning, to relate to and do good to others. Language study is therefore a very large aspect of what a school does, and how we teach it ought to be considered carefully.

Now, every school ever established has surely included language study as a part of its curriculum. It is in Christian societies, however, that education has historically placed a greater emphasis on language than in most other societies of the world. The Puritans required each child to learn how to read because they understood that “the most basic knowledge is of the Word of God, and of every area of life viewed in terms of God’s Word.”¹ For them, language study was not just one subject among many. It was of the utmost importance because it enabled the student to read and understand Scripture. Without a knowledge of the Bible, which is the foundation for all knowledge, they believed that instruction in other areas was useless.

Likewise, when it came to study of foreign languages, the Puritans started with Greek and Hebrew, often as early as age 6. If their purpose of studying language was to understand Scripture, why should their purpose of foreign language study be any different? Why not study the languages which would enable students to gain a greater knowledge of the Bible as they read the original text? These are questions which we ought to ask ourselves today as well.

There seem to be two mistaken assumptions which cause the Christians of today to question the wisdom of the Puritans. These assumptions have led to the scarcity of Greek and especially Hebrew language study in Christian schools. The first is that most students will not use the Biblical languages in their adult lives. The second related assumption is that because the purpose of foreign language study in general is essentially pragmatic, it is therefore useless to teach Greek and Hebrew.

I would like to address the second of these assumptions first, because if it is true that it is only helpful to teach students things they will use for the rest of their lives, then we must re-think a lot of what we teach. Why study poetry? Or trigonometry? Why perform drama or read classic literature? Most students will not directly use these things in their vocations. But this line of thinking assumes that doing these things will prevent the study of  more immediately “practical” subjects.  It doesn’t!  Douglas Wilson explains:

We tend to think of our students’ minds as finite shoeboxes, and we then think we must take special care not to put anything in there if we do not want it to remain there for life.  But the brain is more like a muscle.  A student who learns one language, such as Latin, is not stuck with his shoebox three-quarters full, with no room for Spanish.  Rather the student has a mind that has been stretched and exercised in such a way that subsequent learning is much easier, not much harder.2

Learning difficult subjects like trigonometry or Hebrew does not hinder a student’s ability to learn other subjects that may be more useful in his or her adult life. Just the reverse! It will instead strengthen their ability to gain more knowledge and understanding of other subjects in the future.

The study of Biblical Hebrew has a particularly great capacity for “stretching” the minds of students. Hebrew is utterly foreign to Americans in nearly every way. It has a different alphabet, with foreign characters and vowel points. It is read from right to left, versus left to right. Its vocabulary and word order work very differently from English. It has numerous prefixes and suffixes, and often one Hebrew word may take 4 or 5 English words to translate. In short, learning Hebrew is difficult. But it forces students to think and reason in ways they are not normally used to, which allows them to see the world, their studies, and the Bible in ways that they would not otherwise be able to. And it prepares them for other difficult subjects that lay ahead of them. If a student has mastered a difficult language like Hebrew, other complex languages such as algebra or musical notation will not be nearly as hard.

The second common misconception is that Greek and Hebrew do not have any practical benefits for adults. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking both languages will, of course, profit those who go on to pastoral or other teaching ministry in the Church, and hopefully will inspire many to do so. However, students seeking non-ministerial vocations will also gain some very important benefits. Familiarity with the idioms, the structures, and the thought patterns of Greek and Hebrew really does make Scripture pour forth its meaning. Study of these Biblical languages will encourage students to know God’s word more deeply, to be permeated with it, and to enjoy it. The Bible applies to all of life, and is essential to how we worship, how we think, and how we work. If students can learn to enjoy reading God’s word and to give thanks for it as a gift from God, they will be prepared for a lifetime of reading and applying Scripture. Digging into the original text, hearing the words which God spoke and continues to speak, can be a wonderful tool in this process.

Mastery of those words, however, is not the ultimate goal. Rather, knowledge of the words of Scripture ought to lead us to the knowledge of Christ who is the Word made flesh. This is the ultimate purpose of language study and of all study in the Christian school.

1. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1981), 86.

2. Douglas Wilson, The Case for Classical Christian Education (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 140.

By John B. Shaw

In the November newsletter, Dennis Tuuri provided an excellent introduction to the homo adorans model of education. He demonstrated the connection between bringing our tithes and offerings during worship, and educational preparation for our “sacred” work. Our students must prepare to worship in their vocations, and to bring the fruits of their labor to God in formal Lord’s Day worship. This preparation includes training in mathematics, science, language, history, and business as well as in music.

Another area of preparation includes interpersonal relationships. Matthew 5:23-24 says:

Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Not only does God expect us to go forth and transform the world, bringing back a tribute from the return of our labors, but he expects us to do so in a manner that demonstrates love to one another. He instructs us in this matter so that none will be disqualified, and that our worship before Him may be holy, without defect. Mark 11:25 says:

And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. but if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.

Our relationship to God, our conversation with Him, is hindered when we hold anything against anyone. God is love, and Jesus calls us to be one with our brethren, even as He and the Father are one.

1 Peter 2:4-5 sets forth the nature of our relationship to one another:

Come to the Lord Jesus, the “stone” that lives. The people of the world did not want this stone, but he was the stone God chose, and he was precious. You also are like living stones, so let yourselves be used to build a spiritual temple–to be holy priests who offer spiritual sacrifices to God. He will accept those sacrifices through Jesus Christ.

True worship begins in fellowship and communion with God and with one another, being built together into a glorious temple. This temple is not to be broken down as we leave formal worship on Sunday and return to the world, but rather it is to be maintained, yes, even strengthened. This requires diligence and care: keeping our relationships pure and holy, restoring relationships when they are broken, instructing others when necessary, and repenting in humility when we are wrong. Loving our brothers is essential to true worship.

We see this truth in 1 John 4:20-21:

If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

And again in John 13:34-35

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

God intends that our relationships honor Him in every way. When we do this, we demonstrate that we know Him, and that we are His disciples. When we do this, we receive the great blessings of living in community.

This bears directly on the nature and purpose of a homo adorans model school. Such a school will teach and train its students in the ways of right relationships. This includes the relationships of staff to parent, staff to student, student to parent, student to student, and the relationships of all these to their churches and to God. It includes developing proper respect for authorities, in doing all things to build up one another and edify one another in the body of Christ, and in serving not only one another, but the larger communities of which we are a part.

With solid academics preparing students for worship in their chosen vocations, and with sound relationships demonstrating their love of God, our students will be fully prepared to enter into the riches of formal worship, knowing that God accepts them and their offerings without hindrance.

By Dennis R. Tuuri

In Christianity, worship has been considered by most Christians to be the central act of Christian identity throughout history. Many Christian theologians have defined humanity as homo adorans, that is, the ‘worshipping man,’ and thus the worship of God is at the very core of what it means to be human. (Wikipedia) 1

Well, it’s official. When even Wikipedia is using the buzz phrase homo adorans, it’s a real deal. But what does it mean in the context of Christian education?

To begin with, a common misperception is to think homo adorans means that man is only a worshipper. Current usage of the term homo adorans comes from Alexander Schmemann’s wonderful little book entitled For the Life of the World. (This book is available from Exodus Provisions in Oregon City.) Here’s a relevant quote from his book:

[M]an alone…is to respond to God’s blessing with his blessing. …in the Bible to bless God is not a ‘religious’ or ‘cultic’ act, but the very way of life. …All rational, spiritual and other qualities of man, distinguishing him from other creatures, have their focus and ultimate fulfillment in this capacity to bless God, to know, so to speak, the meaning of the thirst and hunger that constitutes his life. ‘Homo sapiens’, ‘homo faber’…yes, but first of all, ‘homo adorans’. The first and basic definition of man is that he is the priest. He stands at the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God….2

Homo is Latin for man. Sapiens comes from the Latin word sapientia, meaning wisdom or intellect. And faber is a person who builds or makes something. We can see the English word “adore” in adorans and “fabricate” in faber.

So, while Schmemann prioritizes homo adorans (man as worshipper), he recognizes that man is also (secondarily) homo sapiens (man as thinker), and homo faber (man as maker).

By keeping this sense of balance in mind, we can avoid falling into a mistaken conclusion—the idea that the curriculum and methods of a homo adorans educational model will downplay academic excellence and preparation for vocation. The opposite is actually true. Our model does not trivialize the aspects of our life that are not directly linked to formal worship. It does not denigrate the balance of our creaturely activities, our work (homo faber) or our thinking (homo sapiens). The model does not ultimatize formal worship, nor place it in opposition to the other aspects of our humanity. Rather, it heightens those secondary aspects by seeing them as flowing out of, and undergirded by, our worship of God. Instead of dragging down the importance of vocational skills, a worship view of our humanity raises our sense of importance of these skills. A proper stress on education that equips for excellence in various vocations will enable us to worship Him even more gloriously. In a general sense, all of life is re-sacralized in a homo adorans model, and is, as a result, richer and even more important.

Now, it is true that the homo adorans model is both informed by and leads back to formal worship. But this leads us to a specific tie between homo adorans and homo faber (as well as homo sapiens) which we can see by examining the liturgy of formal worship. A proper liturgy on the Lord’s Day includes the offering, the New Testament equivalent of the Levitical tribute offering.

The Old Testament tribute offering is described in Leviticus 2, where the King James version mistakenly translates it as the “meat offering.” Other translations refer to it as the cereal offering. While it is indeed a grain (or cereal) offering, the Hebrew word here means the tribute paid to a sovereign. The interesting thing about the tribute offering was that it could not be offered in its natural state. It had to be processed in some way – made into flour, cooked, fried, grilled, or baked. The worshipper had to “add value” to the grain, to transform it. It represented the labor of the worshipper.

In like fashion, our tithes and offerings brought in response to the powerfully transformative preached Word represent our labor, the transformation of that part of the world that God has called us to work in. The implications of this are profound. Our labor is not “secular,” since it is symbolically accepted by God as we draw near to Him in formal worship. And the natural state of the world is not good enough. God wants us to transform the world, and bring it back to Him in worship for His approval. Our “normal” work is both required and accepted in our formal worship.

This means that education must equip us to transform the world. This transformation requires us to be homo sapiens, thinking about our vocations and maturing in them thr0gh the proper use of our intellect. And it requires us to be homo faber, forming and transforming the world through our labor. To be truly homo adorans, then, we must also be homo sapiens and homo faber. Our intellect and labor must be undergirded and motivated by our desire to worship our Creator and Redeemer. We bring the transformed world to God as the result of our wise labors as homo sapiens and homo faber.

So, SATs, vocational skills, etc. are very important! The student is trained for “secular” work, but this work is always put before the student as “sacred” work. The student will be prepared to worship in his vocation, and also to bring the fruits of his labor to God in formal Lord’s Day worship. If we produce a student body that can all play musical instruments and sing beautifully in formal Lord’s Day worship, but has not been trained to use their minds and hands to transform the world vocationally and bring it back to God as tribute, we have radically misunderstood homo adorans.

A correct application of the model will indeed train students to worship God in song and in music. A homo adorans curriculum should certainly have music as part of its core curriculum. But it also must train the student in mathematics, science, language history, business, etc., so that the student will fulfill his created purpose of worshipping God in whatever God-given calling, he may enter into in his adult life. This is the essential meaning of homo adorans for the Christian school.

1. Wikipedia, “Christian Worship,” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_worship (Accessed November 26, 2007).

2. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 14-15.