Where there is a church, there must be education. To know the faith, you have to learn the faith. Through time we’ve done that in all sorts of ways. Many here were formed in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School or children’s choir. Some have gone through confirmation classes; others attend book studies. While Christianity goes far beyond the transmission of information, knowing what we do and do not believe is essential to being a Christian.
What we think and how we think matters.
Our faith comes from the life of Jesus and his teachings, and Jesus’ life and teachings emerge from a very particular time and tradition. In his book Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell does a superb job in letting us see the world that shaped Jesus, so I’m going to use his words to guide us.
Jesus grew up in Israel, in a Jewish region of Israel called Galilee. Now the Jewish people who lived in Galilee believed that at a specific moment in human history, God had spoken directly to their ancestors. They believed this happened soon after their people had been freed from slavery in Egypt and were traveling in the wilderness south of Israel. Their tradition said that while their ancestors were camped at the base of Mount Sinai, their leader, a man named Moses, went up the mountain and received words from God.
They believed not only that God had spoken to Moses but that God had actually given Moses a copy of what he said.
They believed that the first five books of the Bible — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy — were a copy of what God had said.
They called these five books the Torah.
They believed the best way to live was to live how the Torah said to live.
And so the central passion of the people of Jesus’ world was teaching, living, and obeying the Torah.
Now the question among the rabbis, the teachers, of Jesus’ day was, how young do you begin teaching the Bible, the Torah, to kids? One rabbi said, “Under the age of six we do not receive a child as a pupil; from six upwards accept him and stuff him [with Torah] like an ox.“
You see, if you believe that these teachings are the way to life, you would do everything in your power to ensure those teachings were delivered fully and with clarity.
Education wasn’t seen as a luxury or even as an option; education was the key to survival. The Torah was seen as so central to life that if you lost it, you lost everything. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus said, “Above all else, we pride ourselves on the education of our children.“
So around six years old many Jewish kids would have gone to school for the first time. It would probably have been held in the local synagogue and taught by the local rabbi. The first level of education was called Bet Sefer which means “House of the Book” and lasted until the student was about 10 years old….The students would begin memorizing the Torah and by the age of 10 would generally know the whole thing by heart.
Genesis.
Exodus.
Leviticus.
Numbers.
Deuteronomy.
Memorized.
Remember, the text was central to life for a Jew living in Galilee in Jesus’ day. If you have read the accounts of Jesus’ life, have you ever noticed how everybody seems to know the Bible? Jesus quotes a verse or a phrase from a verse, and everybody seems to know the text. This is because from an early age Jewish people were taking the words, and they were becoming part of them.
This memorization was also necessary because if you lived during that time, you didn’t have your own copy of the text. The printing press wasn’t invented until 1400 years later. (When you stayed at a hotel in Jesus’ day, the Gideons hadn’t gotten there first.) Probably your entire village could afford only one copy, which would have been kept in the synagogue in a closet called the Torah ark. There is a good chance you would only see the Scriptures once a week, and that was when they were brought out of the Torah ark to be read publicly.
Rabbis who taught the Torah were the most respected members of the community. They were the best of the best, the smartest students who knew the text inside and out. Not everybody could be a rabbi.
By age 10, students had begun to sort themselves out. Some would demonstrate natural abilities with the scriptures and distance themselves from the others. These students went onto the next level of education, which was called Bet Talmud (“House of Learning”) and lasted until sometime around the age of 14.
The best of the best, continuing their education in Bet Talmud, would then memorize the rest of the Hebrew scriptures. By age 13 or 14 the top students had the entire Bible memorized.
Genesis through Malachi…39 books…memorized.
This went beyond rote memorization. It was about engagement and questioning.
Students in the second step of education would also study the art of questions and the oral traditions surrounding the text. For thousands of years, brilliant minds had been discussing the words of God, wrestling with what they meant and what it meant to live them out. This developed into a massive oral tradition. You had a verse, but then you had all the things that had been said about that verse from all the different people who had discussed and wrestled with it and commented on it. A mountain of oral tradition. So as a student, you would be learning the text, but you would also be learning who had said what in the name of whom about it.
Now when the rabbi would ask a student a question, he would seldom give an answer. Have you noticed how rarely Jesus answers questions, but how often he responds with another question?
Rabbis had no interest in having the students spit back information just for information sake. They wanted to know if the student understood it, if he had wrestled with it. This notion is difficult for the modern mind to grasp because we generally think of education as the transmission of information. The better student is, the better she is able to produce the right information at the right time
In the world of rabbinic education, the focus was on questions, which demonstrated that the student not only understood the information but could then take the subject a step further.
By the way, when Jesus’ parents found him in the temple area, how old was he? Twelve. Notice what the text says here: “They found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.”
Jesus later says to his disciples,”Remember, everything that I learned I passed on to you.”
I know that was a lot of background, but by sharing it with you I hope I accomplished at least two things. First, I hope it gave you a better picture of the world Jesus lived in. Second, I hope you see that times change and our ways of nurturing faith also change with the times.
If you were here for Ash Wednesday, you heard that we’ll be taking time this Lent to dig deeper into what we call The Great Ends of the Church. This is part of my driving us more deeply to a purposeful Presbyterianism, which I believe equips us for engaging faith and life today.
I’ll admit that “The Great Ends of the Church” is quite a mouthful, so let me distill this to something simpler. As Presbyterians we are claiming these six statements as the core mission of the church. Yes, each congregation and person will live them out in particular ways, but they provide the framework for why the church is the church.
Joseph Small, who for a long time was our denomination’s Director of Theology, Worship, and Education, called the Great Ends “a holistic vision of the church’s life.” They can stand on their own, sure, but to truly live out our faith as a community, we need to find unity through engaging in all six of them.
On Ash Wednesday we started with the first Great End of the Church — the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind. The church is to proclaim in word and deed how God in Christ has brought salvation to the ends of the earth. It’s something the church does together, but it’s also something that each Christian should be doing in their own lives.
If you thought the first Great End was a mouthful, get a load of the second — the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God. In other words, one of the goals of the church is passing along the faith to children of all ages. As I said at the beginning, Christianity goes far beyond the transmission of information. Knowing what we do and do not believe is essential to being a Christian. What we think and how we think matters.
Clearly Jesus received a thorough education in faith that was applicable to his very existence. We saw that in our text from Matthew, where the devil tempted him for forty days. Did you notice how Jesus counters each temptation? He’s equipped with the very words of God! These carry him through this unbelievably difficult trial. He had a deep knowledge of God instilled in him that was on the ready when the hard times came.
And, yes, none of us are Jesus, but all of us have the ability to engage deeply with the resources of faith and to share those with each other so that we, too, will be equipped for the challenges and the joys of life.
Our text from Deuteronomy hits home for me about how essential it is to share these words of life not simply in religious spaces but also in our homes and community. “Listen up!” it says. “Love God with all your heart, soul, and strength.” How? By immersing yourself in the love of God and neighbor.
Keep these words. Recite them. Talk about them. Bind them to your wrist. Fix them on your forehead. Write them on your doorposts.
That was their version of the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God, and there is still wisdom in that.
The words of life were so precious that they surrounded themselves with them. There’s an irony in this. In those days, no one had Bibles in their homes. Few could read. Yet, they learned those words of life. They ordered their lives around them. Today? I have over a dozen Bibles in my office. There are hundreds of them all over this church. We can pull out our phones an instantly find dozens of translations of the Bible for free at our fingertips. And yet…we study it less. We don’t open it. We talk about everything else besides religion. (Well, that and politics, right?)
We live in a time and place where we’ve never had more access and freedom to engage in faith, but most of us are so overwhelmed by life that we hardly engage in nurturing our faith and that of others.
Think about it — over the past decade we’ve put to rest some of the models of faith formation that were core to faith development decades ago. Sunday School? All but gone. (Did you know Sunday School didn’t start until the late 18th century in England to help provide a basic education to working class children?) Vacation Bible School? Gone. (VBS didn’t launch until the late 19th century in Illinois, often lasting most of the summer to provide a wholesome summer environment for children.) Now, I’m not saying we should bring those back because they largely weren’t accomplishing what we wanted them to do, but we have not yet figured out how to fill that void with something that will work.
I wish I had solutions to offer us today — a new study, a new way of speaking about faith, a new tool that easily fits into the busyness of our schedules — but I don’t. The old ways have largely run their course, and the new ways are not yet apparent.
Still, it doesn’t change that we have a responsibility to share the faith with each other in all ages. The times change, and with those changes so do the ways we seek to nurture the faith of all in our community. So, perhaps what I’m getting at is inviting you all to get creative. We believe that our faith has immediate and eternal impact on lives. We know that it matters how we learn it and deepen in our understanding.
What role do you believe our congregation has in this particular time in nurturing the faith of all the children of God?
How can we faithfully live out this Great End in all the noise and demands of life today?
And how are you committing to learn the faith more deeply in community?
There’s a story of Jesus where lots of people have turned their backs on him. Jesus turns to his disciples — his learners — and asks, “Do you also wish to go away?” And Peter answers, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
The times change, but that remains true. Jesus has the words of life. It’s up to us to be committed to engaging with those words together.