CHEWV

Category: Hebrew vs. Greek Education

  • Wrap-Up: Hebrew vs. Greek Education

    Wrap-Up: Hebrew vs. Greek Education

    Come to Me all you who labor and I will give you rest. 

    The love of God, the love of God’s Word, and true discipleship are not meant to be a burden, but a joy.  

    To summarize Hebraic education, we will say that it is an all-the-time, God-centered, eternity-aware, and practical upbringing.  The end goal is to glorify God by living in obedience to Him, serving Him all the days of our lives.

    As Marlo was sharing much of this with us, she recounted a memory way back when her son was little.  Whereas Marlo loved writing and talking about things, her young son Zach just wanted to do things!  While she was busy writing out the recipe, he just wanted to bake the bread!  Zach’s dad understood. While he didn’t fancy messes anymore than Marlo did, he was willing to let his son be active even if it meant flour on nearly every surface.  

    Orderliness sometimes has to be set aside for a bit. While desks and books might be tidier, they aren’t always effective. Dads often come home dirty and messy, don’t they? Their work isn’t always neat. Neither might your child flourish while always contained at a desk reading about abstracts.

    Indeed, boys are often oriented to kinesthetic learning – they are likely to be more hands on. Little Zach grew up to be an engineer. Learning by doing was essential.

    The Greek classroom is particularly cruel to boys – unless we reduce education to the Greek ideals of physical prowess and athletics.  To use the Greek system to inculcate knowledge is inefficient at best – because it so often precludes real-life application.  Boys, in particular, don’t fit that system very well.  But boys flourish in the Hebrew system of tutors and apprenticeships, one-on-one. Girls do too! 

    Remember that Christ is calling you to do what He did Himself.  He discipled a few who, when fully prepared, discipled others. That’s what we are doing as homeschooling parents. We are discipling our few for about 18 years, sending them out after they are prepared to disciple others. 

    During His ministry, there were times when Jesus got tired and needed to get away and be alone. We can relate, can’t we? The work of constant discipleship can be intense. It would feel more comfortable to fit education into a neat box that concludes at a certain time, freeing us to do our own thing for a while. However, while also taking the needed time to communicate with His Father, Christ set the example of faithfully pouring into His disciples as He lived alongside them 24-7.

    So will you – if you choose to disciple your kids. It might sound more inviting to fit school into a neat little time slot for a certain number of months. Fit “school” into a set amount of time and then have time left for yourself. But God calls you to teach them about Him and His ways when you sit down, rise up, and walk along the way. That’s pretty much all the time.   

    It doesn’t last forever – at least the 24-7 part doesn’t. In fact, looking back, it goes like a *poof!*  Those of us who have done it, claim that the days might be long, but the years are short.  

    We call you to give up homeschooling.  Embrace home discipleship instead. 

  • Hebrew vs. Greek, Part 4

    Hebrew vs. Greek, Part 4

    We’ve already recounted many differences between the Hebrew and Greek ideas of Jesus’ day, alluding also to those who have influenced our own world.  Now we’ll look at two further distinctions.

    Knowledge vs. Wisdom/Form vs. Function

    The Hebrew Book of Proverbs puts great emphasis on wisdom – godly wisdom – and how it trumps knowledge.  By contrast, Greeks would favor knowledge for its own sake. Indeed, the adage, “Knowledge is power,” reflecting Greek ideals, is far more well-known in today’s culture than “Wisdom is the principal thing,” or “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” for example. 

    The Talmud says, “He who teaches a child, it is as if he created him. The world exists by the breath of school children.” The Talmud, then, understood that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.  

    It continues, “Without Jewish learning, we cannot be Jews.” Think for just a moment about that last sentence. “Without Jewish learning, we cannot be Jews.”  Without a child being trained to be Jewish, there wouldn’t be Jews. We pass along our faith and identity to the next generation.  No, we can’t convert our children, yet we are definitely commanded to teach the next generation about God and all He has done. So the question is, “Will we think and live like Christians without a Christian education?”

    British Old Testament writer Norman Henry Snaith writes, “The purpose of learning in the Hebraic worldview is to prepare the whole person for a life of service and obedience in the knowledge of God. The Torah was given by God as instruction to His people in how to live their lives according to His plan. It was up to the Jewish people to see it, learn it, embrace it and live it in every circumstance of their lives. A mere understanding was not enough. Learning requires a response.”  

    It wasn’t enough to just know about God or to develop an intellectual knowledge of Him; God’s ways had to be embraced and lived – through a personal relationship with Him!  Hence, the fundamental goal of Hebraic education was the building of disciples – the passing on of the teachings of God to His children in order that they might do His will – revere and obey Him. 

    Ideally, this consisted of demonstrating what God’s thoughts, words, and values look like in daily contact and interactions. Does this remind you immediately of the verse, “Faith without works is dead?” or “Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves?”

    The Greeks, on the other hand, sought knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone.  Head knowledge was ultimate: information and understanding were ends in themselves.  

    Snaith writes, “Man can never know himself, what he is and what is his relationship to the world, unless he first learns of God and [is] submissive to God’s sovereign will.

    “The Greek system, on the contrary, starts from the knowledge of man and seeks to rise to an understanding of the ways and nature of God through the knowledge of what is called man’s higher nature. According to the Bible, man has no higher nature except he be born of the Spirit.”  

    The Hebrew asks, “How do I do my faith?  How do I live my covenant relationship?  How should I then act?”  

    While Western Christianity with its Greek perspective tends to be interested in religious theory, Judaism’s emphasis is on righteous action. Christians tend to ask, “What do you think about this Scripture,” while Jews ask, “How do you live this Scripture?”  

    Instead of faith being an intellectual exercise, the Hebrew’s “faith” made him faithful, steadfast, reliable, constant, and stable. With a Hebraic worldview, belief and action cannot be separated. Faith without works really IS dead. We only deceive ourselves if we hear the Word of God but fail to put it into practice.

    Our final article will tie up all these ends in order to define home discipleship from a Hebrew perspective.

  • Hebrew versus Greek, Part 2

    Hebrew versus Greek, Part 2

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    Jesus never wrote a book, never “taught a course,” and never created nor led a corporation, yet He was the most influential man who ever lived.  He invested personally and primarily in just twelve others.  How could such a simple, unsophisticated method influence millions?

    Today, we tend more toward a “microwave” way of thinking.  We want to do it quickly.  Efficiently.  But Jesus did neither.  He took all the time necessary.  He was patient.  He invested for the long haul.

    And that’s what He calls us to do as parents.  We usually have about two decades to invest in our children and prepare them for a launch into a hostile world.  Psalm 127 calls children “arrows in the hands of a warrior.”  All of us are in the battle for truth versus lies, God vs. Satan.  We want our children to eventually be well-prepared warriors on the side of what is true and good and right!  After all, our life on earth is a mere vapor “that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” 

    A heart for eternity changes things. By having a small group of disciples follow Christ, the Father knew it would change the world.  It still can.  While “a big reset” is what globalists have planned right now, homeschoolers have a different reset in mind.  

    “Turn the hearts of the fathers to their children.”  

    The discipleship of our children is key – more so now than even in the 1980’s when a fresh crop of twentieth-century homeschoolers first started talking about this.  

    In the Hebraic model of discipleship, God is the Beginning and the End of all things.  He is both the foundation and the goal, if you will.  All things come under Him and point to Him: nothing is peripheral.  Everything comes under His Lordship.  What can I do to glorify God?  What does He want of me?

    The Greek mindset, by contrast, places man at the center of the universe.  The end goal is to be successful men and women, making a name for ourselves and gaining the acclaim of others. What can I do to gain success, power, and influence – have more, be more, be known as more?

    These are dramatically opposing worldviews.  Either life revolves around us, or life revolves around God.  Anthropocentric or theocentric.  Man at center or God at center.  

    So, stop and consider this vital question: What is the purpose of your life?  Your children’s lives?  Your purpose will drive your preparation.  Where you’re headed determines where and how you prepare.  If, for example, a doctor would not prepare for his life’s work at a music conservatory, why would people of faith release their children into a school which deliberately excludes God and His Word?

    Who will you glorify? 

    The old catechisms assert that our life’s purpose is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  Do you believe that?  Do you believe that enough to raise your children to know and believe it, living daily like it’s true? 

    The Bible teaches us that life is not really about my want-to’s.  It’s far more about what God, my Creator and Savior, wants.  In contrast to the Greek mindset of making ourselves the center of the universe, the Hebrew approach to life and education becomes instead the biblical mandate to die to self.  I am no longer *Lord,* God is!  The most interesting thing about that concept is that it doesn’t lead to slavery or inferiority as we might be tempted to think!  Instead, it frees us from enslavement to sin and public opinion and satisfies us with true joy and contentment! 

    The Psalmist says it this way, “It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of deer and sets me on high places.”

    As parents, we are either moving our children toward humanism or toward godliness.  We can’t “save them”; only Christ can do that.  Ah, but we can disciple them.  So the question remains, are we homeschooling as a Greek or a Hebrew?

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