Embracing History

What it takes to stay out of the trash bin

“Christianity is a historical religion. It is a religion that is not based primarily on an idea or philosophy. Most of the religions of the world can exist apart from their founder. You do not have to have a historical Buddha to have Buddhism. All you have to have are Buddhist teachings. So also with many other religions. This is not the case with Christianity. If you take away the history–if you reduce it, as some have tried to do, to a religion of mere ethics or ideas–Christianity evaporates. This is because Christianity is indissolubly linked to the life and accomplishments of Christianity’s founder. Jesus taught about God, but he did not merely teach. He showed what God was like. Then, in order to achieve our salvation, he died for us, taking our place to bear the wrath of God. Without that historical basis, Christianity would pass, as have many other religions, into the trash bin of history.” J.M. Boice in his commentary on The Book of Acts

History means that that Jesus lived in that area of the Mediterranean, said such and such—and lived, died, was buried and then rose from the dead on the third day. It was THAT Jesus—the Matthew-Mark-Luke-John-and-Acts One.

“…[We] need…a sure and certain knowledge of Jesus Christ and the salvation that comes through faith in him. We need to know what Jesus accomplished. We need to know the perfection of his virgin birth, the obedience of his sinless life, the wisdom of his profound teaching, and the power of his divine miracles. We need to know these things because they prove that he is the Son of God. And we need to know what Jesus did to save us from the wrath of God. We need to know that he suffered and died on the cross for our sins. We need to know that he was raised from the dead to give eternal life to all who trust in him. And we need to know that he was ascended to heaven, where he rules over all things for the glory of God. We need to know these things because sometimes we have our doubts…If we are sometimes tempted to have our doubts, this does not mean that we are not Christians. It simply means that we are sinners who struggle to live by faith…Assurance does not come by looking within or by having some special experience. The only way we become sure of our salvation is by looking to Jesus…Luke…wrote…researched things carefully and wrote them down logically and accurately, giving us the real history of Jesus.” Phil Ryken, Commentary on Luke (Reformed Expository Commentary), Volume 1, pp. 14-15.

G. Mark Sumpter

Classroom Teachers Who Home-carnate the Truth

Are we making gains in what Adams addresses? Are we getting the Home back into the School Classroom?

“…But today, there is no close affinity between the home and the school. We must, therefore, learn how to close the gap (1) through the development of new communication opportunities and methods, (2) in discipline, (3) in teaching and (4) even in the sort of personnel who are selected to function as teachers. Essentially, we must answer in the most practical terms, ‘How can we get the home back into the school and the school back into the home?’”

Adams goes on: “Among the many considerations that will have to be faced is the selection of teaching staff on a widely different basis than most of the present teaching qualifications require. Teachers must be appointed not simply because they are competent in a particular subject area, but because, in addition to that, and in addition to their competence in theology, they show promise as parent-teachers. If the familial father/son discipling method, rather than the Greek, head-packing academic model of teaching be accepted as the biblical method (which it is), then we must also consider the ability of the teacher to exemplify (or model) that which he teaches, along with his academic credits. It is, moreover, crucial for him to incarnate the truth he teaches in life as a parent would for his child. He will be, for the first time, genuinely en loco parentis.”

Back to the Black Board, p. 72, by Jay E. Adams, his emphasis, (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1982).

Adams goes on to speak of ways to reduce or eliminate the professionalization of teachers, and as well, the institutionalization of the traditional day-school classroom setting. He aims at getting rid of: homework, report cards, parent-alone parent-teacher consultations, and other forms of professional and institutional expressions. He also, positively, stresses that parents must: support the authority of the classroom teacher, make plans to step into the class and assist in the teaching and learning process, and take on an active role of listening to students read, and to help with writing, as examples. Adams dreams too—“ The world is the classroom for teaching by discipleship. Students will be in contact with adults and with many sectors of life in the process, not merely with their peers in cloistered halls.” I am committed to his dream.


We can imprint the classroom with a home-like climate even more: teachers telling stories relative to academic content and illustrating points with slices of everyday life, taking students outside for lectures and lessons, making use of communication forms with purposeful informality through dialogue, rhyme, rhythmic lines of feedback, chants, poems and quips, presenting comparisons and offering contrasts using common place matters, setting up interaction about a day’s lesson with a DVD clip or news article and other visuals, and starting a written or oral dialogue—and expecting students to finish them employing pertinent facts and applicatory features.

Community in the classrooms—the involvement of a variety of adults, with a mixture of age and life-experience—needs our attention as well.

Helping the class to be home-like takes work, but it is the method of education that reflects Deuteronomy 6.


Do our classrooms show a commitment to putting in place such teachers? Do you know teachers who teach to incarnate truth, who home-carnate truth?


G. Mark Sumpter