Adventist Education

Brainstorming

Interview with Brittany

What’s happened to our school with Covid-19?

Is Adventist Education worth the investment?

What does it cost for a student to go through school? How is our school funded?

Plans for the future of Cornerstone Christian School

1-on-1 with God’s Word

Parents are the primary teacher (Deuteronomy teaching at meals and morning and evening)

Schools of the prophets — the need for professional teachers and schools

Home school and Adventist education partnership

What is true education?

Introduction

Did you know that the Christian faith has been a huge driver in education since the 16th century? Martin Luther and his friend Philipp Melanchthon were both educators. Its no surprise that they used the tool of education to ground their community in the faith.

For hundreds of years the church had a policy of restricting biblical and scientific knowledge. Bibles were in Latin, a language only a few could speak. Scientific hypothesis were vetted by priests and church leaders before they could be published. The French Revolution in the late 1700’s was in large part a backlash by society against the censorship of learning by the church. There were social and economic and political forces as well, but the revolution would have had a very different outcome if the church had been more open to education.

William Tyndale is famously known to have responded to the church’s censorship by translating the Bible into the English language. In a discussion with a doctor of Divinity, the doctor told Tyndale, “Only a language like Latin or Greek is able to fully convey God’s truth. English is a vulgar language – fine for plowmen and shopkeepers, but hardly suitable for the Bible.” A heated discussion ensued with Tyndale quoting scripture and the doctor quoting church rules—at the time, it was illegal to own an english bible.

Finally, the Doctor of Divinity shouted, “It would be better to be without God’s laws than without the Pope’s.”

Tyndale courageously replied, “I defy the Pope and all his laws! In fact, if God spares my life, I intend to make it possible for a common farmer, a plowman, to know more of the Scripture than you do!”

As the Bible was translated into English and Dutch and German and Check, and so many other languages, the reformation moved across Europe. Many people learned to read so that they could read the Bible. As the reformation swept through Europe there was a revival of industry and art and science. Protestant Christians became known as honest, hard working, imaginative, musical, artistic, and scientifically advanced citizens.

As the 19th century dawned, the translation of the Bible became the catalyst to jump start learning in cultures that didn’t even have a written language before. The European and then American Bible societies translated the Bible into hundreds and ultimately thousands of languages.

When Luther and Melancthon were alive and the principles of a practical, biblical education were the primary philosophy, the protestant reformation swept across Germany. In just a few years the majority of the country was Lutheran. But the Catholic church figured out they would need to use education to respond to the reformation.

When Melanchthon died his replacement saw the biblical foundation of education to be too narrow, so he turned to the Catholic model—a classical education—bringing back Latin language studies and classical literature for reading. In just a few years, the pendulum swung back the other direction and a large percentage of Germany went back to Catholicism.

The Science of Education is the science of Salvation

The reason I’m brining in this history lesson to our church worship is that I believe the science of education is the same as the science of salvation. How we educate our children will, to a large extent, determine the path they will take in this life and in the life to come. The subject of education is one of the most important subjects we can consider as Christians.

When the United States was forming its constitution, the founders realized that for a democracy to work we needed an informed and educated population. Countries with excellent education become more stable socially and economically. Death rates decline. Health improves. Families are more stable. Individuals have a higher incomes. An educated society has fewer sociological divides such as class and gender. Societies that are well educated have a better chance of not repeating past mistakes. Education creates opportunities, expands horizons, and instills hope for the future.

But the stakes are higher than living a successful and productive life. Education must aim beyond our social fabric in order to truly succeed. True education prepares us for a successful life on this earth, and for life with God in the New Earth.

The Schools of the Prophets

When God brought Israel out of Egypt He made it a priority to educate them. They not only needed to learn about God; they also needed to learn about health and good social practices and how to run their economy and how to organize their government. God even gave special attention to music and art.

Just like the founders of the United States, God needed an educated and well informed population.

The way He chose to do that was to give instructions about all the various aspects of their culture to Moses in the form of the law, and then to have them build a tabernacle that would be the center of their society. God would lead them, and they would organize themselves around the rules that He had given Moses.

In Deuteronomy 6 Moses gave the families of Israel this instruction:

Deuteronomy 6:5–7 ESV

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

This worked well enough as long as the people were regularly participating with the sanctuary services. Unfortunately, after Joshua died, things went down hill. The entire book of judges is a downward spiral away from God’s principles of religion, government and social order.

Until Samuel.

Samuel realized that the people weren’t practicing Deut 6, and they weren’t regularly participating in the sanctuary services. What he needed was a group of educated and well informed teachers who would instruct the people. What Samuel did in response to that need would become the foundation for the rabbinical school that Jesus interacted with when he was 12, and the structure for His teaching of the disciples when He started his ministry.

What did Samuel do? He started a school.

You’ll find glimpses of the school throughout books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. When you read about the “sons of the prophets” you can know that you’re getting a small glimpse of one of Samuel’s schools.

After Samuel died the school languished until Elijah came on the scene. Elijah knew that the only way to bring Isreal back from Idolatry was to have teachers that would go throughout Israel and educate the people about God’s design for faith, government and social order. So he started up the schools again and Elisha kept them going when Elijah went to heaven in a chariot of fire.

After Israel returned from captivity in Babylon, Ezra reenergized the schools with a focus on developing scribes to copy and distribute God’s word throughout all Israel.

God’s model in Deuteronomy suggests that the best thing we can do is to have a partnership between the home-school, the church-school, and the civil government.

Parents and grandparents have always been at the heart of God’s plan for education. But God’s design included having spiritual and social teachers in the priests and levites of the sanctuary. God spread out the levites throughout all Israel and commanded the people to bring the levites into their homes for certain feasts and festivals so that the Levites could teach their family the ways of Israel’s religion and economy.

The schools of the prophets were intended to take over where the Levites had failed.

Philosophy of Education

This is all interesting biblical history, but how does this relate to salvation?

First, let’s look at the idea of knowledge.

What is truth? What is knowledge? What is wisdom?

As a Bible believing Christian, I’m sure you are interested in uncovering truth. After all, Jesus said of himself, “I am the way, the Truth and the life.” (John 14:6)

Truth is the opposite of a lie. It’s the real as opposed to the fake.

Knowledge is the accumulation of true things with an understanding of how those truths connect and interact.

Wisdom is the combination of knowing something is true and knowing how to apply it to life. It’s the intersection of experience and knowledge.

For example, its true that stop signs in the united states are an octagonal red with a white border and white S-T-O-P letters in the middle. That’s a true thing.

It becomes knowledge when you can read the word “Stop,” and know that it means you should cease movement.

Its wisdom when you have seen someone glide through a stop sign and get hit in the side door by another car. With experience, you can understand the purpose of that sign and have real world consequences connected to the truth the sign represents.

Every truth. Every bit of knowledge. Every facet of wisdom finds its source and true expression in our Creator God.

When Jesus said, “I am the truth,” he meant that as you uncover some aspect of truth you will be looking into the face of God.

Explore the depth and breadth of science and nature and you’ll see that every blade of grass, every DNA strand, every molecule, and every star has God’s love etched into it.

Explore the human body, its response to disease, its various organs and cells and neural transmitters, and you’ll be getting a more complete picture of God.

Take a tour through history and you’ll find that in every story there is a piece of God’s story. History is most importantly a revelation of God’s dealings with humanity.

Study social science or behavioral science and you’ll be exploring God’s design for mankind through the broken lens of sin.

You can see glimpses of God and a better understanding of the Great Controversy through math and engineering and economics and business and leadership.

It doesn’t matter where you look; if there is truth, then there is God.

Since God is the source of all knowledge, we are limited in how much we can know about our world and ourselves until we know the creator.

A kid in public school could receive a fabulous education that prepares them to be a good citizen in our society. Public education can create moral, upstanding, hard-working citizens. The problem is that our society has removed the creator—the source of truth—from the study of truth.

We need a revival of Christian education. An education that excels in preparing our children to be the best citizens of our society AND citizens of heaven. An education that is founded on the principles of God’s Word.

If education was the foundation of Israel’s spiritual and social revivals, and the primary tool for the protestant reformation to spread, then doesn’t it make sense that Christian education should be a priority for God’s church today—a church that is passionate about taking the gospel to the world?

True education is knowing God.

That reality does not limit the scope of education. In fact, it sets education free from limits. There is no limit to what we can explore as we study our God. The bible is the logical first step in that exploration, but nature, language, social sciences, healthcare, art, music, history, engineering, economics, architecture, and anything else you can imagine are all well within the bounds of our exploration of the creator God.

I would argue that Christians should be the at the top of every field—the cutting edge of every truthful exploration. If God is the source and ultimate expression of truth then studying truth in the context of God should set us free from the small-mindedness of a godless education and empower us to advance beyond anything that the world can offer.

That doesn’t mean that Christians will always be the leaders of their industry. We should be directed by a higher purpose than worldly acknowledgements. And we should recognize that a society that has rejected God will not often be receptive to a truth that reveals God.

Christian Education

I’d like to share my idea of what Christian education should be.

Christian education should start in the home. Parents are the first revelation of God that their children see. It is the parents’ and grandparents’ privilege to introduce a wide range of subjects for their children to explore. Parents are the first language instructors, the first health coaches, the first bible teachers, the first music instructors, and the first to teach a child how to use their talents in service for God and mankind. Parents should teach their children for as long as they are intellectually and practically able to. Home school is not a substitute for public school or Christian school, it is the first and most important school in Christian education. Even if the child has other teachers, parents should always be invested in the learning process of their children. A school teacher is not a substitute parent, they are a substitute teacher because the parent will always be the primary teacher of their children.

Most teachers realize this, but many parents sluff off their children’s education as though it were none of their concern—hoping the teachers will do a good job. Other parents micromanage teachers instead of working alongside them to help them succeed in the delicate and artful task of helping their child learn. Neither of these extremes is appropriate. Parents and teachers are partners, and should support each other in their combined effort to teach their children.

Many homes are unable to support a home-school for financial or educational reasons. If this is the case, the parent needs to partner with someone to help them. They need the substitute teacher of an organized Christian school.

The Seventh-day Adventist church recognized the need to provide a network of educational institutions very early on. Today we are the largest private education system in the entire world. Adventist Education in the United States boasts some of the highest achievement scores when compared to public and other parochial schools. We have a higher percentage of credentialed teachers than the public schools have. As a network of schools, our education system is literally second to none.

Recently the North American Division education department spent around $3 million developing a science curriculum that is based on the principles that the creator God is the source of truth, and that children learn best in an environment that empowers personal exploration and real-life application. Public schools would spend 20 or 30 million of dollars developing such a curriculum, but the church didn’t have that kind of money. Still, our curriculum outshines others so much that other schools are buying into it. Even a few Catholic diocese are using our curriculum, knowing that it highlights principles found in the Bible including keeping all the commandments of God.

I say this because there are many people inside the Adventist church who look down on our small schools. They say our schools don’t have the latest technology, or classes tailored to the special needs of their child, or sports opportunities, and the list goes on and on. But here’s the thing. With all the opportunities and technology and unique classes and special ed that our public schools provide, Adventist schools are still turning out higher scores and a higher percentage of graduates than public schools.

The superintendent of schools in New Jersey called the Adventist Education director from our headquarters in Maryland and offered him to take over public schools in the largest city in New Jersey. He asked what it costs to educate a child in Advnetist schools and when he heard the number he laughed and immediately offered twice as much per student for us to run the public schools. Of course, he couldn’t agree to the stipulation our education director demanded—that we teach students in the moral framework of God as the source of all learning.

Speaking of cost, how much does it cost to send a student to an Advnetist school? If you start with home-school, the cost is not great—a few hundred dollars per student per year. The cost to send a child to an Adventist elementary school is around $300 to $400 per month, depending on which school you attend, and $800 to $1,200 a month for high school. That can seem like a lot of money, but consider that our public schools in Idaho are spending roughly $7,000 per student to provide an education that is statistically inferior. Yes, spending money each month for Christian education is more expensive than a “free” public school, yet the outcomes of Adventist education, both statistically and spiritually far outweigh the cost of paying for it out of pocket.

One of the most important factors in considering adopting Christian education for your child’s learning is that we are not only graduating great citizens, but we are baptizing dedicated Christians. In the last 10 years an average of more than 30,000 kids per year have made the decision to follow Jesus with all their hearts because of their experience in Christian Education. In my own experience with Cornerstone Christian School in Bonners Ferry, I’ve found that the kids are open to spiritual things. They have inquiring minds, and receptive hearts. They and their families are coming closer to God’s word because they are students at that school. I can see why Luther and Melanchthon saw education as a primary tool to spread the truth of God’s word.

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If the home-school and church-school are two parts of the equation, the partnership with the government would be the third part of God’s design for education. In his design the government was led by God himself, and the economy was structured by His laws. Today that is not the case, but we can’t ignore the civic partnership and expect Christian education to be complete. Our students need to be educated to meet and exceed the requirements of the state.

Some would like to ignore these requirements as though the secular state is meddling in the affairs of family or religion. But Romans 13 asks Christians to submit to the authorities in our government because civic leaders get their authority from God.

Romans 13:1–2 ESV

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

God’s design for education includes our children becoming good citizens of this earth.

Conclusion

Let me summarize the vision I have for Christian education.

I see Christians who want their children to experience true education—learning that springs from the knowledge of our creator God and empower practical living. So, they prioritize their children’s learning and development in their own home. They teach them practical skills, provide learning opportunities, empower their exploration and affirm their various interests and talents. Many may choose to form a home-school for some time if they have the skills and time. Others will partner with Cornerstone Christian school to help them give their children an education that meets the standards of the state.

I also see our church school prioritizing and valuing the home-school. Empowering parents to be the primary teachers of their children. Providing tools for parents to use to improve their work as a home-teacher. I see Cornerstone school, building bridges with home-school families to supplement the education that parents are providing. I also see Cornerstone School recruiting students from Christian families throughout the Boundary county area—anyone who is ready to be a part of a Creator driven discovery of truth should see Cornerstone Christian School as the best resource in this area.

Education is the science of salvation. Rightly pursued, it leads us to the throne of God. Education begins as a child, but continues throughout our lives. We should always be open to learning. Proverbs tells us that

Proverbs 12:1 NLT

To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction.

Even in heaven we’ll be learning:

Education Chapter 35—The School of the Hereafter

Heaven is a school; its field of study, the universe; its teacher, the Infinite One.

Would you like to see Jesus’ return? I want to read you a quote that motivates my passion for education:

Education Chapter 31—The Lifework

With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world! How soon might the end come—the end of suffering and sorrow and sin!

Whether you have children or grandchildren or great grandchildren. I pray that you will renew your passion Salvation—for the learning that leads us to Jesus—for Christian education.