The Bible's Definition Of A Good Education: Part 2 - Understanding

By Jason, M.Ed., M.A.R., Headmaster

“For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” (Proverbs 2:6, NKJV)

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10, NKJV)

Just a reminder before we begin: God calls parents to the responsibility of educating their children.  Whether you home school or send your children to a school outside your home, you are still responsible before God for how your children are being educated.  Each one of us who is called to be a parent is also called to be an educator.  This series of articles deals with “academic” things, but they are things relevant to every parent and everyone who ever hopes to be a parent-- or anyone who wants to learn anything faithfully.

In Part 1, we explored the first component of a Biblically faithful education: knowledge.  Knowledge must be the first step in learning anything. In order for us to develop understating and wisdom about a subject, we must first know it.  In order for me to understand the causes of the Civil War properly, I must first know that there was a Civil War and the major events leading up to it.  In order for me to understand the major themes and the flow of the argument of Romans, I must first know that the Book of Romans exists and I must know its basic content.  Understanding without knowledge will always be unsound and incomplete. 

Last summer, my family and I took a trip to Niagara Falls.  Before I went to Niagara Falls, I had some knowledge of the place.  I knew it was on the border between New York and Ontario, Canada.  I knew that is was divided into two falls and that these falls were the biggest (in terms of volume) in the world.  I had knowledge.  What I lacked was a full understanding of the place and of its power and beauty.  My knowledge filled my head with facts, but my heart was not moved until I had understanding of the falls themselves, which I gained through first-hand experience.

Knowledge can be superficial and unconnected.  Understanding is deeper and stronger and more connected.  Knowledge involves the acquisition of individual bits and pieces; understating involves the connecting of these bits and pieces into larger chunks and then, ultimately, into a whole picture of reality.  Knowledge involves our memory, but understanding begins to draw upon and shape our worldview.  Ultimately, the shaping of our worldview and our lives after the pattern that God has set for us in His word is called “wisdom.”  We will explore wisdom in more depth next month. For now, it is enough to know that just as knowledge must come before understanding, so understanding must come before wisdom.

Now the Bible itself does not explicitly place these three elements—knowledge, understanding and wisdom—in precise order for us.  It uses these three terms together to describe a rich and full education in Godly truth and righteousness.  However, simple human logic allows us to see an order to these three elements, as Augustine first did in the 4^th century.

Imagine putting a puzzle together.  First you must have all the pieces.  You may not know that you have all the pieces, but you really do want to start with all the pieces (or you’ll have a frustrating time).  Once you have your pieces, you start to make connections between them.  Good puzzle people usually try to put the outer edge, or frame, of a puzzle together first.  Eventually, as you learn to make the connections between your puzzle pieces, the whole picture begins to become clear.  Of course, you are imitating a finished picture the whole time.  If you weren’t, you wouldn’t know what to do.  Eventually, your goal is to make your puzzle look like the picture on the box, one beautiful and connected whole.

In education, the pieces of the puzzle are knowledge. The process of connecting the pieces together is understanding.  The assembling of the whole picture is wisdom.  The picture on the box is God’s revelation, which guides us as we pout our pieces together.  How long does this process take? A lifetime and more.  What we are doing in the formal education years for our children is teaching them how to put their puzzle together: how to gather pieces (knowledge), how to put them together (understanding) and how to connect them to the whole (wisdom).

The process of puzzle assembling is really what we want them to learn.  How do we acquire knowledge? We memorize it.  We commit it to memory sop we can remember it.  How do we make connections between bits of knowledge?   We use the God-give gifts of sound reasoning and logic.  How do we assemble the whole? We constantly rely on God’s word to provide the right picture of wisdom.  That’s why all of us need to make sure our children have the right box and the right picture in front of them at all times.

At my school, I’m responsible for guiding over 20 teachers as they help over 280 students assemble their puzzles and get their picture to look more like God’s.  Yet the most important responsibility I have is at home with my family and the pictures my sons are assembling and that their little sister will begin assembling soon. Let’s pray for each other as we help one another be faithful teachers for our children, so the picture of their lives will show the world the glory of our God.