Jeff Durbin and Dr. Ben Merkle on Christian Education

Apologia Studios

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So what I think what is we were just talking with Doug about is

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He's talking about where we came from where we've come from as a nation early on the

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Christian worldview just being in the atmosphere and You know the

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Puritan hope for the future the kingdom of Christ Jesus reigns. He's Lord over all

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He's going to be victorious over the nations and there's such a view a long -term view of the future that you can find in early

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Christians particularly Puritans, and I think what encourages me a lot about Doug about what you guys are doing st.

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Andrews and just everything even coming to Moscow is there's so much of an investment in this world and so much of an investment in children and and growing and thinking far far ahead right and so I'd love to hear you talk about that just in the sense that the connection between our view of Christ and his kingdom his victory and then investing in young people and training their minds and having them become experts in all these different areas and right taking

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Dominion over the arts and The sciences and literature and things like that yeah, okay, so yeah, there's a couple of different pieces there

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I mean one one is That you you tagged already is just this idea of having this this view of both the importance of this this this promise that we're given for our own kids and what we're passing on onto them and the

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Duty that falls on us to give them the full pie day of God to raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the

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Lord So they truly see the depth and breadth and and on and just the huge nature of the implications of the gospel

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So that that in and of itself is is significant So you've got this this covenant promise

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But then you also have this this promise that the gospel is something that's meant to grow to fill the whole world

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Yeah And so it's something that touches this world even though it's it's it comes down from Christ Christ is incarnate and so it fills this whole world and that means not just that every soul is going to confess this but all aspects of life are going to be brought into into the service of The Triune God and so that's obviously this a huge intellectual project to think about to think about just all of those implications one things that's great about as you find that as you as you

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As you survey sort of the depth of the implications of the gospel. It gives you more and more and more

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Material with which to evangelize your children because we're not just talking about this one little gospel track

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We're getting to talk to them about just beauty of life itself and the beauty of the God we worship And so you find gospel tracks everywhere and it makes actually the evangelization of your own

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Evangelization of your own children that much more powerful and interesting and the impact goes much further but I think the other the other thing that we see is that that I mean along with post millennial the post millennial hope is

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We start to see this that there's actually an antithesis You know that there's there's a kingdom of light that's spreading and that means there's a kingdom of dark that we're that we're arguing against Yeah, and and I don't

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I think Christians have radically Underestimated because because they truncate the gospel and they have a small gospel.

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They also have radically underestimated all the implications of unbelief and and the things that are around them that they swallow daily and they don't realize that they're actually being indoctrinated into a way of thinking that's hostile to the gospel and so a big part of the spread of the gospel is teaching our children kind of pulling them back and making sure that they're

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They're getting a full view of the gospel and then if you will go full view of how the gospel has implications for how they think about location how they think about Entertainment how they think about all the things that are around them, but yeah, absolutely.

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So It's it's interesting because you know, there's Christian schools They exist they're around Christian colleges and seminaries, right, but there's there is

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Something different very different when you you're approaching all those areas of academics of again art literature media anything

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When you approach it from a post -millennial perspective, there's something different and in terms of the why and like the how and The end what's what's what are we aiming for?

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So I'd love to have you talk about that because I want people to hear sure how much that Having a post -millennial view of the future.

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Yeah really has implications that bring real transformation in so many areas Yeah, so I think one of the one

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I think the main insights and gifts that I've seen come out of the classical

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Christian movement is a Sort of reorientation to the way you think about the purpose of education and I think it aims towards the end and that you're described right there.

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Yeah, and and Right now we tend to think that the American public tends to think of education in terms of certain

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Qualifications and small tools that will give you the ability to have certain jobs so that you can make some money

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Right and you they they tend to think in terms of you've learned this skill check you've learned this skill check

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And so now when you combine these seven skills You can have this job and then you can make this kind of money and it tends to be how people think about education, but we don't see how much that is a

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That is a it's kind of a slave mentality because what it is is it is it's a mentality where where you're trusted

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To follow a checklist and you're not given freedom to actually see

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What else is out there and how deep you can go the thing with the classical Christian arts their classical?

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Christian education in the liberal arts is It's the education of the free man.

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It's the education where you're If I can illustrate it, this is the way

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I think you can make sense of it Remember when Map quest first came out you could you know type in address or place you wanted to go

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Yeah, and then you and you'd get this list of directions, right? Yeah, and so you got this list of directions and it was take this left turn go this many miles

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Which was great until you missed one You made one mistake one wrong turn and then the whole list was useless

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Yep And if you if you forgot to like plug in the reverse then you couldn't get home with that list either because it doesn't work

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Just going backwards, right? But you give a list of steps to somebody that you don't trust you know you give a list of steps to somebody who if I you know,

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I was enlisted in the Marine Corps and When I was very low on the totem pole Those are the kinds of instructions

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I got Do this check do this check do this check and it was because nobody trusted me and they shouldn't have because I wasn't worthy of it

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But but what happens is when you become a free man when you're trusted to think about To think for yourself and to plot your own course

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It's more like instead of being given that that map with a list of instructions You're given an actual map where you can step back and see the big picture and understand where this is going

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Yeah, and and then and and that's what the free man is given That's what the enlisted man gets the little checklist the officer gets the map

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Free men are should get an education and Christians. We are in the gospel. We are free men

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We should get an give be given an education that teaches us the

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To be free to have the critical thinking skills to question that to question this and to build something new

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That's the education. I think that that gives That a postmill eschatology it gives scope to that It's this idea that I have somewhere that I'm going and I want to think critically about it

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Understand the implications of the gospel for for how to get there that yes, he's it together sort of Yeah, that's yeah, that's exactly what

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I was looking for okay So what's what's the end goal in in terms of new st.

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Andrews, right? So so, um, I mean we're here to raise up leaders and shapers of culture.

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We want we want to get Students who are taught to think critically and independently but to do it in such a way that all things are brought into the

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Lordship of Christ and As they do that as you go out and you live that kind of life you start to build culture you start businesses

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You start on you know, if I look on Main Street, Moscow as I think that is really fun right now as I can point out

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Restaurants, you know, we've got people that are making movies a couple people different making making movies printing presses

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There's a whole bunch of these different industries a couple of tech startups that are all just right here on the street With this education where they're taught to go and figure out how to serve

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God and glorify him With with the gifts that they've been given so I want to equip as many young people like that that go out and then and shape culture and Do it in a way that is

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Powerful that that brings out your love and your your imagination and your hope something that is compelling

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You know, that's a great restaurant is compelling you walk in and and you're overwhelmed with the goodness of God a printing press a movie studio

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There are all these different places where we're seeing the goodness of God and embodied and incarnated through, you know

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Christians living faithfully and And then what we see is we start to see this next generation behind us that wants to is excited about stepping in and Filling the ranks and and growing the numbers and spreading

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The the implications of the gospel so I want to you know here at NSA our job is to give that piece of that little piece where we teach the kind of the habit of the mind to react in that way and I've used the the

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Illustration before like, you know You throw a ball at some people and some people kind of you know The first thing is sort of flinch away and some people reach forward and grab and and so what we want to do is we?

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Want to trade create that habit of the mind where when a student leaves NSA? They've learned the goodness of the gospel.