4. Where Elephants Swim
There is an old story that tells of five blind men trying to understand an elephant. As each man was only able to feel a part of the whole elephant, each had a distorted view of its true nature. One man who felt the trunk described the elephant like a snake, a second man who felt the tusk described it as a spear, another who felt the ear described it as a fan, another who felt the leg described it as a tree and the fifth man who felt its side described it as a wall.
There is no doubt that our current culture has lost the capacity to know the truth about reality. Philosophers and educators know that they do not know truth. The confidence that reason can find the truth is dead. “There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes that truth is relative” (Sheridan, 2018, p. 283).
But a person with sight would be able to see how the parts fit together to give a true view of an elephant. If five men exploring the elephant are blind, can there be another who sees and knows the truth? Can that be revealed to us for a blind man cannot lead a blind man for “will they not both fall into a pit” (Luke 6:39).
So revelation changes everything, for it gives sight to the blind. God’s Word is His revelation to us that we might be grounded in His Word, locating our lives in God’s great story. Pope Gregory the Great (c540-604) is reported to have said “The Scripture is a stream in which the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade.” (cited in Thompson, 2008 p. 1) This is true as the Bible has the power to speak into our lives and provides a feast of truth that can change and satisfy human hearts down through the ages.
Author Vishal Mangalwadi in his book, This Book Changed Everything, shows how the Biblical worldview is unique because its spirituality requires an engagement with the material world. Its wisdom ‘from above’ has transformed the lives of individuals, families and been foundational to the building of nations down through history. The Bible provides the story to unify the truth of what is and so needs to be inseparable from the academic life of the school. For both teachers and students our identities come from our Creator who designed each one.
When we become God’s children, we are called to walk with God and this makes us part of our Father’s co-creators-history makers. Through the Scripture, the Spirit is to shape the identity of the school community and those who belong to it and enables them to understand what it means to be God’s people in their time.
As teachers, we need to personally devour God’s Word that we might grow into those ‘in Christ’ who are able to be examples and mentors that our students living in this 21st century so desperately need. For a world without revelation gives no standard as to what it looks like to live wisely.
It is vital that we offer an alternative story to exclusive humanism, one that offers a robust and coherent understanding of the Christian faith. Teachers will help students to experience the presence of God in all disciplines of learning as they trace the wonder and wisdom of His design in creation. Locating students in God’s story is about knowing and embracing the Biblical story that reveals truth about the Fall and the Redemption and Restoration of Creation, through Christ.
This needs to involve students receiving a wholistic view of reality through the disciplines – the history of ideas and their impact on civilisation, philosophical ideas that create culture, worldviews that express faith in the transcendent, literature that feeds the imagination and engages with truth, and in Science and Mathematics that reflect God’s creative design.
Wisdom gained through this learning is to find its meaning and coherence in Christ not merely cognitively but as bodily service in all areas of life. May we raise up a new generation who declare the wondrous ways of our God.
Let us pray for one another in this task.
O Lord our God, your Word is truth, your ways are good, and in knowing you we find our highest wisdom. Teach us to know you more deeply that we may love you more truly, live more faithfully and learn to think your thoughts after you more humbly and gratefully. And, Lord, may it please you to help us, so that in these complicated and tumultuous times we may be able to read the signs of our times that we may walk wisely in your way and bring glory only to you. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. (Guinness, 2016, p. 214)
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
References
- Thompson, R., (2008). God is the Owner of the Earth. Interact Curriculum Press
- Guinness, O., (2016). Impossible People. InterVarsity Press