Foundations for Lifelong Learning E-Book

John Piper

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

John Piper Offers 6 Habits to Spur a Lifetime of Wisdom and Wonder for the Glory of Christ  Humans are hardwired to learn. We immerse ourselves in stories, observe the intricacies of the world, and seek educational opportunities. But lifelong learning is far more than acquiring information or completing a degree. It is a happy quest informing the habits of our minds and the affections of our hearts. And for the Christian, the goal is richer and deeper joy, to the glory of God and the eternal good of others. In Foundations for Lifelong Learning, longtime pastor John Piper casts Christian education as the process of growing in our ability to navigate God's word and world. Piper introduces readers to 6 vital habits—observe accurately, understand clearly, evaluate fairly, feel appropriately, apply wisely, and express compellingly. Ultimately readers will be encouraged to find Christ in and above all things—seriously and joyfully glorifying God, no matter their vocational calling.  - Appeals to Students and Educators: Explores 6 habits to inspire a lifetime of learning, wisdom, and wonder  - Offers a Biblical Perspective: Teaches how lifelong learning ultimately connect to God, his word, and our world  - Countercultural: Explains how one's vocation, degree, and monetary success are not always representations of quality lifelong learning  - Written by John Piper: Author of Don't Waste Your Life; Come, Lord Jesus; Desiring God; and Providence

Leseprobe

Thank you for downloading this Crossway book.

Sign up for the Crossway Newsletter for updates on special offers, new resources, and exciting global ministry initiatives:

Crossway Newsletter

Or, if you prefer, we would love to connect with you online:

Foundations for Lifelong Learning

Other Books by John Piper

All That Jesus Commanded

Battling Unbelief

Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals

Come, Lord Jesus

The Dangerous Duty of Delight

Desiring God

Does God Desire All to Be Saved?

Don’t Waste Your Life

Expository Exultation

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

Finally Alive

Five Points

Future Grace

God Is the Gospel

God’s Passion for His Glory

A Godward Life

Good News of Great Joy

A Hunger for God

Let the Nations Be Glad!

A Peculiar Glory

The Pleasures of God

Providence

Reading the Bible Supernaturally

The Satisfied Soul

Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

Spectacular Sins

Taste and See

Think

This Momentary Marriage

27 Servants of Sovereign Joy

What Is Saving Faith?

When I Don’t Desire God

Why I Love the Apostle Paul

Foundations for Lifelong Learning

Education in Serious Joy

John Piper

Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy

© 2023 by Desiring God Foundation

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9370-3 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9372-7 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9371-0

Library of Congress Control Number:

2023941019

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2023-10-04 09:25:19 AM

To

Tim Tomlinson

Founding President

Bethlehem College and Seminary

2009–2021

Contents

Preface

Introduction: Education in Serious Joy

1  Observation

2  Understanding

3  Evaluation

4  Feeling

5  Application

6  Expression

Conclusion: Foundations for Lifelong Living

Appendix: Agassiz and the Fish

Preface

This book attempts to give a glimpse into the way we think about education at Bethlehem College and Seminary (www.bcsmn.edu). I hope students in high school, college, and seminary will read it.

But, as a matter of fact, the way we think about education makes the book relevant for all who want to grow in wisdom and wonder for the rest of their lives. Our aim is to equip students for lifelong learning. Therefore, this book is for anyone, at any age, who refuses to stagnate intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally.

Bethlehem College pursues this goal by focusing, as we say, on “the Great Books in light of the Greatest Book for the sake of the Great Commission.” We agree with the late David Powlison when he explained why he loved the great novels and histories:

Because you learn about people. You gain a feel for human experience. You come to understand riches and nuances that you could never understand just from knowing the circle of people you happen to know. You come to understand the ways that people differ from each other, and the ways we are all alike—an exceedingly valuable component of wisdom. You become a bigger person with a wider scope of perception. All those things you come to know illustrate and amplify the relevance and wisdom of our God (see below, p. 36).

But what do we do with such books? And all books? And the Bible? And nature? And the world? That’s what this book is about.

Six habits of mind and heart describe what we do with God’s word and God’s world—all of it. Observation. Understanding. Evaluation. Feeling. Application. Expression. Undergirded by a God-centered worldview, and guided by the authority of Scripture, we believe these six habits of mind and heart are the foundations of lifelong learning.

While Bethlehem College focuses on the great books in the light of the greatest Book, Bethlehem Seminary focuses with assiduous attentiveness on the great Book with the help of great pastor-scholars. We like to say that the seminary is “shepherds equipping men to treasure our sovereign God and sacred book for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.”

But whether for those in college, or in seminary, or in the marketplace, this book is about the foundations of lifelong learning beneath all those phases of life. The book is not about the subject matter of our curriculum, but what we do with it—indeed what we do with the subject matter of life. How do we deal with all subject matter in such a way that the outcome is ever-maturing disciples of Jesus who glorify him in every sphere of life?

Why we call it “Education in Serious Joy” is what the introduction is about. Such an education is a lifelong joy; it never ends. We are still on the road. We invite you to join us.

Introduction

Education in Serious Joy

This book is for serious seventy-somethings and seventeen-year-olds, and everybody in between, who share our excitement about what we call “education in serious joy.” It is the overflow of our exuberance with the habits of mind and heart that we are trying to build into our lives and the lives of those we teach. We believe these habits are the pursuit of a lifetime, and therefore relevant for every stage of life.

Serious Joy

In our way of thinking, “serious joy” is not an oxymoron. “Serious joy” is not like “hot winters” or “cold summers.” It’s what the apostle Paul was referring to when he used the phrase “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” in 2 Corinthians 6:10. We believe this is really possible. It’s the experience of people whose love is big enough to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice—even at the same time, if not in the same way.

These are the kind of people we want our students—we want you, young and old—to be. Most readers probably have enough people in their life that someone is always happy and someone is always sad. So every shared happiness happens while there is sadness. And every shared sadness happens while there is happiness. When you rejoice while someone is weeping (for there is no other time in this world), this will be “serious joy.” Not sullen joy. Not morose joy. Not gloomy joy. But serious joy. Being serious is not the opposite of being glad. It’s the opposite of being oblivious, insensible, superficial, glib.

Joy So Prominent?

Why do we make joy so prominent in our understanding of education? Why do we even have the phrase “education in serious joy”? The reason has to do with the ultimate questions of why the world exists and why we exist in it. We believe that everything in this universe was created by Jesus Christ. He owns it. He holds it in existence. It exists to put his greatness and beauty and worth (his glory) on display for the everlasting enjoyment of his people.

In fact, we believe that our joy in treasuring Christ above all things, and in all things, is essential in displaying his glory. Education is the process of growing in our ability to join God in this ultimate purpose to glorify Jesus Christ. That’s why we give joy such a prominent place in our understanding of education. That’s why we have a phrase like “education in serious joy.”

Biblical Pillar

The biblical pillar for this understanding of our existence is Colossians 1:15–17:

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Christ is the beginning, the middle, and the end. He is Creator, sustainer, and goal. The words “created for him” do not mean for his improvement. He doesn’t have deficiencies that need remedying by creation. “For him” means for the praise of his glory (cf. Eph. 1:6). His perfection and fullness overflowed in creation to communicate his glory to the world.

He made it all. So he owns it all. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (1 Cor. 10:26). Abraham Kuyper, who founded the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880, said in one of his most famous sentences, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”1 As with all ownership, therefore, the world exists for the purposes of the owner. That is, for the glory of Christ.

That is the deepest foundation of education in serious joy: all things were made by Christ, belong to Christ, and exist for Christ. Humans exist to magnify Christ’s worth in the world. But he is not magnified as he ought to be where humans are not satisfied in him as they ought to be—satisfied in him above all things, and in all things. Therefore joy, serious joy, is at the heart of Christ-exalting education.

Soul Satisfied, Christ Magnified

If that’s a new thought for you—namely, Christ being magnified by our being satisfied in him—be assured its roots go back to the Bible. Paul said that his eager expectation and hope was that Christ would be magnified by his death (Phil. 1:20). Then he explained how this would happen: “for to me . . . to die is gain” (1:21). In what sense would his death be gain? He answers: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (1:23). Death is gain because death is “better”—that is, death brings a more immediately satisfying closeness to Christ.

How then will Paul magnify Christ by his death? By experiencing Christ as gain—as satisfying—in his death. Christ will be magnified by Paul’s being more satisfied in Christ than in the ordinary blessings of life. This is why we think serious joy is essential to Christ-magnifying education. Christ is magnified in us by our being satisfied in him, especially in those moments when the satisfactions of this world are taken away.

We are not the first to draw out this essential truth from Scripture. It was pivotal, for example, in the thinking of Jonathan Edwards, the brilliant eighteenth-century pastor and theologian in New England. Here is how Edwards said it:

God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: 1. By appearing to . . . their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself. . . . God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. . . . He that testifies [to] his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also [to] his approbation of it and his delight in it.2

There it is: “God is glorified . . . by [his glory] being rejoiced in.” The difference between Edwards’s expression and the way we like to say it is that ours rhymes: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” Christ’s worth is magnified when we treasure him above all things and in all things.

Joy in a World of Suffering

This happens in the real world of suffering—our suffering and the suffering of others. Christ’s worth shines the more brightly when our joy in him endures through pain. But what about the suffering of others? How does their suffering relate to our joy in Christ? We start with this observation: Christ-exalting joy in us is a living, restless, expanding reality. Then we observe this remarkable fact about our joy: it becomes greater in us when it expands to include others in it. So when we see the suffering of others, the effect it has on us is to draw out our joy in the form of compassion that wants others to share it. Joy in Christ is like a high-pressure zone in a weather system. When it gets near a low-pressure zone of suffering, a wind is created that blows from the high-pressure zone to the low-pressure zone trying to fill it with relief and joy. This wind is called love.

This is what happened among the Christians in Macedonia: “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy . . . overflowed in a wealth of generosity” (2 Cor. 8:2). First, joy in the gospel. Next, affliction that does not destroy the joy. Then, the overflow of that joy to others in generosity. That overflow is called love. Paul assumes that without the expanding impulse of joy toward others in need, there would be no love.

Putting it all together, I would say that the great purpose of lifelong learning—education in serious joy—is to magnify Christ by enjoying him above all things and in all things, with the kind of overflowing, Christlike joy, that is willing to suffer as it expands to include others in it. I know that’s a complex sentence. Please read it again slowly and let it sink in. The name for that process—the aim of lifelong learning—is love (cf. 2 Cor. 8:8).

Enjoying Christ in All Things

At least four times in the preceding paragraphs I have said that we should enjoy Christ not only above all things, but also in all things. Why do I say it like that? The first (enjoying Christ above all things) is obvious: if we prefer anything above Christ, we are idolaters. If he is not our supreme treasure, we devalue him. Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Paul said, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8).

But why do we say that the aim of lifelong learning is to enjoy Christ in all things? One reason is that God created the material world so that we would see him and savor him in it—the world itself for what it is. God did not create the pleasures of the world as temptations to idolatry. They have become that, because of sin. After the fall of the world into sin, virtually every good can be misused to replace Christ as our greatest treasure.

Sex and Food as Revelation

This is not how it was from the beginning. And this is not how it should be for those who are being made new in Christ. We know this because of the way the apostle Paul speaks about the enjoyment of created things—like food in moderation, and sex in marriage. In 1 Timothy 6:17, he says that God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” And he gets specific with regard to food and sex in 1 Timothy 4:3–5. He warns against false teachers who “forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”

The enjoyments of sex in marriage and food in moderation are “richly provided” by God. They are not simply temptations. They are occasions for worship—namely, Godward thankfulness. They are “created . . . to be received with thanksgiving.” Created things are “made holy by the word of God and prayer.” “Those who believe and know the truth” receive them as undeserved gifts from God, feel gratitude to God for them, and offer God prayers of thanks that acknowledge him as the merciful giver. In this way, potential means of idolatry become holy means of worship. This is what Paul has in mind when he says, “Whether you eat or drink . . . do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Eating and drinking can replace God or reveal God.

Thus, education in serious joy aims for Christ to be magnified above and in all things. But not just “in all things” as the giver to be thanked; also “in all things” as the good to be tasted. God did not create the countless varieties of enjoyments of this world only to receive thanks. He also created those enjoyments to reveal something of himself in the very pleasures. “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8) means that God gives his people a spiritual palate that can discern more of what God is like through the way he has revealed himself in the created world.

For example, honey reveals something of the sweetness of God’s ordinances: they are “sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps. 19:10). The rising sun reveals something of God’s glorious joy: “The heavens declare the glory of God. . . . In them he has set a tent for the sun . . . which . . . runs its course with joy” (Ps. 19:1–5). The expectant thrill we feel at weddings is part of the pleasure we will have at the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 18:7, 9; also Matt. 22:2). The morning dew reveals something of his tender coming to an unfaithful people: “I will be like the dew to Israel” (Hos. 14:5). The fruitful showers reveal something of God’s life-giving mercies: “He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth” (Hos. 6:3). Light (John 8:12), thunder (Ps. 29:3), vultures (Matt. 24:28), lilies (Matt. 6:28), ravens (Luke 12:24)—these and thousands of other created things were made by God not only as gifts to elicit our thanks, but also as revelatory tastes of his perfections.

Focus of Our Study

When we speak of enjoying God in all things, the things we have in mind include both the word that God inspired and the world that God made. We have honey and sunshine and weddings and dew and rain and light and thunder and vultures and lilies and ravens. We know these things not first from God’s word but from his world. Yet I cited a Scripture to go with each one. The significance of that interweaving of world and word is that it points to our answer to the question, What is the focus of our education in serious joy? What do we actually study? If God’s aim in creating and governing the world is the display of his glory, where should we focus our attention? Where will we see the glory?

Our answer is that God has two books: his inspired word and his created world. This is what we study: the Bible, on the one hand, and the whole organic complex of nature and history and human culture, on the other hand. We are not the first to call creation and Scripture God’s two books.

For example, in 1559, Guido DeBrès wrote the Belgic Confession for the Dutch Reformed churches and said in Article 2, under the title “The Means by Which We Know God”:

We know [God] by two means: first, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely, his power and divinity, as the apostle Paul saith, Romans 1:20. All which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse. Secondly, he makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holy and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to his glory and our salvation.3

God created the world to communicate truth about himself. “His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). But man has suppressed the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).

God’s answer to this blindness was not to spurn the world, but to speak the word. He did this through the inspiration of Scripture and the sending of his Son. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). We are rescued from our sin and blindness not by the revelation of God in the world, but by the heralding of the word of Christ: “Since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21).

God’s Word Sends Us to God’s World to Learn

But the decisive, saving power and authority of God’s word does not cancel out God’s world. The Bible gives the decisive meaning of all things. But the Bible itself sends us over and over again into the world for learning.

Consider the lilies; consider the birds (Matt. 6:26, 28). “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise” (Prov. 6:6). “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?” (Isa. 40:26). And God says to Job, if you would be properly humbled before your God, open your eyes and consider the oceans, the dawn, the snow, the hail, the rain, the constellations, the clouds, and lions, and ravens, and mountain goats, and wild donkeys, and oxen, and the ostrich, and horse, and hawk, and eagle (Job 38–39).

In fact, think about the way the prophets and apostles and Jesus himself used language. They used analogies and figures and metaphors and similes and illustrations and parables. In all of these, they constantly assume that we have looked at the world and learned about vineyards, wine, weddings, lions, bears, horses, dogs, pigs, grasshoppers, constellations, businesses, wages, banks, fountains, springs, rivers, fig trees, olive trees, mulberry trees, thorns, wind, thunderstorms, bread, baking, armies, swords, shields, sheep, shepherds, cattle, camels, fire, green wood, dry wood, hay, stubble, jewels, gold, silver, law courts, judges, and advocates.

In other words, the Bible both commands and assumes that we will know the world, and not just the word. We will study the general book of God called nature and history and culture. And we will study the special book of God called the Bible. And the reason is that God has revealed his glory in both—and means for us to see him in both, and savor him in both, and show him to the world through both.

The two books of God are not on the same level. The Bible has supreme authority, because God gave the Bible as the key to unlock the meaning of all things. Without the truth of the Bible, the most brilliant scholars may learn amazing truths about nature. And we may read their books and learn from them. But without the special revelation of God, they miss the main point—that everything exists to glorify Christ. Not just some generic deity, but Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the eternal second person of the Trinity. Without the special revelation of the gospel of Christ through Scripture, we remain blinded by sin. We do not see that we need a Savior and that Christ came into the world to save sinners. We do not see that the whole universe gets its ultimate meaning in relationship to him. When we miss the main reality, everything we think we have learned is skewed.

So, for Christians, lifelong learning—education in serious joy—is permeated by the study of the Bible. The Bible gives the key that unlocks the deepest meaning of everything else.

What Do We Do with God’s Books?

If we are going to spend a lifetime focusing on the glory of God revealed in these two books—the word that God inspired and the world that God made—what should we do with these two books? We hope that you put out of your mind the thought that lifelong learning is about getting degrees behind your name (whether BA, MA, DMin, or PhD). They are incidental to real learning. We also hope that you don’t think of education mainly as acquiring money-making skills. Of course, skills that enable you to function productively in your calling are important. But that is not mainly what lifelong learning is about. That is not mainly what we want you to do with God’s world and God’s word.

Our aim is to help you grow in the habits of mind and heart that will never leave you and will fit you for a lifetime of increasing wisdom and wonder through all the sweet and bitter providences of life. The well-educated person is not the one with degrees, but the one who has the habits of mind and heart to go on learning for a lifetime. Specifically, to go on learning what we need in order to live in a Christ-exalting way for the rest of our lives—whatever the vocation.

Six Habits of Mind and Heart

Lifelong learning for the glory of Christ calls for continual growth in six habits of mind and heart. These are the habits we seek to instill in our students so that their education does not stop when their schooling stops. These are the habits we seek to grow in ourselves. Helping you grow in these habits over a lifetime is why I have written this book.

These habits of mind and heart apply to everything we experience, but most importantly the Bible, because the Bible provides essential light on the meaning of all other reality. Growing in these habits can be summed up like this:

We seek to grow continually in the ability:

to observe the world and the word accurately and thoroughly;to understand clearly what we have observed;to evaluate fairly what we have understood by discerning what is true and valuable;to feel with proper intensity the worth, or futility, of what we have evaluated;to apply wisely and helpfully in life what we understand and feel;to express in speech and writing and deeds what we have observed, understood, evaluated, felt, and applied in such a way that its accuracy, clarity, truth, worth, and helpfulness can be known and enjoyed and applied by others for the glory of Christ.

So the habits of mind and heart are:

observationunderstandingevaluationfeelingapplicationexpression

Whether you are looking at a passage in the Bible, or at the US Constitution, or the double helix of DNA, or a mysterious pattern of scratches on your car, the habits of mind and heart are the same.

1. Observation

We want to grow in our ability to observe