Yearbook Interview: Mr. Pruitt, High School Bible Teacher

Mr. Pruitt’s Classroom, Photo by Robbie Pruitt, © August 2011

The students, and the teacher, of the yearbook class asked the following questions as part of an interview series on teachers, which will published in the 2011-2012 Quisqueya Christian School yearbook. Here is their interview of me:

Yearbook Interview: Mr. Pruitt, High School Bible Teacher
Name: Robbie Pruitt (Mr. Pruitt)
Grades: Bible 10, 11A, 11B, and 12

What is your favorite subject to teach? Why?

My favorite subject to teach is Bible. I cannot imagine teaching any other subject, except for maybe theology, literature, or poetry, but I would rather teach the Bible. I am passionate about God’s word. I feel like I know the Bible pretty well, or well enough to begin teaching it, but there is so much more to learn and know. This is part of why I love God’s Word so much. You can spend a lifetime learning and teaching it and never grow tired or bored of all that is there. Within the pages of scripture, we discover the God of the universe. How awesome is that?

What do you enjoy the most about teaching? Why?

What I enjoy the most about teaching is being a part of the process of someone coming to know Jesus through His Word. I like watching the “light bulbs” go on when someone learns something new. It is very gratifying. To think that someone can have God illuminated for them through my teaching is an amazing thing; it is a monumental opportunity and a tremendous responsibility. I love it!

What did your students enjoy the most? What was their favorite part of class?

This is a great question, and I am not too sure that I am the one who should answer it. I imagine some students would say that they enjoyed when my class was over, while others would say that they enjoyed how they came to know the Bible and the God of the Bible and that this profoundly transformed their lives. Some students would say they enjoyed learning “The Happy Dance,” or my jokes, or my singing. Some students may have enjoyed the music I played before class, or the stellar Power Points. Many students may have appreciated that I seemed to have a YouTube illustration for everything. It depends on the student, I imagine, and it depends on the class. In all seriousness, these are amazing and bright students at Quisqueya Christian School, who love Jesus. They genuinely enjoy learning, coming to know Jesus, and growing in their faith. It is a blessing to teach them!

Why did you come to Haiti?

I came to Haiti, because my wife, Irene, and I felt that God was calling us to come here. It has always been a desire of mine to teach, and I love the Bible. I also love youth ministry and have spent most of my life in youth ministry. Teaching Bible to High School Students in an amazing, dynamic, and culturally rich country, like Haiti, is like a dream job come true for me.

Why did you become a teacher?

I became a teacher for many reasons. God commands us all to teach in The Great Commission, see Matthew 28:18-20. I love to learn. I like to watch other people come to understand information that they previously never understood before. I am passionate about seeing transformation occur in people’s lives through learning. One of my spiritual gifts is teaching; see Ephesians 4:11 and 1 Corinthians 12. Finally, many teachers have helped introduce me to Jesus, and have helped me to grow in Him. These teachers have influenced my life for the better and I want to be a teacher like that.

Love Your God with All Your Mind

While Christianity may have been known for its intellectual contributions in the past, the word intellectual hardly describes popular Christianity, as we know it today. It especially does not describe North American Christianity. The intellect, the mind, seems to have been abandoned for a “fragmented Christianity” that does not consider the whole Christian. A Christianity that does not consider the whole person or the intellect, does not consider the all the commands of our Lord Jesus. Specifically, it does not consider Jesus’ command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself’ (Luke 10:27).” What we are left with, in neglecting the mind, is less than holistic Christianity that considers all of the scriptures, all of God’s commands, and the whole Christian. What we end up with instead, is a disintegrated and fragmented Christianity that does not resemble what God intended for His followers to have.

J.P. Moreland addresses this concern of loving God with our minds in his book, Love Your God with All Your Mind. In this book, Moreland asserts that we have lost a major premise of Christianity by losing sight of our intellectual properties, which is a product of being created in the very image of God. Without exercising our intellect, and reason, we cannot fully worship God, know God, or serve Him well. Our intellect and our reasoning reflect our being created in God’s image and is what makes our humanity unique in God’s creation. We have been given stewardship over this intellect and over creation, and we must be good stewards of what God has given. We cannot honor, or glorify, God apart from fully exercising our capacities for thinking and reasoning. We cannot, and must not, divorce our thinking from our faith and reasoning.

In Love Your God with All Your Mind, by J.P. Moreland, Moreland addresses loving God with our minds in four parts in his book: Part One: Why The Mind Matters in Christianity; Part Two: How to Develop a Mature Christian Mind; Part Three: What a Mature Christian Mind Looks Like; and Part Four: Guaranteeing a Future for the Christian Mind. J. P. Moreland explores these themes through the following chapters: How We Lost the Christian Mind and Why We Must Recover It; Sketching a Biblical Portrait of the Life of the Mind; The Mind’s Role in Spiritual Transformation; Harassing the Hobgoblins of the Christian Mind; Clearing the Cobwebs from My Mental Attic; Evangelism and the Christian Mind; Apologetic Reasoning and the Christian Mind; Worship, Fellowship, and the Christian Mind; Vocation and an Integrated Christian Worldview; and Recapturing the Intellectual Life in the Church.

Moreland asserts, in Love Your God with All Your Mind, that Christianity in our modern day is more concerned with emotions than intellect. “Our culture is in serious trouble,” says Moreland. This trouble, according to Moreland, is coming from anti-intellectualism in today’s evangelical Christianity, which asserts that faith is “blind,” and not based on reason. Most Christians have been taught from a young age not to question their faith and that our beliefs as Christians are based solely on faith and not on rational thought, or reason. This could not be further from the truth. Our faith is based on reason and we can know why we believe what we believe. There are evidences that can be explored, and we must explore them and encourage thought and reasoning in our faith.

In “Christian education,” this becomes hugely important in our living, learning, planning, and teaching, and in our approach to integrating our faith and reasoning within every area of our lives. As Christians, we must be a thinking people who honor God with our minds, our being, and our doing, as Paul commands us in Colossians 3:17, “do all to the Glory of God.” Integrating our beliefs will encompass our entire beings, including our minds, or we are practicing something less than Christianity. Jesus Himself declares, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40).” If Christians are to reflect the image of their maker, then we will reflect and resemble Jesus, the very Wisdom of God, and we will, as Paul puts it, “We have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).”

The Evangelical Christianity of today seems to neglect an integrated view of faith and life and Moreland addresses this concern when he speaks of the false divide between the secular and the sacred. Nowhere in the scriptures do we see this divide between faith and the world, or the divide between the sacred and the secular. We are called to live in this world and to bring our beliefs in God, our knowledge of scripture, and our intellect to bear on the world, just as we find it, in hopes that we will not leave the world unchanged. There is very real danger in ant-intellectualism and false divisions between our faith and our lives in this world. These false dichotomies leave the Christian fragmented, and they leave the Christian as a fraction of who they are supposed to be in Christ.

Many Christians wrongly assume that being a Christian means to be “not of this world,” and they take this to the extreme by divorcing their thinking from their faith, as if these two aspects of our being were mutually exclusive. This false belief is actually a reinstallation of the ancient heresy of Gnosticism, which claims that we are somehow trapped in this evil world and that matter is evil, and is to be transcended by secret knowledge, or escape from “the flesh.” This idea that this material world is evil, including our minds, is not a Christian idea or doctrine. Though now fallen, the mind and the body were created good, and they were created to be used for God’s Glory. We are not to be seeking to transcend the “evil matter” of our flesh, or “this world.” We are, however, called to reclaim the world and to integrate our faith into every area of our lives and integrate our faith into this world to take part in God’s restoration of the world. It is wrong for us to abandon the mind, as some have, for fear of Gnosticism. For in doing so, we may find ourselves in the very throes of Gnosticism despite of, and because of, our very efforts to avoid it.

Dallas Willard describes, beautifully, this idea of integrating our Christian faith in every area of our lives in the introduction of Love Your God with All Your Mind:

“If I am a plumber, clerk, bank manager, homemaker, elected official, senior Citizen, or migrant worker, I am in ‘full-time’ Christian service no less than someone who earns his or her living in a specifically Christian role. Jesus stands beside me and teaches me in all that I do to live in God’s world. He shows me how, in every circumstance, to reside in His word and thus be a genuine apprentice of His-His disciple indeed. This enables me to find the reality of God’s world everywhere I may be, and thereby to escape from enslavement to sin and evil (John 8:31-32). We become able to do what we know to be good and right, even when it is humanly impossible. Our lives and words become constant testimony of the reality of God (p. 12).”

In effect, if we “loose our minds” as Christians, we will also lose our concept of the reality of God, we will lose our concept of reality, we will lose our freedom, and we will lose our testimony to a lost world, who just so happens to be a thinking world. We have an obligation as Christians to be a thinking and teaching people. Our Lord Jesus commands this in Matthew 28: 18-20 saying, “’All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.” God has called us to teach and to make everything that He has taught us known to the world.

J.P. Moreland’s Love Your God with All Your Mind is a fantastic book that all Christians should read so we can recapture our minds for the sake of the Kingdom of God, for the sake of the gospel being proclaimed in the world, and for our own sakes. We must close the false chasm between the secular and the sacred and we must not “check our brains at the door” as it pertains to our faith. As Christians, we are obligated, even commanded, to integrate our faith into all of our lives. We must not live fragmented lives where we do not love God with all our minds. Christians must assert their stewardship over creation and over their thinking. We must live lives of intellect and reasoning, offering all of ourselves up to God in worship, including our thinking and reasoning. Only then will we be able to worship holistically, and in a God honoring manner as God calls us to, like Paul mentions in Romans 12:1-2, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Bibliography

Moreland, James Porter. Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul. NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO., ©1997

The New King James Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1982.

On the Rampart

Old City Walls...from the outside, Photo by Chad Rosenthal, Chadica, © July 21, 2008

On the Rampart
(Habakkuk Chapters 1-3)

“I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected.” – Habakkuk 2:1

Habakkuk is an Old Testament Minor Prophet, but he is no ordinary prophet. Habakkuk is known as “The People's Prophet.” While most prophets intermediate oracles, or words from the Lord, to His people, Habakkuk seems to take the people’s concerns, and his own concerns, to God. This prophet is full of the questions that we all seem to have deep within us, but we hesitate, or dare even, to ask. In our sufferings and in this fallen world filled with sin, injustice, pride, corruption, and falsehoods of all kinds, we have the “Why?” and the “What?” questions. “Why is this happening to us? Why is God allowing this? What is God doing? What good, if any, can come of this?”

Habakkuk was a prophet as well as a watchman responsible for warning the people of coming danger and judgment. If he failed at his job as watchman, he would be guilty and would have the people’s blood on his hands. The watchman was also responsible for announcing the morning, the dawn of a new day, and the returning of the people to the land. This position held a high responsibility, and exposure and vulnerability to danger. From the ramparts, the defensive walls, the watchman would be the first to see the danger coming and would be the first to be in danger’s path. In Habakkuk’s case, he was watching for the coming judgment and he recognized that he himself deserved what was coming Israel’s way. He was well aware of what was on the horizon at the dawning of a new day, The Judgment Day of the Lord.

This “Day of Judgment” would not be the last word; however, because God had promised Habakkuk that he would do an unbelievable work. God said to Habakkuk in chapter one verse five, “Look among the nations and watch—Be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you.” God was promising judgment. We know this from the verses that follow, but there was going to be more to come, so much more. Habakkuk assumed that God was being unjust for allowing a pagan nation to judge a “more righteous” nation, Israel, but God would ultimately judge both nations. All people would be judged, and no sin would go unaccounted for or un-atoned for.

As Habakkuk looks at the sins of his people, the sins of the pagan nations, and God’s coming judgment, he dares to ask the hard questions. He dares to seek God out. He bravely goes for the answers and risks what he may find. In Habakkuk 2:1, Habakkuk stands at his watch on the rampart, waits, and watches for what God may say to him about all his inquiries. He wonders what he may say to God in response to what he may hear when he is corrected. When he is corrected? At the first glance at Habakkuk 2:1, we may miss this, but he does say, “When I am corrected.” It looks as if Habakkuk is taking responsibility for the coming judgment that God is sending, or at least he is taking responsibility for his part in it. It is at the judgment of the Israelite people by the Babylonians that Habakkuk begins questioning God, and now he waits for God’s response and owns what may be coming his way as well.

God assured Habakkuk that no sin would be overlooked, not the sins from the pagan Babylonians who would judge Israel, not Israel’s sins, and not even Habakkuk’s own sins. God promised that he would judge. Habakkuk pleaded with God in Habakkuk chapter three verse two: “O Lord, I have heard Your speech and was afraid; O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.”

God did extend His mercy in the midst of His wrath and judgment. His mercy would indeed come in the person of His own Son Jesus Christ who would ultimately take on the wrath and judgment, which we all deserve because of our sin. God took our judgment in our place. If we are willing and able to see what God has done, we will indeed “be utterly astounded!” God has exercised His wrath and judgment, and in His mercy, God has taken it in our stead; setting us free from our sin; setting us free from ourselves; and setting us free from hiding behind our “defensive walls.”

Having received such forgiveness and freedom, we are able to say with Habakkuk from on top of the rampart, "Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills (Habakkuk 3:18-19).”

Bibliography

Elwell, Walter A. ; Comfort, Philip Wesley: Tyndale Bible Dictionary. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House Publishers, 2001 (Tyndale Reference Library), S. 1296

Jamieson, Robert ; Fausset, A. R. ; Fausset, A. R. ; Brown, David ; Brown, David: A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments. Oak Harbor, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, S. Hab 2:2

The New King James Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1982, S. Hab 2:1

Walvoord, John F. ; Zuck, Roy B. ; Dallas Theological Seminary: The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures. Wheaton, IL : Victor Books, 1983-c1985, S. 1:1512

Stone and Knee: An Art Review of Jacob Wrestling With God

Jacob Wrestling With God, Painting © 2011, by Jack Baumgartner
Photo Courtesy of the artist, Jack Baumgartner

To see more of Jack Baumgartner’s work visit his web site here: http://theschoolofthetransferofenergy.com/

In the painting Jacob Wrestling With God, artist Jack Baumgartner paints Jacob wrestling with God in vivid, yet subdued colors, with energy, movement, and drama. As we look at the painting, we see a ribbon scrolling from the top left to the bottom right of the curtains, which two hands pull back revealing the scene. This ribbon and these hands reappear often in Baumgartner’s work, especially in his biblical scenes. They seem to unite the individual works into a singular narrative, as the scriptures themselves are telling a singular tale.

This scene is Jacob wrestling his God for blessing and identity. God reaches out in the painting and grabs Jacob’s ankle reminding Jacob of his desire for blessing and identity, which he once sought through stealing his brother’s birthright and blessing. God is grabbing Jacob’s “wound.” As Jacob is absorbed in this tussle in the torso of God, we see his right knee bent toward a stone at the bottom right of the painting. We are reminded in this stone of Jacob’s vow at Bethel as he makes a stone into a pillar, an altar of worship (Genesis 28:10-22). This same stone was Jacob’s pillow as he dreamed of a ladder connecting heaven and earth, and now it is a marker of worship declaring God’s house, Bethel, and God’s covenant with him. It is at this stone that Jacob bends his knee to God in worship.

Often when Old Testament authors spoke of knees it was in reference to fear and weakness. In this painting, it is as if God is simultaneously grabbing Jacob’s wound as he bends his knee toward the stone revealing Jacob’s fear and weakness and making Jacob submissive to Himself.

If we are familiar with the New Testament scriptures, we may also be aware that Jesus is referred to as the “Cornerstone.” We may also hear Paul’s words from Philippians 2:10, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. . .” God is wrestling Jacob back into right relationship with Himself, from fear and weakness, to fathered, humbled, and strong, to surety of identity in Him, and to beautiful worship.

Jack Baumgartner is a master at packing in imagery and symbolism into his art, which guides the admirer of his work into depths of beauty and movement, and into “the transfer of energy.” Baumgartner’s work plunges us into the depths of the scriptures to mine for meaning, and to find the common thread of God’s redemption of humanity in His Cornerstone.

For another art review of Jack Baumgartner’s work, Jacob Wrestling the Angel of God, click here.

Stone and Knee: Theological Reflections

Are we stumbling on stone, or standing on stone? Are we knees knocking, or bowing with bended knee?

Stone

Are we stumbling on stone, or standing on stone?

“Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it.” – Genesis 28:18

“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” – 1 Samuel 7:12

“Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily.” – Isaiah 28:16

One of the first places in scripture where we see the word stone referenced is in an act of worship with Jacob (see Genesis 28:10-22). Stones are often used in scripture in worship, as memorials, or are built into altars for worship (see Joshua 4:1-10). Stones are referenced many different times in scripture and have great significance.

In Psalm 118:22-23 the psalmist says, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.” This Psalm clearly echoes the prophesy of Isaiah, “Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily (Isaiah 28:16).”

In the New Testament, Peter speaks about this Old Testament passage as well when he references it in 1 Peter 2:4-8. Peter says that we should come to Jesus, the cornerstone and be ourselves living stones. He says, “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:4-5).”

Paul also references the rejected Cornerstone in Romans 9:32 when he speaks of Israel not attaining God’s salvation that the Gentiles received by faith in Jesus. Paul says, “Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.” The Jews were stumbling over Jesus and were seeking righteousness and salvation through the law. Meanwhile, the Gentiles were becoming children of God through their faith in Jesus. As we look at this passage, we can hear echoes of what John the Baptist said to the Pharisees and Sadducees about stones in Matthew 3:9: “Do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”

Knee

Are we knees knocking, or bowing with bended knee?

“All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.” – Ezekiel 7:17

“Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save you.’” – Isaiah 35:3-4

In the Old Testament, the word knee or the concept of kneeling, or “knocking knees” is equated with fear or weakness. Even today, the idea of “knocking at the knees” seen as an image or word picture of fear. The New Bible Dictionary emphasizes that people in Old Testament times understood references to knees as “concrete imagery” that “expresses weakness or fear as ‘feeble knees’ (see Job 4:4, Isaiah 35:3, Nahum 2:10, and Daniel 5:6).”

In the New Testament, knees are referenced in connection with bowing in most cases. According to The New Bible Dictionary, “this action may indicate a sign of respect, or subjection (see Romans 11:4 and 14:11).” Simply put, bending your knee is a picture of adoration or worship. It is also a posture of prayer and humility (see Luke 22:41, 1 Kings 8:54, and 1 Kings 18:42).

One of the more famously recognized verses of New Testament scriptures about kneeling is in reference to Jesus’ Lordship. Paul writes to the Philippians, quoting Isaiah 45:23, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).”

Are we stumbling on stone, or standing on stone? Are we knees knocking, or bowing with bended knee?

Works Cited

The New King James Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1982, S. Php 2:10-11

Wood, D. R. W.: New Bible Dictionary. InterVarsity Press, 1996, c1982, c1962, S. 657