The Foundation of All Our Teaching

Teaching from the Big Picture

The Foundation of all of our teaching is the Word of God.

We want day-to-day teaching to answer: Who am I? Where am I in God’s picture? Who is God and can He be known? How do we relate and why? How does He instruct me to live?

All of these answers unfold if we keep a big picture focus:

Creation. Fall. Redemption. Restoration.

Every subject that we teach, every activity that we choose, every dilemma that we encounter will point us to a good God if we study with a big picture view.

Creation (Hebrews 11:3, I Tim. 4:4-5)

Creation – Seeing God as sovereign Creator, free to create for His own purposes, with materials that he both chooses and creates, sustaining or discarding according to His pleasure. Seeing this Creator as the one introduced in the very Word that He wrote, revealing Himself in just the way He wanted to be known.

Seeing this One Creator as the designer, and maker of man, choosing for him the image that is His own. Choosing also for him a help-mate – for the very purpose of completing the man, so that together they would be useful for God’s perfect reason for creating them.

In the study of creation (as a part of each area of study), we want to teach God’s goodness in allowing us to share and enjoy what and who He made. We also want to teach that God has all authority as Creator and that His use of authority is always just.

With God, as with no one else, we can use words like “always” and “never”.

The Fall (Romans 3:23)

One of the most difficult areas of teaching is The Fall. We are weakened by:

- Believing that Eve did it and someway

placing ourselves less evil than she.

- Condemning Adam as a poor example

of Biblical leadership, giving us space to

be superior.

- Failing to see that it is VERY important for

this area to be well and Biblically

understood. Imagine weakening

redemption because the fall is poorly

understood and embraced.

Suggesting that we are not as bad because:

• We meant to do better.

• We are hungry.

• We were mistreated when young.

• We are tired.

• We are old and incapable.

• We are just behaving as our nature.

• And many more.

Some needs on this list are noteworthy and need to be addressed. Even professional help may be needed. But wrong is wrong. Until I see myself as very needy, responsible for my own actions and thoughts, I will have no need of a Redeemer.

Remember: EACH ONE participated in The Fall and is in need of redemption.

Redemption (I John 1:9)

God’s Story does not stop with Adam, Eve and me and all other fallen individuals. It includes grace: God’s precious redemptive grace for the

fallen to be forgiven and for God’s wrath on my sin to be satisfied.

Someone else took God’s wrath so that the sin (mine) that had divided me from Holy God could be paid for. And I, seeking Holy Spirit-inspired forgiveness, will be united with God.

We could go over this again and again and still gasp in amazement! No other religion has a God who sacrificed his own Son to satisfy His absolute hate of sin.

What God did. How He did it. Why He did it (His love for me). Must all be taught day by day in literature, math, music, science. Why because grace – that kind of Grace from The One God is that astonishing and needs to be clearly made known. How could we ever turn away from such a God?

Restoration (Titus 2:7)

God’s Story as we find it in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation ends with all things new – the great restoration.

Today, as we teach, we can all be a part of getting ready for God’s climactic restoration.

Day by day we can practice being a servant and living our lives moving toward final restoration. We respond to our redemption by wanting to see all things restored. This leads us to tell others about redemption and why we all need it. It also leads us to want to help others, clean up parks, encourage the disabled, build bridges and paint a garage, restoring and seeing the restoration connected to God’s grand story. In this teaching, I daily can see my own place in God’s story.

God in Your Teaching

How? How will we present God in this story of creation, fall, redemption and restoration?

1) By admitting that we need help!

2) By being willing to grow and change.

3) By being intentional and without apology in your presentation of who God is and why that matters.

4) By looking at your texts or curriculum and adding your own excitement and discoveries as God shows you Himself in each study.

5) By sharing your fun and enjoyment of school, connecting to the way God made us and how glad we are to have fun.

6) By learning to turn failure, disappointment and drudgery into blessing and opportunity as we are aware of God’s big plan.

7) By delighting in God’s Word. In His Word He is revealed. Read it looking for who He is and what He is doing.

8) By practicing the beauty of God’s plan for forgiveness and sacrifice. The family offers many opportunities to show this as God’s good plan.

9) By maximizing the beauty of redemption in everyday messes. These are tiny object lessons for the saving redemption we all need.

Seeing the big picture helps us to know God and to enjoy our part in His story.

Love, Becky