Eugene Prewitt discusses his life experiences and the importance of teaching our children from the Bible. He also offers some suggestions on how to get them to read the Bible.

2015 True Education Symposium

<p>Eugene Prewitt discusses his life experiences and the importance of teaching our children from the Bible. He also offers some suggestions on how to get them to read the Bible.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Pattern Education

Bible As the Center of Academic Curricula

Eugene Prewitt

1. The Bible: The Basis for True Education

I want to welcome you all back to our education symposium, and I have a Bible study for us tonight.

I hope that will please some of you more than philosophy did last night, although I think it was important philosophy.

And we'll spend at least a moment reviewing it this evening and I see also justification for another children's story in this audience.

I'm going to kneel and if you can where you are go ahead and if not just stay seated.

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you would bless our evening as you have our day, that as we open up the Holy Bible, that you would make its meaning apparent, that your spirit would guide.

I could start with the children's story, but right now the children are already paying attention, so I think I'll get to it later.

When some of you start to go to sleep, I'll use it, and we'll get to it.

Tonight we're talking about the Bible versus human wisdom, and I can hardly think of a more thorough contrast we could make, but maybe in your mind's eye, if you were here last night, you could just imagine that there are perhaps 6 categories of sources that people go to as the way they figure out their ultimate truth about things like religion, for example, about God or salvation.

Can someone just tell me, what are 1 of those 6 ways people come at their ideas about truth?

So I heard revelation and I heard others.

Reason, that first 1 there, by thinking it through, what's another way?

Experiment, You're getting them in order this time, aren't you?

And intuition, okay, I think we got them all, and some of them 5 or 6 times.

So what we have there are a list of ways, and I probably should add a thought that is common sense.

When I say that Revelation is the only 1 that is ultimately reliable, I don't mean to say that the other ones aren't useful.

If it wasn't for experiment, we just would not have light.

You can't get from the Bible how to make an incandescent bulb.

If we didn't use our intuition, ladies, you don't have time to research men when you first meet them, right?

Aren't you glad you have something to help you get started in that process?

And when it comes to reason, this is the thing that separates us from the animals.

It has a great value in trying to figure out what is true, even when it comes to Scripture.

So I'm not trying to say, when I exalt the Bible as the ultimate way of knowing truth, I'm not making light of research methods and other ways we come at truth, there's only a couple of them that I consider to be very weak.

Tradition, I think, is quite weak as a way of arriving at truth.

However, in practical life, tradition is really important because as you grow up and your parents teach you to brush your teeth, you begin brushing your teeth long before you understand about microbial developments in the gums.

If it wasn't until you did your own research and saw all that stuff for yourself, it would be too late for your teeth.

So we can't afford in life to start at scratch and build up from 0 knowledge and only practice things that we've learned by our own experience.

We really do have to build something on the backs of others.

Even in religion, we have to start there.

It's because of our parents that we even believe in God.

And some of you grew up maybe not believing in God because of your parents.

But it's because of our parents that we start out believing that there is a God, believing in...

The reason you believed the Bible when you were 10 wasn't because you had tested the prophecies of Death and Revelation.

It was because your parents and your teachers believed the Bible.

So I'm just trying to say again that tradition has a use.

And I'm glad we have something that's ultimately reliable.

Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians has some of the most interesting ideas regarding human wisdom that you'll find anywhere in the scripture.

First Corinthians chapter 1, we're going to look in verse 19 at a prophecy that Paul uses more than once.

It's an Old Testament prophecy that Paul makes reference to.

First Corinthians 1 verse 19, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the who?

Of the wise and I will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Let's go to verse 20, and it might make a commentary for us in 19.

I really don't think Paul's asking where are they located.

If he was, the answer would be in our universities.

But I don't think he's asking where can you find these people.

He's asking where are these people in relation to truth or in relation to wisdom.

Where are these people in relation to what is accurate?

Notice what it says in the end of the verse.

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

The world has people that it has exalted as the most eminent persons in their fields.

There would be a man who knows more than anyone else about certain types of codfish.

What the Bible says is the people who might claim to be experts in the field of religion, God does not respect their claim to expertise.

And He doesn't expect you to respect it either.

If a man tells me that the Bible means such and such and asks me to believe it on the basis of the fact of who he is or his acquired degrees, I have no respect for that kind of persuasion.

The truth is that a man who studies in a university, who starts out as a Baptist and gets his Ph.D.

In theology, more or less likely will be a Baptist when he finishes.

And a man who starts out as a Quaker will likely be a Quaker when she finishes.

And someone who starts out as a Catholic will likely be a Catholic when he finishes.

What I'm trying to say is that these 3 people are just like the Adventist boy who's still an Adventist when he finishes, although that's not as likely as the other 3.

What's going on in this case is that these people, Before they did their 15 years of theological research, they had certain ideas about the big picture.

And you know when they finish their 15 years, they have the same ideas.

Or let me bring it just a little closer to home, something that you maybe can relate to.

It was my most discouraging month of my first year of teaching.

Well, in the North American Division, and you remember it, some of you remember it, there was quite an argument over the issue of tithing.

The issue was, where is it legitimate to send your tithe?

So my position as a teacher at that point was just very plain.

Well what I noticed in my class is that they really were getting into this and I thought this is a great chance for me to teach them how to do their own research.

You know, they want to know, like, I don't know if they want to know, but they want to teach.

2. The Importance of Reading the Bible and Teaching Your Children to Read the Bible

If it's comfortable for you and you're happy to do it, kneel with me for prayer, and if not, just stay where you are, and I'll pray in a moment.

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you would make your word easy for us to understand this evening, that by your spirit, you would bring out things that are most important for those who are here, for those who may listen later.

So tonight we're talking about particularly how to use the Bible in a pattern school on the primary level or the elementary level.

Certainly as a church we ought to have more primary schools than any other schools in the world.

In my own church plant, when I say my own church plant, I mean I certainly have taken ownership of this thing.

About 11 years ago, my wife and I and 4 students set to work in a town of 10, 000 people and we thought 0 Seventh-day Adventist.

Turned out there was 1, but we would have been better off without him.

But he was unfaithful to his non-Adventist wife.

So that didn't get us off to a good start or anything.

But we began our church plant in that town and that church grew slowly.

I'd love to teach you about church planting but I'm not going to do that.

Until 7 years ago we started an elementary school because of what Ellen White said, if you have just a handful of students, you ought to have a school.

Well, our church didn't have the resources for a school, but God helped us.

When we purchased our church, the church came with a parsonage.

And the parsonage was 3, 000 square feet of well-abused building.

And we fixed up part of it to be our little school.

So our school didn't need to buy its own building.

Anyway, you could ask about that school later, but that school is operating with its own 501c3.

That allows us to pay our teacher what we can afford instead of what would be otherwise required by our division policies.

Because if our little church had to pay a regular salary, we would not be able to have a school.

We don't have those kind of resources as a baby church.

But anyway, we are finding young teachers who can work for a pittance, and they're doing a good job for a pittance.

And so what I'm gonna do tonight, I'm gonna tell you a story, but I don't see most of the children here and there might be more coming.

So maybe I'll tell you an adult story and then later tell you a children's story because this children's story is more for the children.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, lived I.

Alaska has no extra volume of women because women, frankly, don't like to be cold.

It's not all, but it's a pretty general thing.

And so for that and other reasons, Alaska is low on feminine persons.

1 reason is there's more creepy guys there than average.

So for whatever reason, that's where I grew up.

My mother had an idea that if she went to Alaska, maybe she could teach at an Adventist church school because her husband, my father, was a smoker.

And everywhere else she applied, the fact that her husband was a smoker kept her from getting a job in a denominational church school.

But her thought was up there they might be desperate and maybe they would hire her despite my dad's issue.

Well, my parents weren't about to split up, so my dad, knowing what she was thinking, sent resumes up there, and even though my mom didn't get a job, he did.

And he got such a good 1, that we went up there even though my mom didn't have a job.

I hope none of you can relate, but I bet some of you can.

She had, at some point in her life, when she just left college, she was mission-minded.

Her goal was, in fact, to go to the Middle East.

She had been accepted as a missionary to Beirut, and this is where she was pushing her mind.

But the man that she set her mind on marrying Didn't take an interest in her and the way she found out was very Wounding to her and it discouraged her the way that some people who's really set their mind on something can be wounded and discouraged.

So when my mother met my father, she didn't do enough critical thinking.

And she agreed to marry him if he would quit smoking.

I think you have enough experience in life to know that that's probably not a good bargain to make.

Would any of you witness to the children here that that's not a good bargain?

I'll witness it, that what if the guy who makes the bargain isn't quite capable of following through, for example.

He died from his cigarette smoking after they'd been married for about 30 years.

And so I grew up in a home where my mother, by violating principles that were important to her, this must be yours.

I knew your mom when she was just a little older than you are and she was really a nice person.

As far as I know, I don't know her anymore.

My mother, for example, had an idea that she wouldn't have a television in the house.

But over my growing up years, it really hurt her that I would spend time at the neighbors' houses because they had a television.

And I didn't like to be home because there, there wasn't 1.

And she eventually decided to bring 1 in to our house.

And it was, I'll just summarize the story and make it short enough to say that I was headed down the path where most people were headed also where I was.

And that's when a man was converted to the Adventist church there in Alaska, named Les Graham.

And Les was a typical, what would you say, hippie?

He had long hair, and it was a mixture of black and gray, And he played the guitar, which was the primary qualifications necessary to be a youth leader in Alaska.

And so as soon as Les was baptized, they made him the youth leader in our little church in North Pole, Alaska.

North Pole, Alaska is in the center, it's not like way up in the North Pole, it's just the name of a town.

And I want to praise God for my youth leader, Les Graham.

Les is the first person I ever recall meeting that talked about Bible promises as if they had power.

He's the first person I ever recall encountering who talked about religion in a way that made it seem supernatural, where previous to that in my life, religion has stories about the supernatural, but the day-to-day experience of it isn't supernatural.

Ritual might be the wrong word because it's not symbolic to go to church, but there's nothing miracle-like to it.

Less opened my eyes to this idea about a God who was involved very personally in his life, and it made me begin to think as an 11-year-old that maybe God would like to be involved in my life.

And then Les really put himself on a limb.

I don't know if I even recommend this limb, but I do.

But not the exact same limb, but a limb like it on your tree.

Les was a single man, and he wanted a wife, and he was in his forties.

And In our church, there were only 2 single females.

They were in his Sabbath school class, and they thought he was weird.

Therefore, the chance of him locating a spouse in our church was low.

Why don't you turn just to see it for yourself.

Isaiah 34, 16, it says, seek, that's the first word there.

3. When Righteousness By Faith is Impossible

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you'll bless this last hour of this day like you've blessed other hours in this day That you would find a way by your Holy Spirit to use the Bible to speak to each 1 here even with different messages to meet different needs.

And I ask for this gift in the name of Jesus.

And Tishka was a boy cat raised by a boy.

And even though he had a name that sounded kind of feminine, but he didn't know that because he doesn't know human language.

And so for example, when I would feed Tishka, I never ever made a little bowl and put food in it.

I would take a little handful of food and scatter it across the yard.

And he had to race to get it before the ants and the birds and whatever else.

And I just was raising my cat to be a strong cat.

He became my cat because he would climb trees, jump on a roof, and then crawl over and jump in my second story window.

Went, welcome, ladies and gentle sirs, or gentle sir, more ladies and 1 gentle sir.

Heidi, when she married me, didn't particularly like Tishka.

He was a little bit too much boy cat for her.

He could purr and then he could scratch, for example.

And he 1 time scratched her on the face when she was trying to be really, really sweet with him.

And for Heidi, that's just about the unpardonable sin.

I didn't say anything about her dog, did I?

Then 1 day, I put out ant poison because we had a problem with ants.

The effect of that on Antishka was really very sad.

He developed diarrhea, vomiting, foaming.

If you tried to make him stand up, he'd kind of fall down.

And I didn't think he would live through the night when we found him.

But it did something for Heidi to see him like that.

He no longer seemed like a ferocious animal.

And she made sure he got liquids and he hovered on that balance between life and death for about 10 days.

Lived to the ripe old age of 16, which is quite a bit for a cat.

He was born in 99, and that was last year, so...

Anyway, he's getting up in that range, you know?

We're not yet in 2016, that's what I'm thinking.

What I learned from that experience is the value of letting people help you.

Do you realize, young people, that when Jesus asked for a drink of water from that lady at the well, that it made it much easier for him to help her?

When people help you, It puts them in a mode where they're willing to receive some service and it is sensible for us that we not try to act like we always have no need like we're always strong and able and we don't have Any problems We don't glorify God so much by saying we have no problems, it's by admitting we have problems and knowing, but we admit that we know God can help us with our problems.

Someone asked me for 2 children's stories and that was the first 1.

I'm not a preacher, I'm a teacher, and for me long-term retention is more significant than people feeling like they've been blessed in a sermon.

Who remembers anything from the last 5 days of what's been shared.

I'm talking about things I've shared because otherwise I wouldn't even know if you remember it right.

But do you remember anything that I've shared in the last 5 days?

I know you remember something, but who would tell me 1 thing you remember?

Okay, the idea that to memorize the Bible makes a tool that the Holy Spirit can use to really help us.

So God has given us, He's given us these higher powers are designed to help us make our choices, but he's given us the lower powers to get us moving and then they reward us.

So you feel lonely, your higher power helps you find the right person, you get married and your lower power says, wonderful.

Or you're hungry, that pushes you, your higher power says, I'm going to eat at Potluck, there's good food there, and I didn't know it was carob.

So there's good food there, and you take the good food, and then your lower powers reward you.

We're glad that God has given us those lusts.

It's not like he gave them to us to test us, he gave them to us to help us.

It's when the accelerator tries to steer the car.

And who remembers anything else we talked about here?

When you compare the wisdom of Solomon with Jesus.

Okay so Solomon, the wisest man, and the Bible contrasts him with the wise men of his age, right, with the gurus that were all around.

People traveled long distance to see him, And then what Jesus said is 1 wiser than Solomon is here.

Whoever you think is like the wisest person ever.

Series

Bible As the Center of Academic Curricula

2. The Importance of Reading the Bible and Teaching Your Children to Read the Bible

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

A Sacred Trust: Character

58m

Children's Ministries

Sabbath School and the Home

1h 16m

God's First Book, Our First Classroom

3. Teaching Language Arts in the Outdoors

44m

Teach Them Diligently

Teach Them Diligently - Part 3: Each Thought Counts

1h 3m

Angelo Grasso and Justin Kim - One Step at a Time: Pathways to Spiritual Growth

By the Wayside: Devotion - Growing in the Right Place

41m

You Can Love Again

6 - Let’s Communicate

55m

ASI 2012 Youth Meetings

ASI 2012 Youth Meeting

54m

More Media and the Brain

Schooled: The Deliberate Agenda to Reduce Intelligence, Destroy Individuality, & Re-engineer Society

1h 9m

The Media Mind

Reclaiming the Soul in the Digital Dark Age - Part 4

1h 4m

True Education

True Education- Part 5

57m

The NATURE of Happiness

57m

Teach Them Diligently

Teach Them Diligently - Part 5: Changing the Selfish Heart

1h 7m

Sound Doctrine