An important reason for seeking Christian education is to investigate life contexts for meaning. The overlap of many factors in the whole fabric of learning in any context is sometimes easy, sometimes difficult. For example, language meanings and skills along with semantic issues are identified, presumably for all persons. The rules of rhetoric hold a general unity for all persons or we can’t make sense to each other. But all cultures do not buy into them. When we go from culture to culture, the differences can be so great that accommodation often falls away. Issues are left hanging. They may be misjudged in exchanges, leading to tragic consequences. Persons will specialize so to be most effective in what they want to be, and what means most to them for their lives and for society. Specialty isn’t enough.
One ought to be a student of whatever he or she is most interested in, in what counts as the specialties of the individual’s life. Because I believe Christ is the most important factor for my life, I want to know all that I can know about Christianity. That extends not only to theology, but practical application, cultural meaning, interpretation of nature, application to life as in self formation, family, occupation, even habits and recreation. In this context I discover greater understanding of not only who I am, but what it is that I want to become and do. Much time is given to speculation, and so much of it is fanciful, but influential to detour persons from understanding truth and directions toward problem solving, even factual context. The matter is of concern for both secular and spiritual contexts. For example, those who deplore the decimation of the buffalo, as virtually defying the purpose of nature or creation, need to know that studies in American archaeology show little evidence that buffalo were plentiful in 1492. Apparently the specie multiplied as the great plains became verdant with magnificent grasses in the appearance of the movements of the human race, first the Indians, aboriginal to America. Until the European introduced the horse to North America, buffalo were not easily hunted. The implication is that the buffalo may come and go, as nature and mankind provide or deny adequate habitat. Habitat determines what will flourish within it.
Studies in Biblical archaeology are beneficial in making the lives of persons more natural to us, and offer clearer evaluation of the Biblical texts. Was Rahab a prostitute or hostess of an inn? Were there many or few horses in the military set-up from Solomon forward? Is there evidence of the impaling of the bodies of Saul and Jonathan after their last battle? What is the evidence for the Tower of Siloam, which collapsed killing 18 persons? (The current reader is provided almost daily with stories of the tragedies of the killing of innocents in group numbers in America and the world. We would like some of the Siloam details for comparison/contrast.) Is there evidence of an upper room in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus? We are helped in the work of scientists in fields like archaeology. Chatting with William F. Albright, the eminent archaeologist, I gained greater awareness of the cross fertilization of Christian archaeologists with secular. He was competent, even magnificent, to project both secular and spiritual relevance in the field.
Recalling some of the fanciful guesses I heard as a young man, interested in the life of the mind, guesses from persons embellishing their beliefs in anything, not only the Scriptures, I understood why so many persons looked upon any religion as a refuge for good but uninformed persons. I wanted reality, and found it in the affirmatives of Christ. The whole world seems somewhat distorted relative to the interpretations of human beings and castes such as Outcasts, or Jews, or Aborigines – others. A careful reading of Scripture and history can verify life, so we seek to improve reporting. (We learn that Jesus was taken down by political enemies, both Gentile and Jew.) Christian education, wherever it may be found, seeks truth through the maze of history and analysis of what occurred. Life includes a search for the truth of effective faith. All else, important, is next. So we look for physical verification of some of the facts and events of biblical times, because we give so large authority to Scripture (history of God’s/man’s work in earth). Thus far the search has given us evidence of a faithful narrative we call the Bible. The search for God is an encounter not only for finding God, but self. History verifies or clouds Scripture. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020