|
Education in the Mentor’s Foundation is rooted in biblical principles of God as our Creator and we as His creatures. If there is an “all knowing God”, then it is from Him that we must receive our education in living life in the real world as it exists.
Since there is vast amounts of manuscript evidence, archeological
support, and personal testimony to the reliability and authority of the biblical scriptures as a guide to living life, we use these as a foundation for our epistemology for thinking about life, our psychology for feeling about life, and our praxis for living life in a meaningful way.
Just as a postmodernist might believe that there is no meaning in life except the meaning which we give it or a modernist might believe that there is ultimate meaning in life but it has not been discovered and no one can make a claim to it, The Mentor’s Foundation believes that all meaning in life is rooted and grounded in the Jesus Christ revealed within the context of the Bible.
Many people beginning their thoughts from contexts outside the Bible have reinterpreted the concept of “Jesus Christ” in many ways. And in this, we would agree with postmodernists that say this can be done with the concept of “Jesus Christ.” We also agree with modernists who would say that the history of Christianity [Churchianity] has not met the needs of modern men in many areas that go beyond theology and spiritual things. The Mentor’s Foundation believes that Jesus Christ has revealed the way, the truth and the life that meets these needs and they are learned through a process of mentoring, coaching and what the Bible calls “discipleship” or lifelong learning from within the context of biblical truths as they apply to the world around us.
Lifelong Learning
Wise King Solomon addresses his young sons at the beginning of his Proverbs for Israel. In the first eight chapters Solomon encourages his sons to seek wisdom as you would seek a beautiful woman.
Proverbs 1:1-7
1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,
3 To receive instruction in wise behavior,
Righteousness, justice and equity;
4 To give prudence to the naive,
To the youth knowledge and discretion,
5 A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,
6 To understand a proverb and a figure,
The words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Lifelong learning is the call of Solomon to his sons. The acquisition of knowledge, wisdom and understanding is this father's call to his children. Solomon is no fool who hates wisdom and instruction. Solomon understands that respect for the Lord will begin a lifetime of learning. So when Solomon personifies Wisdom as a beautiful and desireable woman for his young sons, he has her explain the importance of emotional maturity in the learning process. The fear of the Lord is the emotional beginning of knowledge. But fools emotionally hate wisdom and instruction. Emotional maturity is the mark of a lifetime of development into becoming a lifelong learner:
Proverbs 1: 20-22
20 Wisdom shouts in the street,
She lifts her voice in the square;
21 At the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:
22 "How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded?
And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing
And fools hate knowledge?
God's Self-Made Three Stooges
This gorgeous woman cries out to young men to give up their emotional immaturity. The naive, or simple-minded, are emotionally in love with their simplicity like Goober and Gomer Pyle from the Andy Griffith show. Their "aw shucks" simple-minds have fallen in love with staying just the way they are with no drive for further development. These good ole' boys are blind to the fact that their love for their own simplemindedness is what is holding them back from the blessing of Wisdom and the knowledge she has to offer.
Scoffers are those who are the great "put-down" artists who can reject everything in a heartbeat without even thinking about it. Scoffers like to put things down so much that they develop an emotional delight in the feelings of just saying ,"No, I'm agin' it." or "Naw, that's not for me." or "I'll have no part of it." The scoffer is so emotionally attached with delight to his put down ways he is blind to the fact that these very rejections of his in genral about most everything are the very things that hold him back from growing in wisdom and knowledge.
Fools are emotionally crippled by their own sense of hatred. Fools are so twisted emotionally by their loveless emotions, they reject every instruction and all efforts to help them learn. Hatred gives a feeling of self-righteous justification. When we hate we put ourselves into an emotional state of resistance, rejection, and refusal. Like the scoffer who delights in putting things down, the fool feels self-righteously justified by his hatred of instruction. The fool's thoughts are, "I don't like nor need to read. I can't standing to listen to others telling me what to do. I despise studying things, taking directions, or mastering anything new. Don't tell me to memorize anything or meditate on anything. I'm fine just the way I am." The very hatred of the fool keeps him down all of his life and drives him to reject every positive educational input with an emotional state of rejection and resistance.
But the wise person is learning how to become a lifelong learner. The knowledgable person is learning how to respond to authority figures, teachers, leaders, honorable men and women, and others so as to receive from them a better way to think, feel, and act toward life. Education is not just a regimen of classroom studies to be endured until one can get out of school. To the truly educated man, life itself is becoming a school for growth in many areas. The lifelong learner loves, delights, and thrills emotionally at becoming more than a simple-minded good ole' boy, a negative scoffer, and an ignorant fool. The lifelong learner is constantly learning to respond to new inputs and seek out new perspectives. In fact, the mission of the Star Trek Enterprise is very much like the mission of a lifelong learner:
Space the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise: Her five-year mission to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.
The mission of the lifelong learner is much longer and much broader. But it has the same sense of adventure and positive effort involved:
Space and time the final frontier. This is the voyage of the Lifelong Learner, His lifelong mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new lives and new civilizations, to boldly grasp knowlege, wisdom and understanding before His God wherever it may be found.
Education is a lifestyle for the lifelong learner - his mission for life. Solomon longed for this appreciation in the heart of his sons. And any mentor worth his salt longs for the same hunger in his proteges.
|
