It's All Greek To Me

On Thursdays I speak in chapel at the Hughson Christian School. It’s my old education institution of the fourth grade. It was just me and Joanne Dee in the fourth grade. Mrs. Gillaspie was our teacher. She also had second and third graders. Mr. Gillaspie, her husband, taught us Bible about one day a week. It was almost twenty years ago that I was in fourth grade there, and Mrs. Gillaspie is still teaching! Mr Gillaspie, however, was taken from this world after being hit by a drunk driver while on his postal route.

Mr. Gillaspie was a very special person. When I think about him today I think of a person that cared about me. It wasn’t a job… it was him being who he was. One memory I have that I will never forget is when he took me and a couple other guys backpacking for a few days.

Now I fill Mr. Gillaspie’s shoes once a week, to the best of my ability, by teaching thirteen third through eight graders Bible. I feel like I owe it to him. What better way to honor the life of someone than to try to pick up where he left off and keep his work moving forward. So Mr. Gillaspie, if you have internet up there, I hope you’re proud of me.

That was just the introduction! This segment is something I’d like to call, “It’s All Greek To Me.” I’ve only had these kids for about four sessions including today. The first fifteen minutes of class we’ve been learning the Greek alphabet. Yes, the Greek alphabet. We have a club called the “It’s All Greek To Me” club. Entrance into the club is simple. You must be able to recite the entire Greek alphabet from memory. Today almost half the class entered the club after only four weeks!

What about you? Can you join the club? You better get started now or these kids are going to be giving you a run for your money. They are quickly putting the tools in their belt to be able to do excellent Bible study by looking up words in original language sources. If third through eighth graders can do it don’t you think you can? Come on and join the club!

What Your Child Learned in School Today

For those of you who wonder what your children are being taught at school here is a bit of an insight...

The goal of Planned Parenthood [a group that teaches on public school campuses every school day in America] according to one staffer is to help “young people obtain sex satisfaction before marriage. By sanctioning sex before marriage, we will prevent fear and guilt” - Lena Levine (Planned Parenthood News. Summer 1953, pg. 10).

You might also be happy to note that you are paying the salaries of Secular Humanists and Marxist professors with your tax dollars and tuition.

According to David Richardson there were 10,000 Marxist professors on America's campuses as of 1982 ("Marxism in U.S. Classrooms" U.S. News and World Report. January 25, 1982, pp. 42-5).

Georgie Anne Geyer states that "the percentage of Marxist faculty numbers can range from an estimated 90 percent in some midwestern universities" ("Marxism Thrives on Campus" The Denver Post. August 29, 1989, pg. 7).

On a brighter note (not really), Humanists out number the Marxists as a whole and they have goals too: "We aim to have students make explicit their own and others' implicit ideas about the way the world is or should be. Like artisans creating a mold out of the earth's supplies, we learn that our minds put the infinite mass of what is going on into an order; we relate parts to each other and create a whole structure. Thereafter, we use this structure like a template that forever determines what we perceive and how we evaluate, decide, and act upon it. By focusing educational content upon our ordering, relating, and structuring processes, we can expose the template, making them available for restructuring as we evolve into better artisans" (R.M. Lauer and M. Hussay, "A New Way to Become Educated" The Humanist. Jan./Feb/ 1986, pg 5 – emph. added).

Ohhhhhh you thought you sent your children off to school to learn to read, write, and do math and all the while the majority of the teachers "expose the template" of humanism on them so they are "available for restructuring" into the humanist worldview. When are we going to stop being in denial and wake up?

Words - How do you define them?

It is a constant fascination of mine how every human being uses words and yet we so often do not understand them. Our very understanding of God comes through the revelation of words. If it were not for words we would never know the mind of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-13). Granted that the Creation tells us something about God (Romans 1:20); a relationship with Him is utterly impossible without words! It is by words that we can see and understand what comes out of the inside of God [theoneustos] (1 Timothy 3:16). God did His work by speaking words directly to men, through prophets of old with words, sent messages to men by way of angels in the form of words, and when it came time to establish His church he sent men about preaching words to do it! The turning around of the heart was based upon the words of Peter given by the Spirit (Acts 2:13ff). And how amazing is it that the very essence of God in the flesh is the logos – the Word (John 1:1ff)!

Should we take words seriously in our relationship with God? Absolutely! Our entire relationship is built upon words – that is how God designed it! If we really want a deep relationship with God we have to care about words. We have to care about His words. We have to spend time digging in deeply to His words. It’s imperative that we understand words, sentences, paragraphs, and books because words bring us to God.

In all of this it’s imperative that we keep words in context, for usage ultimately determines meaning- Not a dictionary! We must cease preaching sermons, and teaching classes, where we get up and define a word in the Bible from Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. This practice is ultimately harmful to good Bible study which ultimately hurts peoples relationship with God. The words of the New Testament and Old Testament are not to be ascribed ideas we came up with thousands of years later; reading meaning back into the text for which the text never intended. Nor are words to be defined by Greek Scholars hundreds to thousands of years later. Ultimately we must allow the original writers, by inspiration of the Spirit, to define their words. What right does Webster, Thayer, Calvin, or Luther have to tell Paul how he can use the word faith? What right do they have to tell Paul that baptism is a work of law and not an act of faith?

The words of John Adams are appropriate here: “We are no more bound by [Samuel] Johnson’s Dictionary than by the Cannon [sic] Law of England…. I have as good a right to make a word as that Pedant Bigot Cynic and Monk” February 23rd,1815.

Let the Text Speak!

Sow the Seed,
Caleb

p.s. Adams also said, “Britain will never be our friends till we are her Master” – We can never enter a relationship with Christ until He is our Master.