or just chatting? Shawn posed that question yesterday, and I thought it was pretty good insight. We're certainly not out here just to cram ourselves sick with facts--that is the path of the "educated idiot," artfully described by Ecclesiastes 12:12--"of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh."
On the other hand, are we just chatting? Hopefully not--the Word also says quite a bit about "idle chatter."
Interestingly, this brings us back to the case of the indoctrinating teachers. In this case, the goal appears to have been to control the students by force-feeding facts (or rather, lies)--while ironically telling them they were learning to think critically. On the other end of the spectrum, you'll find teachers who think they do well to "let the children discover it for themselves."
In neither case are they educating anyone in terms of what is historically called education; teaching children how to analyze facts and arguments for themselves, with the idea (here's the worldview in classical education, Shawn) that there are some things which are true, can be known, and apply to our lives.
The same principle applies to useful discourse; it involves some truths which can be known and applied to our lives. We're not just chatting, and we're not just swapping facts, but we're rather trying to encourage one another in what is true.
At least if we're doing things right!
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2 comments:
...i'd say there's something between 'facts' and 'chatting'--something like 'conversation', which is definitely what i'm all about.
sounds like we're saying the same thing; i'd be interested to know if you agree with the last paragraph from my 'disclaimer', as i believe it's pertinent to this discussion:
66--"Interaction is what we're after here, not necessarily right answers, because in spite of what you might think, there isn't much, even in the Bible, that's absolutely crystal clear, and so it follows that there's even *less* that's crystal clear in the application of that truth to life. I do not question the infallibility or validity of scripture, merely the infallibility of our reading/understanding/exegesis of that scripture, and the subsequent validity of our application. (See Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Section VII WCF Online)"--99
Shawn, I'd argue that there is quite a bit of truth that can easily be gleaned from the Scriptures--the text of the Apostle's Creed, for example, is mostly a series of quotes of the Word.
It's true that people do tend to distort these things to justify themselves, but there comes a certain point where one must simply say "that's an absurd idea that flies in the face of what we know."
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