Foundations for Lifelong Learning (eBook)

Introduction

Education in Serious Joy

This book is for serious seventy-somethings and seventeen-year-olds, and everybody in between, who share our excitement about what we call “education in serious joy.” It is the overflow of our exuberance with the habits of mind and heart that we are trying to build into our lives and the lives of those we teach. We believe these habits are the pursuit of a lifetime, and therefore relevant for every stage of life.

Serious Joy

In our way of thinking, “serious joy” is not an oxymoron. “Serious joy” is not like “hot winters” or “cold summers.” It’s what the apostle Paul was referring to when he used the phrase “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” in 2 Corinthians 6:10. We believe this is really possible. It’s the experience of people whose love is big enough to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice—even at the same time, if not in the same way.

These are the kind of people we want our students—we want you, young and old—to be. Most readers probably have enough people in their life that someone is always happy and someone is always sad. So every shared happiness happens while there is sadness. And every shared sadness happens while there is happiness. When you rejoice while someone is weeping (for there is no other time in this world), this will be “serious joy.” Not sullen joy. Not morose joy. Not gloomy joy. But serious joy. Being serious is not the opposite of being glad. It’s the opposite of being oblivious, insensible, superficial, glib.

Joy So Prominent?

Why do we make joy so prominent in our understanding of education? Why do we even have the phrase “education in serious joy”? The reason has to do with the ultimate questions of why the world exists and why we exist in it. We believe that everything in this universe was created by Jesus Christ. He owns it. He holds it in existence. It exists to put his greatness and beauty and worth (his glory) on display for the everlasting enjoyment of his people.

In fact, we believe that our joy in treasuring Christ above all things, and in all things, is essential in displaying his glory. Education is the process of growing in our ability to join God in this ultimate purpose to glorify Jesus Christ. That’s why we give joy such a prominent place in our understanding of education. That’s why we have a phrase like “education in serious joy.”

Biblical Pillar

The biblical pillar for this understanding of our existence is Colossians 1:15–17:

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Christ is the beginning, the middle, and the end. He is Creator, sustainer, and goal. The words “created for him” do not mean for his improvement. He doesn’t have deficiencies that need remedying by creation. “For him” means for the praise of his glory (cf. Eph. 1:6). His perfection and fullness overflowed in creation to communicate his glory to the world.

He made it all. So he owns it all. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (1 Cor. 10:26). Abraham Kuyper, who founded the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880, said in one of his most famous sentences, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”1 As with all ownership, therefore, the world exists for the purposes of the owner. That is, for the glory of Christ.

That is the deepest foundation of education in serious joy: all things were made by Christ, belong to Christ, and exist for Christ. Humans exist to magnify Christ’s worth in the world. But he is not magnified as he ought to be where humans are not satisfied in him as they ought to be—satisfied in him above all things, and in all things. Therefore joy, serious joy, is at the heart of Christ-exalting education.

Soul Satisfied, Christ Magnified

If that’s a new thought for you—namely, Christ being magnified by our being satisfied in him—be assured its roots go back to the Bible. Paul said that his eager expectation and hope was that Christ would be magnified by his death (Phil. 1:20). Then he explained how this would happen: “for to me . . . to die is gain” (1:21). In what sense would his death be gain? He answers: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (1:23). Death is gain because death is “better”—that is, death brings a more immediately satisfying closeness to Christ.

How then will Paul magnify Christ by his death? By experiencing Christ as gain—as satisfying—in his death. Christ will be magnified by Paul’s being more satisfied in Christ than in the ordinary blessings of life. This is why we think serious joy is essential to Christ-magnifying education. Christ is magnified in us by our being satisfied in him, especially in those moments when the satisfactions of this world are taken away.

We are not the first to draw out this essential truth from Scripture. It was pivotal, for example, in the thinking of Jonathan Edwards, the brilliant eighteenth-century pastor and theologian in New England. Here is how Edwards said it:

God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: 1. By appearing to . . . their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself. . . . God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. . . . He that testifies [to] his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also [to] his approbation of it and his delight in it.2

There it is: “God is glorified . . . by [his glory] being rejoiced in.” The difference between Edwards’s expression and the way we like to say it is that ours rhymes: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” Christ’s worth is magnified when we treasure him above all things and in all things.

Joy in a World of Suffering

This happens in the real world of suffering—our suffering and the suffering of others. Christ’s worth shines the more brightly when our joy in him endures through pain. But what about the suffering of others? How does their suffering relate to our joy in Christ? We start with this observation: Christ-exalting joy in us is a living, restless, expanding reality. Then we observe this remarkable fact about our joy: it becomes greater in us when it expands to include others in it. So when we see the suffering of others, the effect it has on us is to draw out our joy in the form of compassion that wants others to share it. Joy in Christ is like a high-pressure zone in a weather system. When it gets near a low-pressure zone of suffering, a wind is created that blows from the high-pressure zone to the low-pressure zone trying to fill it with relief and joy. This wind is called love.

This is what happened among the Christians in Macedonia: “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy . . . overflowed in a wealth of generosity” (2 Cor. 8:2). First, joy in the gospel. Next, affliction that does not destroy the joy. Then, the overflow of that joy to others in generosity. That overflow is called love. Paul assumes that without the expanding impulse of joy toward others in need, there would be no love.

Putting it all together, I would say that the great purpose of lifelong learning—education in serious joy—is to magnify Christ by enjoying him above all things and in all things, with the kind of overflowing, Christlike joy, that is willing to suffer as it expands to include others in it. I know that’s a complex sentence. Please read it again slowly and let it sink in. The name for that process—the aim of lifelong learning—is love (cf. 2 Cor. 8:8).

Enjoying Christ in All Things

At least four times in the preceding paragraphs I have said that we should enjoy Christ not only above all things, but also in all things. Why do I say it like that? The first (enjoying Christ above all things) is obvious: if we prefer anything above Christ, we are idolaters. If he is not our supreme treasure, we devalue him. Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Paul said, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8).

But why do we say that the aim of lifelong learning is to enjoy Christ in all things? One reason is that God created the material world so that we would...