The Tectonic School Philosophy - Part 8

A series of posts outlining the background and purpose behind Tectonic School

This series of posts come out of the draft document that, combined with a sizable number of devotionals, will eventually comprise a book to help launch Tectonic School programs.

It outlines particular problems that are present in our society, our local churches, and in the lives of individuals and families. The solution offered is a plan to integrate a severely disenfranchised and undervalued group - young men - into meaningful involvement in local communities through training and employment in trade jobs and the life of the local church. This will be accomplished through cooperation in mutually beneficial relationships with local businesses, local churches, and local families. 

This is the fourth post in a series. The first post is available here: 

3: Rereading History Through Tectonic Eyes

Participation in the Building of an Unstoppable Kingdom

The Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed was not a geographical location on a map, but a spiritual kingdom; those who gained citizenship received freedom from the despair of living under petty tyrants. Eventually, this kingdom pulled down those empires built on military power and technological superiority, because it restored to the people the purpose and meaning of living. Formal practices of worship began to develop in Christian churches, but the true power of change came through the universality of the message. God was calling people of all nations, of all classes, men and women, rich and poor, to a life of purpose. In this way, people began living in the way that God had always intended them to, by building and planting, marrying and having children, and by welcoming the lost into the family of God. 

This restoration of purpose and meaning to even the most mundane parts of life was truly revolutionary. In all other religions, there was a separation between the sacred and the common. Only in Christianity could a humble fisherman become the leader of many churches, and only in Christianity could a great spiritual leader be open and honest about his humble beginnings. 

Of course, the tendency of the human heart to turn created things into idols is always present. Institutional corruption has been a consistent problem within the church, but in every generation there have been individuals and communities that rediscovered the truly life-giving message of the gospel. 

We are often quicker to abandon an institution for becoming corrupt than God is. When Abraham pleaded with God on behalf of Sodom, the Lord was willing to spare the city if only ten righteous people resided within its walls. Sadly, He already knew that would not be the case. He waited until the corruption was complete before delivering judgment on the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The darkest moments in the history of Christianity occurred when people in power purposefully used their position to obscure and hide the true message of the gospel from the common people. Whenever a human intermediary is responsible for transmitting truth, including God’s words, to the larger community, there is a need to express not only words, but the meaning of the words from the speaker to the listener. 

The Responsibility of Interpretation

This necessary work is the everyday task not only of preachers and teachers, but of masters to their apprentices, and parents to children as well. This requires judgment on the part of the teacher in regards to the capacity of the learner. When God forbids Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge, it is because He knows the capacity of the man. There are many truths a parent knows that are kept from a child until the time of maturity.

The best course of action is to speak in such a way that truth is accessible to all who listen, while the apprehension of that truth is heard appropriately by all, regardless of their different capacities. This task was best accomplished by Jesus, who spoke in parables. The content of His message was not new, but it expressed the true meaning of the revealed scriptures. To the learned man, the implications of His words illuminated the words of Moses and the prophets - oftentimes in ways that challenged their prior understanding. Yet to the unlearned, the mundane elements of the story spoke the same truths.

Analogies can be useful even if it is something unknown personally to both the speaker and the listener. We may hear a fact about the peculiar habit of an animal species that illustrates a point about human nature. The goal is to teach a spiritual truth, not an animal truth, so the analogy only has to stand as a bridge to bring the hearer from ignorance to understanding. Once the deeper truth is grasped, the analogy can be set aside. 

A parent may make use of such analogies to a child, but a teacher of the public needs to be more careful. If an expert in zoology hears the analogy and recognizes errors or falsehoods of which the speaker is unaware, he will reject not only the falsity of the analogy, but the claims of a deeper truth to which it was supposed to point. 

In teaching through parables about the events of daily life, Jesus laid bare the truthfulness of His statements to be evaluated by anyone who heard him. When he spoke of fishing, farming, building or baking, the scribes could argue about whether or not His analogies revealed something about the truth of scripture. But if He was wrong about the work of the fisherman, the farmer, the builder or the baker, His words would fall flat before all, regardless of the deeper truths they may have pointed to. 

The subtle genius of Jesus’ parables is that he spoke of generalities in the analog to point out generalities in the scripture. The farmer would be able to say “Jesus understands the gist of farming” even though he may know of particular instances when the examples used might be contradicted. This understanding of the ‘gist’ was often used to expose the vice of the teachers to use particular exceptions to justify a general misapplication of the scripture. 

The next post in this series is available here: