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What is Education?

The Random House Dictionary defines education as the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. In our society education implies school, and to us the key phrases in this dictionary definition are imparting or acquiring knowledge and preparing oneself intellectually.� To teach or to learn, education focuses on knowledge and on the intellect.

This is, of course, an accurate definition for our secular society.  School systems teach reading and writing, history and science, business and law, so learners will be �prepared intellectually for the mature life.

In our society teaching is imparting knowledge and processing information; learning is acquiring knowledge and using information. It's hard for us to realize that teaching did not have the same meaning for the Apostle Paul or Timothy or the early readers of their letters.

William Barclay, in Educational Ideals in the Ancient World (Baker), suggests that Jewish education was very different from our notions of teaching and learning.

The very basis of Judaism is to be found in the conception of holiness. You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy. And ye shall be holy unto Me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people that ye might be Mine. That is to say, it was the destiny of the Jewish people to be different. Holiness means [among other things] difference. And their whole educational system was directed to that end. It has been precisely that educational system which has kept the Jewish race in existence. The Jew is no longer a racial type; he is a person who follows a certain way of life, and who belongs to a certain faith. If Jewish religion had faltered, or altered, the Jews would have ceased to exist. First and foremost, the Jewish ideal of education is the ideal of holiness, of difference, of separation from all other peoples in order to belong to God. Their educational system was nothing less than the instrument by which their existence as a nation, and their fulfillment of their destiny, was ensured.

See what Barclay is saying? The Hebrew concept of education was not "to impart knowledge" or to "prepare oneself intellectually". It was to produce holiness and to impart a distinctive lifestyle. When Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus about the importance of teaching in the Church, his concept of education was Hebrew, not twentieth- century American.

What does this mean for us? First, it illustrates why we must guard against reading a twentieth-century meaning into biblical words. Secondly, it encourages us to explore Scripture in order to determine from the Bible itself the meaning of such terms as teach and instruct.

We need to carefully examine these letters to find out what kind of teaching and learning Paul was so concerned about. Do we have this kind of teaching in our churches or schools today?   Are there better ways to communicate our faith to coming generations than we have found? How do we pass on our living relationship with Jesus Christ to others?

From The Teacher's Commentary. Richards, L. 1987. Includes index. (1 Titus 1:1). Victor Books: Wheaton, IL.

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