Tag Archives: Craig Smith

The True Millennium Is Well Hidden (Part 1)

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The True Millennium Is Well Hidden (Part 1)

Posted in Teaching Tips

(Researched from the internet)

PART 1

The passionate discussions in some papers as to when the new millennium really started is nothing new. “We have uniformly rejected all letters and declined all discussion upon the question of when the present century ends, as it is one of the most absurd that can engage the public attention, and we are astonished to find it has been the subject of so much dispute, since it appears plain. The present century will not terminate till January 1, 1801, unless it can be made out that 99 are 100… It is a silly, childish discussion, and only exposes the want of brains of those who maintain a contrary opinion to that we have stated — The Times, 26 December 1799.

The Birth of Christ and the Christian Epoch

A count of years from an initial epoch is the most successful way of maintaining a consistent chronology. But it must be tied to a sequence of recorded historical events.

The birth of Christ is the initial epoch of the Christian calendar. We count years from an assumed year of the birth of Christ as determined by Dionysius Exiguus (Denys the Little), a monk and astronomer from Scythia in what is now SW Russia. About AD 530 Dionysius was commissioned by Pope John I to calculate dates of Easter for future observances. Dionysius followed previous precedent by extending an existing table (by Cyrillus) covering the period “228-247” which was on a time scale reckoned from the beginning of the reign of Emperor Diocletian. However, Dionysius did not want his Easter table “to perpetuate the memory of an impious persecutor of the Church, but preferred to count and denote the years from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ”. To accomplish this he designated the years of his table Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi 532-550. Thus, Dionysius’ Anno Domini 532 (AD 532 for short) is equivalent to Anno Diocletiani 248. A correspondence was thereby established between the new Christian Era and an existing system associated with historical records. (By the way, when AD is used it is always before the number. BC always follows the number. This year is AD 2000 not 2000 AD.)

What Dionysius did not do was establish an accurate date for the birth of Christ. In his scheme he believed that Christ was born on the 25th of December of the year preceding the start of the year AD 1. There is no year 0 preceding the year AD 1. Indeed, the concept of counting from zero, rather than one, does not exist in Latin and was introduced into Europe from the Middle East many centuries later. Therefore, Dionysius’ calendar places the birth of Jesus Christ at the end of the year 1 BC. The 2,000th anniversary of Christ’s birth would then be 25 December 2000. However, modern research indicates that Christ was probably born in 6 BC and certainly by 4 BC, when Herod died. So the real 2000th birthday of the Lord Jesus, the real new millennium, probably occurred during the years 1995 to 1997.

When Was the Very First Epoch?

James Ussher was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1581 and died in England in 1656. He lived through a time of tremendous political and religious upheaval in his native Ireland and in England. Though he was a Puritan in theology, he was a royalist in his steadfastness to the king and the principle of divine right of kings. Invited to participate in the Westminster Assembly, which eventually wrote the Westminster Confession and Catechism, Ussher refused because he thought the assembly itself was illegal.

In his day Ussher was an imminent scholar known to the foremost scholars and statesmen in England. At one time he had possibly the largest collection of books in Western Europe. He eventually donated the collection to Trinity College, Dublin, which his uncle James Ussher helped found. During his lifetime he was widely known as a defender of learning, of the value of books secular and sacred, and a proponent of maintaining an independent identity for Irish Protestant faith. He was appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1625.

His collected works total seventeen volumes. The most famous of these is his Annals of the Old and New Testament, published in the 1650s, which is a detailed chronology and dating of Biblical history, wherein Ussher said God created the world on the morning of October 23, 4004 B.C. He arrived at this date, in part, by adding the ages of Adam and his descendants found in Genesis 5 and 11. (Refinements by others further pinpointed this to 9 a.m., London time, or midnight in the Garden of Eden.)

This would mean that the world’s 6000th birthday was on October 23, 1997. This is determined because there was no year “0”, but the counting went straight from 1BC to AD1. Thus 4004 + 1997 – 1 = 6000. It is very tempting to think of each set of 1000 years as a day, and the 7th would be our Sabbath day or millennium of rest. If Bishop Ussher’s chronology is correct, and if we can validly assume each 1000 years represents a day, then we entered upon our millennium of rest just over two years ago. This also corresponds with one of the possible “true” years of Jesus’ birth.

Types of Calendar

But keeping track of time and constructing calendars is a very tricky business. The principal astronomical cycles upon which we base time and calendars are:

1) the day (the rotation of the Earth on its axis),

2) the year (the revolution of the Earth around the Sun), and

3) the month (based on the revolution of the Moon around the Earth).

The complexity of calendars arises because these cycles of revolution do not correspond to a number of whole days, but include fractions of days and because astronomical cycles are neither constant nor perfectly commensurable with each other.

We need to identify two kinds of years. The “tropical year” is defined as the mean interval between vernal equinoxes; that is, it is a year that corresponds to the cycle of the seasons and is made up of a certain number of whole days plus a bit left over. This bit left over is not always the same. The other kind of year is a “calendar year”, the kind we are used to seeing on the wall and in diaries. It is made up of either 365 or 366 whole days. You can see that the two kinds of years do not match up exactly.

Three distinct types of calendars have resulted from this situation. (There are about 40 different calendars in use in the world today.)

1) A solar calendar, of which the Gregorian calendar we use today is an example, is designed to maintain synchrony with the tropical year. To do so, days are intercalated (forming leap years) to increase the average length of the calendar year.

2) A lunar calendar, such as the Islamic calendar, follows the lunar phase cycle without regard for the tropical year. Thus the months of the Islamic calendar systematically shift with respect to the months of the Gregorian calendar.

3) The lunisolar calendar has a sequence of months based on the lunar phase cycle; but every few years a whole month is intercalated to bring the calendar back into phase with the tropical year. The Hebrew and Chinese calendars are examples of this type.

The Julian Calendar

It wouldn’t be hard for Dionysius to have made a mistake in determining the date of the birth of Christ, even though both Christ and he lived in times that used the same Julian calendar.

The Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a solar calendar with months of fixed lengths. Every fourth year an intercalary day was added to maintain synchrony between the “calendar year” and the “tropical year”. It served as a standard for European civilization until the Gregorian Reform of 1582.

Julian years are classified as normal years of 365 days and leap years of 366 days. The year is divided into twelve formalized months that were eventually adopted for the Gregorian calendar (the one we use today).

The year 46 BC has been called the “year of confusion”, because in that year Julius Caesar inserted 90 days to bring the months of the Roman calendar back to their traditional place with respect to the seasons. This was Caesar’s first step in replacing a calendar that had gone badly awry. Although the pre-Julian calendar was lunisolar in inspiration, its months no longer followed the lunar phases and its year had lost step with the cycle of seasons. Following the advice of Sosigenes, an Alexandrine astronomer, Caesar created a solar calendar with twelve months of fixed lengths and a provision for an intercalary day to be added every fourth year. As a result, the average length of the Julian calendar year was 365.25 days. This is consistent with the length of the tropical year as it was known at the time.

Following Caesar’s death, the Roman calendrical authorities misapplied the leap-year rule, with the result that every third, rather than every fourth, year was intercalary. Although detailed evidence is lacking, it is generally believed that Emperor Augustus corrected the situation by omitting intercalation (leap years) from the Julian years 9 BC through AD 4. After this the Julian calendar finally began to function as planned.

Through the Middle Ages the use of the Julian calendar evolved and acquired local peculiarities that continue to snare the unwary historian. There were variations in the initial epoch for counting years, the date for beginning the year, and the method of specifying the day of the month. Not only did these vary with time and place, but also with purpose. Different conventions were sometimes used for dating ecclesiastical records, fiscal transactions and personal correspondence.

Caesar designated January 1 as the beginning of the year. However, other conventions flourished at different times and places. The most popular alternatives were March 1, March 25, and December 25. This continues to cause problems for historians, since, for example, February 28, AD 998, as recorded in a city that began its year on March 1, would be the same day as February 28, AD 999, of a city that began the year on January 1.

Days within the month were originally counted from designated division points within the month: Kalends, Nones, and Ides. The Kalends is the first day of the month. The Ides is the thirteenth of the month, except in March, May, July and October, when it is the fifteenth day. The Nones is always eight days before the Ides.

By the eleventh century, consecutive counting of days from the beginning of the month came into use. Local variations continued, however, including counts of days from dates that commemorated local saints. The inauguration and spread of the Gregorian calendar resulted in the adoption of a uniform standard for recording dates.

Gregorian Calendar

The Gregorian calendar resulted from a need to reform the method of calculating dates of Easter. Under the Julian calendar the dating of Easter had become standardized, using March 21 as the date of the equinox. By the thirteenth century it was realized that the true equinox had regressed from March 21 (its supposed date at the time of the Council of Nicea, AD 325) to a date earlier in the month. As a result, Easter was drifting away from its springtime position and was losing its relation with the Jewish Passover. Over the next four centuries, scholars debated the “correct” time for celebrating Easter and the means of regulating this time calendrically. The Church made intermittent attempts to solve the Easter question without reaching a consensus.

By the sixteenth century the equinox had shifted by ten days, so something had to be done. At the behest of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius V introduced some adjustments. Pope Gregory XIII, who succeeded Pope Pius in 1572, soon convened a commission to consider reform of the calendar, since he considered his predecessor’s measures inadequate.

The Gregorian calendar, proposed by Aloysius Lilius, a physician from Naples, met the recommendations of Pope Gregory’s calendar commission and was instituted by the papal bull “Inter Gravissimus”, signed on February 24, 1582. Ten days were deleted from the calendar, so that October 4, 1582 was followed by October 15, 1582, thereby causing the vernal equinox of 1583 and subsequent years to occur about March 21.

This new calendar was promulgated through the Roman Catholic world but took a while considering the logistical problems of communication and governance of those times. Protestant states initially rejected the calendar but gradually accepted it over the coming centuries. (The Gregorian calendar was adopted in Britain 170 years later, in the year 1752, when September 2nd was followed by September 14th. This provides a pretty trap for unwary students of history trying to reconcile events in England with events on the Continent.) As international communications developed, the civil rules of the Gregorian calendar were gradually adopted around the world.

Leap Years

According to the Gregorian calendar, which is the civil calendar in use today, years evenly divisible by 4 are leap years, with the exception of centurial years that are not evenly divisible by 400. Therefore, the years 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not leap years, but 1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years.

The Gregorian calendar year is intended to be of the same length as the cycle of the seasons. However, the cycle of the seasons, technically known as the tropical year, is approximately 365.2422 days. Since a calendar year consists of an integral number of whole days, a calendar year cannot exactly match the tropical year. If the calendar year always consisted of 365 days, it would be short of the tropical year by about 0.2422 days every year. Over a century, the calendar and the seasons would become out of sync by about 24 days, so that the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere would shift from March 20 to April 13.

To synchronize the calendar and tropical years, leap days are periodically added to the calendar, forming leap years. If a leap day is added every fourth year, the average length of the calendar year is 365.25 days. This was the basis of the Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. In this case the calendar year is longer than the tropical year by about 0.0078 days. Over a century this difference accumulates to a little over three quarters of a day. From the time of Julius Caesar to the AD 1500s, the beginning of spring shifted from March 23 to March 11.

When Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the calendar was shifted to make the beginning of spring fall on March 21 and a new system of leap days was introduced. Instead of intercalating a leap day every fourth year, 97 leap days would be introduced every 400 years, according to the rule given above. Thus, the average Gregorian calendar year is 365.2425 days in length. This agrees to within a half a minute of the length of the tropical year. It will take about 3300 years before the Gregorian calendar is as much as one day out of step with the seasons.

The Hebrew Calendar

As mentioned earlier, there are other calendars, most of three types: solar, such as our Gregorian; lunar, such as the Islamic; and lunisolar, such as the Hebrew calendar. It is based on calculation rather than observation. Each year consists of twelve or thirteen months, with months consisting of 29 or 30 days. An intercalary month is introduced in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 in a nineteen-year cycle. Years are counted since the creation of the world, which is assumed to have taken place in 3761 BC. In that year, AM 1 started (AM = Anno Mundi = year of the world). Our 1 January 2000 is in A.M. 5760.

The Islamic Calendar

The Islamic calendar is a purely lunar calendar in which months correspond to the lunar phase cycle. As a result, the twelve lunar months rotate through the four seasons, coming back to where they used to be over a period of about 33 years. That is, their month of Safar sometimes occurs in winter, sometimes in summer.

Day 5 of their week, which is called Jum’a, is the day for congregational prayers. Unlike the Sabbath days of the Christians and Jews, Jum’a is not a day of rest. It begins at sunset on Thursday and ends at sunset on Friday.

Their initial epoch, A.H. 1 (Anno Higerae), is reckoned from the Era of the Hijra, commemorating the migration of the Prophet and his followers from Mecca to Medina. It is generally taken by astronomers to be Thursday, July 15, AD 622 (Julian calendar), while those favouring chronological tables generally use Friday, July 16, AD 622. Our 1 January 2000 is in A.H. 1420.

Keeping Time is a Messy Business

Sweden has a curious history. Sweden decided to make a gradual change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. By dropping every leap year from 1700 through 1740 the eleven superfluous days would be omitted and from 1 Mar 1740 they would be in sync with the Gregorian calendar. (But in the meantime they would be in sync with nobody!)

So 1700 (which should have been a leap year in the Julian calendar) was not a leap year in Sweden. However, by mistake 1704 and 1708 became leap years. This left Sweden out of synchronisation with both the Julian and the Gregorian world, so they decided to go “back” to the Julian calendar. In order to do this, they inserted an extra day in 1712, making that year a double leap year! So in 1712, February had 30 days in Sweden.

Later, in 1753, Sweden changed to the Gregorian calendar by dropping 11 days like everyone else.

From Keystone Magazine
January 2000 , Vol. VI No. 1
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

What Do You Do When the Ministry of Education Sends Your Exemption Application Back For More Information?

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What Do You Do When the Ministry of Education Sends Your Exemption Application Back For More Information?

Posted in Tough Questions

This is such a common occurrence, it is virtually standard procedure. It is nothing to worry about: they are not turning you down, they just want some more information here or there. Fine, just shovel a bit more in there and send it back.

They will often request more information under the following headings: Broad Curriculum Area; Study Area; and Timetable.

“Broad curriculum – are you using the New Zealand state school curriculum? If not, you will need to provide details of the seven core curriculum areas….”

When responding to a request for an application for exemption from enrolment, the MoE sends out its own definitions of the key words from Section 21 of the Education Act, which require home educators to teach “at least as regularly and well as in a registered school.”

Their definition of the word “well” stresses that the curriculum is your curriculum. Home Educators are not required to use the New Zealand state school curriculum nor are they required to cover the “seven core curriculum areas”. If the MoE sounds like they want you to do these things, you should only need to remind them of the absense of any legal requirement to do so, and then be able to fully state your own particular subject areas, however they might be covered (subject by subject, thematic, unschooling, etc.) It is not unreasonable to expect a prospective home education parent to be able to clearly explain the broad curriculum areas which they intend to use. Never be intimidated into organising your curriculum along lines the MoE sets…unless you like their system better than your own. Ask a couple of other families in your local support group how they did it….that’s what the support group is there for!

You may feel that having written certain things, you will be obliged to do those things. Not true. The Ministry expects you to change your educational approach and tactics as time goes by: your perception of the educational task will grow and mature, the needs of the children will change, certain resources you started out with will prove ineffective with your children’s learning styles and/or your teaching style, etc. In fact, the Ministry has told me that they would be worried if you didn’t change over time! The application form is mainly so that the Ministry can see that you are a competent person, you know what you are doing, you have a plan, you can work the plan, and that both you and your children are excited about it! These are the main things to communicate in whatever you write….your thorough confidence in your ability to succeed, enthusiasm, excitement, anticipation, total competence, that you are plugged into local and national support groups, that you are flexible and totally committed.

“Study area – this should be described.”

Fine. Describe it. Again, there are no requirements in the Act regarding “study area”, although there will be plenty of preconceived ideas in the mind of the MoE official reading the application. These officials either need reminding or instructing about what constitutes acceptable home education environments: the kitchen table, toaster, crumbs and all; the beat-up but comfortable old couch on the back porch; or like Mark Twain said was the best classroom of all: a log down by the river with a child sitting on one end and a parent sitting on the other. The questions in the exemption application are clearly coming from a very narrow “classroom” perspective, as if they expect you to set up a regular “school” in your own home. Actually, many of us start out that way, but home education can be infinitely more flexible and fun and effective than that.

Remember that classrooms are set up for the mass teaching of a large number of mixed-ability and mixed- background children by one state (read: politically) trained teacher. The logistics of a home education scenario, which is the far superior and near-ideal tutoring/mentoring system, bear virtually no resemblance to the logistics of the classroom, rendering the home a far more effective, fun and efficient learning and teaching situation. Just think about it: how long do you suppose it takes to get all 28 seven-year-olds in a classroom simply to get out their maths books and turn to page 12? Within the last six months we had a Massey University College of Education student reveal how they teach them at college that today’s teachers can only expect one minute (that is ONE MINUTE) of meaningful time per student per day in the typical school classroom. So how can we miss?

“Regularity/timetable – please provide a timetable to show approximately how much time will be spent on each curriculum area daily and weekly.”

We wrote back to them when they asked this same question and simply pointed out that we do not work to a timetable, so to write one up would be hypocritical. We also mentioned how the number of hours spent in instruction bear little or no relation to anything in the realm of learning. We carried on to describe how our time is taken up, a bit about the routine and probable disruptions. This seemed to be good enough, for we got the exemption. I still believe that if we are simply honest and are able to clearly articulate our personal policy/philosophy they are happy to (and probably obliged to) run with that.

Instruction in most home education situations is self-consciously a 24-hour-a-day occupation. For some it is helpful to perceive two realms of academic learning. The first is the basic skills that must be mastered: the three Rs. These can be further broken down into: 1) Inputs, such as reading, listening, comprehension, study and research skills, interpretation of the written word, voice inflections, body language, etc. 2) Outputs, such as writing, penmanship, grammar, spelling, composition, debate, oratory, voice modulation, body language, etc. 3) The four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division plus a range of everyday skills such as measurements, estimation, ratios, percentages, volumes, areas, many of which one should be able to do mentally. The second realm of learning is everything else, virtually all of which one can learn for themselves once they have mastered the basic skills. You can organise this “everything else” realm anyway you like: subjects like history, science, geography, logic, technology, animal husbandry, woodwork, auto mechanics, languages, whatever.

There is no minimum or maximum number of subjects you must cover, there is no sequence prescribed that home educators must follow, there is no depth of knowledge one must obtain…..as the MoE says in its definition of “well”: it is your curriculum. According to the MoE’s 1996 Homeschooling Desk File, “Ministry officers will look for some evidence of planning and balance that we would expect would be a feature of curriculum organisation in any registered school.”

Sometimes the people reviewing our exemption applications infer that we need to be spending as much time on each subject as they do in schools. Again, this ignores the vast superiority in the effective use of time which is typical of a home education (tutoring) situation. They certainly cannot require any specific number of hours.

We home educators too often and too easily get intimidated by these MoE officials because the actual requirements of the Education Act, even when coupled with the MoE’s own definition of the key words from the Act “regularly” and “well”, are so minimal and vague we just get the feeling there must be something more here required of us. But no, there isn’t. So let us not acquiesce to them, for to do so would set a pattern which would be recognised by them eventually as a standard practice, which would one day find itself written into legislation as a legal requirement.

The officials will always have us on, pushing the conventional school model on us by assumption. We need to simply hold our ground and politely refuse to be pushed around. We also need to be informed. Buy a copy of the Act and become familiar with the relevant sections. There really isn’t much. Subscribe to TEACH Bulletin to keep up to date with legislative developments. And keep in close contact with your local support group, and network with others around the country to pick up invaluable teaching tips and ideas on where to locate and how they use various resource materials. Home educators are re-discovering a lot of very effective teaching methods which have become virtually lost to our culture because of 120 years of compulsory, secular mass state schooling in classrooms.

From Keystone Magazine
January 2000 , Vol. VI No. 1
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

“Speed” for Kids

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“Speed” for Kids

Posted in Statist and Professional Trends

To demonstrate the kind of hold the school system has on parents and children, here is disturbing bit from the Sunday Star-Times of 31 March 1996. A top psychiatrist is calling for a national investigation into the amount of a drug known as “speed” being given to hyperactive children to quieten them down. John Werry, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Auckland University, said …. it was worrying that every time an overseas expert visited NZ to talk about Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) there was an upsurge in cases.

We get a whole bunch of parents knocking on our door and saying their kids have ADD and need Ritalin,” he said….”The most reason for parents coming along is because the school has complained, the child is unable to sit still on a mat and things like that,” he said.

Normal active fun-loving kids wanting to be mentally and sensory stimulated so that they can learn about their world and move toward fulfilling their God-given task of having dominion over the earth have to sit through brain-dead, non-sexist, non-confrontational, non-competitive, value-free, politically-correct activities of total irrelevance. No wonder they start climbing the walls. So experts suggest they drug the kids to keep ’em in line. We have also had parents come to us to find out about home schooling after the teachers have suggested to the parents they may want to keep their troublesome children out of school permanently. We cannot thank the Lord sufficiently for leading us to rescue our children OUT of such chaos. Please continue to pray for our brothers and sisters who are still blinded to all this and who continue to send their children to these state institutions.

School Gate Chaos

An article in Education Today of August 1996, promoting the Kidsafe Week 96 of September 7-13 as New Zealand’s first national safety week devoted to child safety, had its focus on child accidents. In NZ each year 20 child pedestrians die and a further 350 are hospitalized. “Pedestrian injuries are the biggest killer of our primary school aged children — responsible for more child deaths than all infectious diseases combined. Since many pedestrian injuries occur in and around school — often while children are being dropped off or picked up, a key focus this year is school gate chaos.” I couldn’t have coined a better phrase myself: it really sums up the whole institution, if you ask me.

But that isn’t all. “Parents delivering and collecting their children are posing an increasing problem for schools.” There you go again. ..those pesky parents getting in the way of their children’s education, this time by posing increasing safety problems for school. It seems parents involved in state schooling just can’t win. Why do they bother? They should all home school.

One of my favourite dreams is watching all the state schools close down for lack of customers!! This lack of customers would not be due to a nil birth rate, but instead to a free market in education which would allow private and home schools to flourish unhindered, their standards of excellence impossible to resist. Now that I’ve said it, you know, I don’t think the state would ever allow such a situation to occur, since they would have to protect the investment in all those taxpayer-funded schools and tax-payer-funded teaching jobs and especially all those taxpayer-funded Ministry of Education positions. To protect its own existence and their own jobs the state education bureaucrats will have to clamp down on the growth of home schooling somewhere along the line. Just watch how they use these annual reports, the supervisory allowance and the recently amended teacher registration bill over the next year or two.

From Keystone Magazine
November 1996 , Vol. II No. 6
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

The Puritan Dilemma

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The Puritan Dilemma

Posted in Theologically Speaking

The early Puritan colonists in America of the 1600’s when formulating the types of government each colony should take, came up against what has been called the Puritan Dilemma. The “dilemma” question arose in the Puritan mind out of two fundamental tenets of theology.

First, the Biblical teaching that man was created in the “image of God,” and has been given a mandate from his Creator to advance God’s Kingdom and righteousness in every area of life (Gen 1:27-28; Matt 6:33). Thus liberty, peace, and security were seen as highly-prized preconditions for productive social and political life. (cf. II Tim 2:2-3).

Second, the equally important doctrine that man is a fallen creature, and as a sinner must be restrained from working out his evil intentions in society. This restraint is accomplished through several forms of Biblical “government”- -family, church, state but ultimately SELF-government. Yet (and here is the dilemma) these governments (and in particular the state) may, in the hands of sinful men, become dangerous enemies of righteousness and freedom.

John Winthrop, the Puritan governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, sought to devise a political system that would adequately take account of both of these human realities–a political structure which would maximize freedom to admittedly sinful men while at the same time holding their evil tendencies in check. Winthrop uuderstood that the “Puritan dilemma” could not be solved in political terms alone. Two other items, a flourishing ministry on the part of the church a strong family structure would also be required to produce the desired social results. In many ways these latter two elements were the most important.

A century-and-a-half later, in a far less explicitly Puritan fashion, the U.S. Constitution sought to achieve the same balance between liberty for good purposes and the restraint of evildoing.

The Puritan “experiment” in North America succeeded for a time because it was supported by a cultural consensus which was rooted in the Bible. Despite many differences among the puritans on points of doctrine and church practice, they shared a common understanding of the Bible’s teaching about God, His providential dealings in history, the nature of man, and the role (and limitations) of humna institutions ordained by God to provide order in the affairs of society. Civil order was the fruit of this fundamental theological consensus.

Sadly, the “Puritan experiment” did not last. It was not overthrown by a foreign invader, or by domestic crises. It was by means of theological defection — a loss of Biblical faith.

Our social and political crisis is fundamentally a theological crisis. It will not admit of a quick fix. Our Puritan forefathers understood well that political liberty and social peace were fruit which grew on the tree of Biblical faith. To turn our nation back will require a restoration of a Biblical theological consensus which will support social and political reformation. As in Josiah’s day, the “Book of God’s Law” must be rediscovered, read, believed and obeyed.

A recovery of Biblical preaching, teaching and discipling is absolutely necessary. This includes Christian day- and home- school education and Christian publications which are true to the word of God. Those who profess Christ must become serious about radical and comprehensive obedience to the Word of God. Piety divorced from obedience plays into hands of the Enemy (cf. Col 2:20-23). Given the lack of self-government (“self-control,” Gal 5:23; “training in godliness,” I Tim 4:7) on the part of so many who claim to be Christians, it is small wonder that our civil rulers do not govern well. Lawless people cannot create and sustain a lawful political order.1

So where do we home schoolers go from here? What are we to do? We are already providing education and training far more thorough and consistently Biblical than we ourselves have seen. But this is no reason to relax. We can improve. For His sake we MUST improve. We parents must NOT ONLY continually seek a closer walk with the Lord, BUT ALSO a more conscious conformity to His Word in order to set the example for our children . We must NOT ONLY strive to see Christian politicians and Christian Political Parties in Parliament, we must ALSO encourage them to be ever more Biblical in their policies and public statements. We must NOT ONLY become serious about comprehensive obedience to the Word, we must ALSO know the Word intimately.

Now here I take my life in my hands and ask readers as sincerely and earnestly as I can: what do we perceive, what concepts came to our minds, when we say, “obey the Word”? I trust we will automatically answer, “The Bible, of course!” Amen! Now let me ask, “Do we mean ALL of the Bible?” Are we like some hyper-dispensationalists I have met who dispense with the Old Testament because it is, well ….you know…..it is OLD! OurLord said that man is to live by EVERY word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. (Matt 4:4). We must never treat the Bible like a smorgasbord.

Now, let me ask, for this is important, and what we believe in these areas we will pass on to our children and set the course for much of their lives, so we had better have it right. Do we believe the Bible ALONE to be the word Of God? Or do we allow for modern-day additions and alterations? What do I mean? Well, Jesus upheld and defended the Torah, God’s Word as delivered by Moses and the prophets. He constantly ridiculed and condemned the Pharisees because they taught as doctrine the traditions of men, that is, their book of additions and alterations often referred to as the Talmud. Do our prayer groups ever wait in silence for a “word” from God? Do the visions and bits of choruses that then come out get woven together as “a word from the Lord for us today”? Do such “words” or “prophesies” from the pulpit stand in our minds on an equal level with the eternal, life-giving Words of the Lord God Almighty? Are we moving toward the position of the Quakers who have dispensed with the Bible altogether because they have this “inner light”, claiming John 14:26 as their authority for doing so? Do not allow for additions or alterations to the Word of God! Read Revelation 22:18-19. “Sola Scriptura!” was the cry of the Reformation: “The Bible alone!“

The Westminster Assembly of Puritans (called by the English Long Parliament of 1643 to 1652 to reform the Church of England) consisted of 20 laymen from the House of Commons, 10 laymen from the House of Lords , 121 English clergymen plus a delegation of Scottish Presbyterians. They met in 1,163 sessions to produce comprehensive and definitive answers to questions such as we have raised…. to avoid as many future dilemmas as they could. They wrote:

The supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined , and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures.

Notice Who we are to heed: the Holy Spirit of God, not the spirit or voice of mere men. Therefore are we told to test the spirits (I John 4:1). And also notice the medium through which we hear the Holy Spirit of God: the Scriptures. So let us make the Scriptures, the Written Word, first and last in our home education, just as our Saviour, the Living Word, is to be first and last, the Alpha and the Omega, in every area of our lives.

Note:

(1) Excerpted from article by Rev Roger Wagner in Penpoint, Southern California Center for Christian Studies, PO Box 328, Placentia, CA 92871, USA.

From Keystone Magazine
July 1996 , Vol. II No. 4
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

Delight Yourself in the Lord, and He Will Give You the Desires of Your Heart

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Delight Yourself in the Lord, and He Will Give You the Desires of Your Heart

Posted in In line with Scripture

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.-Psalm 37:4

He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them.-Psalm 145:19

A poor man had wanted to go on a cruise all his life. As a youngster he had seen an advertisement for a luxury cruise, and ever since he had dreamed of spending a week on a large ocean liner enjoying fresh sea air and relaxing in a luxurious environment. He saved money for years, carefully counting his pennies, often sacrificing personal needs so he could stretch his resources a little further.

Finally he had enough to purchase a cruise ticket. He went to a travel agent, looked over the cruise brochures, picked out one that was especially attractive, and bought a ticket with the money he had saved so long. He was hardly able to believe he was about to realise his childhood dream.

Knowing he could not afford the kind of elegant food pictured in the brochure, the man planned to bring his own provisions for the week. Accustomed to moderation after years of frugal living, and with his entire savings going to pay for the cruise ticket, the man decided to bring along a week’s supply of bread and peanut butter. That was all he could afford.

The first few days of the cruise were thrilling. The man ate peanut butter sandwiches alone in his room each morning and spent the rest of his time relaxing in the sunlight and fresh air, delighted to be aboard ship. By midweek, however, the man was beginning to notice that he was the only person on board who was not eating luxurious meals. It seemed that every time he sat on deck or rested in the lounge or stepped outside his cabin, a porter would walk by with a huge meal for someone who had ordered room service.

By the fifth day of the cruise the man could take it no longer. The peanut butter sandwiches seemed stale and tasteless. He was desperately hungry, and even the fresh air and sunshine had lost their appeal. Finally, he stopped a porter and exclaimed, “Tell me how I might get one of those meals! I’m dying for some decent food, and I’11 do anything you say to earn it!”

“Why, sir, don’t you have a ticket for this cruise?” the porter asked.

“Certainly,” said the man. “But I spent everything I had for that ticket. I have nothing left with which to buy food. “

“But, sir,” said the porter, “didn’t you realise? Meals are included with your passage. You may eat as much as you like!”

Lots of Christians live like that man. Not realising the unlimited provisions that are theirs in Christ, they munch on stale scraps. There’s no need to live like that! Everything we could ever want or need is included in the cost of admission-and the Saviour has already paid it for us! (From: Our Suffiency in Christ, by John MacArthur, Jr.)

I think Brother MacArthur may have waxed a bit lyrical on that last line when he said, “Everything we could ever want or need.. . “, because it leaves the door wide open for the deceitful heart of even us redeemed Christians to make demands that are totally self-centred rather than Christ-centred. Never underestimate the sinfulness of sin or the deceitfulness of our own hearts. (See Jeremiah 17:9 and I Corinthians 10:12). We have NOT been perfected by our conversion and if we say we are without sin we deceive ourselves (I John 1:8) Our sanctification toward perfection in heaven is a life-long task.

However, we must agree with what Brother MacArthur is saying, because the promises of God prove true, and He has promised us “such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.” (Malachi 3:l0). I don’t know about you, but I am definitely a starter for THAT kind of blessing.

So how do we cash in? What do we have to do to inherit all these goodies? Perhaps we had better stop right here and realise that I have already asked in the same spirit as the rich young man who approached Jesus and left quickly and sadly when he found the price too high. He didn’t want to give up that which he could not keep for that which he could never lose. (See Matthew 19:16-22).

Look at our opening verses. Note that these promises, like virtually every other promise of God, have conditions attached to them. You see, our Lord and Saviour is not a big sugar-daddy in the sky just waiting to write us out blank cheques whenever we want them. He is King of kings and Lord of lords, Absolute Sovereign of the entire universe. We play by His rules or we are out of the game. Here is the One to Whom it is quite correct to say, “Your wish is my command.” But here also is the “secret” to inheriting all He has: When we take delight in the Lord, when what He wants is what we want, when my inmost delights and desires come from seeing His will accomplished in my life, in the life of others, in the society around me, THEN I am assured of receiving the desires of my heart! You see, it is clear that whatever God wants, God gets. Now we know from Scripture that His time frame is not what we would organise, but we know that no person or being or circumstance is going to thwart God’s will…. He will get, He will accomplish that which He desires. If we are totally in tune with Him, our desires will be same as His.. ..and just as He gets what He wills, so will we! Now we may not see some of these things in our life times. But they WILL come to pass and we can know the joy of having contributed to the accomplishment, the furtherance of His purposes on earth even though we may not live to see some things come to fruition. Have not most of the saints through the ages lived and laboured in exactly such hope? Do not go around praying for or proclaiming that thus-and-so will take place because you’ve been praying faithfuIly for that …you may well be setting yourself up for a faith-shattering disappointment. Which of these attitudes are we displaying for our children to emulate? Which of these are we training them to have?

This does not mean we do not plan big or expect big in this life. You bet we do: set goals and have your 5-, 10-, 20- year objectives in mind. And pray about them, that they be in the will of the Lord. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was to piously “wait upon the Lord” for several years as a young man and let career & educational opportunities slide right on by. Then Proverbs 16:9 came crashing through: “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” See? The promise has a condition. He will direct our steps, but we must at least make some plans for moving in one direction or the other, not just SlT there. You cannot steer a car, a ship, a horse or anything until it is MOVING. Are we teaching our children to be pro-active in seeking out God’s will? Do they see us doing that?

Since my will is to do His will, when He directs my steps in a completely different direction than I had planned, I don’t get all frustrated, bitter and twisted (well, not for long, anyway!) because I know this change of direction is from the LORD! I mean this change of plans may not be the least bit convenient. It may actually cost me money, seem to have wasted time mucking about in this other area I am now leaving, and even make me look a bit inconsistent or indecisive in the eyes of my peers. Well, just call to mind the lives of people like Moses, John the Baptist, and even Christ Jesus Himself.

Years ago, when single, I was planning a trip to South America. I had saved up a nice sum and was praying that God would confirm it. I was also shopping for a car, and had decided on the size of down payment I could handle and therefore what price vehicle I could afford to look at. I found the perfect car: one owner, a little old lady who only drove it on weekends. As soon as I signed the papers it dawned on me that she wanted the full payment not just a down payment. It took all the money I’d saved, plus a withdrawal penalty fee, plus all but $20 of my next pay to buy that car. Well, God clearly confirmed that I WAS to have that car, but that I definitely WAS NOT to go to South America. Maybe that doesn’t sound like too spiritual an experience, but I want you to know, I had total assurance and peace of heart that God had organised every detail. Recall events like these from your own life and recount them again and again to your children.

This is how we are to train up our children, in the fear of the Lord. Note how our other verse above promises fulfillment of desires to those who fear Him. We do what He says not because we are afmid, but because we don’t want to do anything else! I’ve lived long enough now to know that when I obey the Lord I am the one who gets blessed, not the Lord. I am not doing Him a favour. No, No! He is doing me the favour by graciously allowing me to know His will in His statutes, ordinances, commandments and precepts. As parents it is our duty to FORCE our children to do what is right …to so train them in consistent obedience to God and His word that they take delight in it AND KNOW NO OTHER LIFESTYLE. By this we will set them up for a life of true blessedness to themselves and true blessing to others.

From Keystone Magazine
July 1996 , Vol. II No. 4
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz