The Incarnation As Our Motivation for Christ-centered Classical Learning

        In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14 ESV)

   The incarnation, God becoming human, obviously has meaning for salvation, but it also lays the foundation for education. The historical truth that Jesus was born of a woman and born under the law (Galatians 4:4) declares that humans and human place matters to God. The truth that the Word of God mentioned above joined the human race by taking on human embodiment urges us to be attentive to words, the Word, and God’s world. This loving act of God calls us to give due attention to His words and His world. If all of this matters to God it must matter to me and you.

   In the Western world, wisdom has been greatly valued because the Greeks treasured wisdom and the Jews taught that the God of Abraham was the author of all wisdom. Many of our intellectual and spiritual forerunners who pursued the Trivium did so because the Wisdom of God incarnate calls us to be wise. More than one Christian has noted a key Scripture dealing with Wisdom in the Old Testament also parallels the person and work of Jesus when it says that,

    The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old…

    When He established the heavens, I was there,
When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,...
When He set for the sea its boundary
So that the water would not transgress His command,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth;
    Then I was beside Him, as a master workman;
And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,
    Rejoicing in the world, His earth,
And having my delight in the sons of men.

(Proverbs 8:22, 27, 29, 30, 31 ESV)

   The Wisdom of our Lord has been and will always be. The Wisdom of God became a baby in Bethlehem. We can delight in knowing Him, delight in His creation, and delight in His ways as He delights in us. When we return to our studies after the break, may we at Veritas Christian Academy delight in the pursuit of wisdom, understanding, and all of our learning.