The Gospel: Truth and Grace

How does an empty tomb relate to a full classroom? That’s the question. How does the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – the gospel – shape an educational institution?

The word Gospel means “good news.” In the ancient world, it was used for imperial proclamations: the birth of an heir, a victory in a critical battle, or the ascension of a new ruler. A modern equivalent to gospel might be “BREAKING NEWS,” in that sweet period of television history when every headline wasn’t deemed “breaking news.”

In short, a gospel is an urgent public announcement of good news. Now that we know what a gospel is, let’s shift our attention to defining the Christian gospel. The apostle Paul can help us here:

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand…For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”

— 1 Corinthians 15:1-4

In the first century, there lived a man who claimed to be Messiah (Christ) (verse 3). His death was not merely the cessation of his physical life, but the salvation of people from their sins (verse 3). He was buried and then raised to life after death, in accordance with promises God had made to Israel hundreds of years before His birth (verse 4).

Let’s stop there. Already, a school shaped by this story – and by this man – will be oriented toward Truth. The gospel claims to be a true event that shapes all other events. Therefore, there is such a thing as Truth; schools dedicated to the gospel must pursue it.

Pursuing truth is not a given in today’s educational environment. “Truth” in our culture has fallen on hard times. We don’t trust the media to provide truthful information, we don’t trust tech companies to arbitrate truth and we’ve even started to use phrases like “my truth,” by which we mean “what I really feel,” something most other societies deemed less important than what really happened. Because public institutions are failing to disseminate truthful stories, because our friends are saying “truth” when they mean “my gut feeling” and because our lives have been overtaken by endless amounts of false advertisements – all this creates a skepticism toward truth claims that no postmodern professor could have imagined.

Beyond broader cultural dynamics, many educational institutions today avoid topics that might elicit discomfort and other negative emotions. The intention is admirable. There is a teenage mental health crisis and urgent action is needed from every corner of a kid’s life (including the school). But sheltering them from reality – history that offends them or biology that confronts them – is not a long-term plan for success.

The inclination both to distrust or avoid Truth stems from a deeper anxiety: that we will not be able to handle the Truth as it is. Earlier this week, my students (10th and 11th graders) were reading in The Great Divorce about a character who resisted any claim to ultimate truth. Setting aside the manifest incoherence of that (ultimate truth) claim for a moment, I asked my students why someone would resist capital T Truth.

Erika Adjei shot up her hand and said “because then they’d have to deal with it.” Garrett Howe chimed in “Also, because then they’d lose control.” Yahtzee.

(Yes I know, they are the best students in the world).

This is where the gospel can help us. For if the gospel is true, then ultimate reality, the Truth underneath all other truths, is good news. We don’t need to be afraid of it. It will make demands of us (we will have to deal with it), it will deconstruct our illusions of control but this is not a God intending to oppress us; it is One who has come “to seek and save the lost.” (Lk. 19:10)

Let me make the implication of this plain: Because the Architect of the gospel is the Author of truth, no area of academic inquiry could ever disconfirm God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.

Because the gospel is true, nothing a student could learn in history class – say about the sins of their ancestors or the oppression of their forefathers – could define them as deeply as God already has by sending His Son to save them.

Because the gospel is true, no scientific findings which appear to contradict Biblical teaching don’t threaten the heart of our faith, but rather invite us to a deeper understanding of both the book of nature and the book of Scripture.

Because the gospel is true, no story about secularism read in Humanities class could threaten the potency of the gospel’s answers to the deepest questions of the human mind and the highest longings of the human heart. Life in gospel light is “life to the full.” (Jn. 10:10)

I’m not saying Christian educators shouldn’t exercise discernment when making curricular decisions, nor am I saying a Christian school should blindly accept all the findings from every academic discipline. Rather, my claim is simply that the impediment to pursuing truth – the fear that Truth might be dark, discomforting and ultimately damaging – is radically undermined by the gospel of a God who dies for sinners. The Truth that lies behind the creation of the universe is gracious Truth, good news for all.

There’s so much more we could say about the power of the gospel: how it grants rest to students exhausted from the pressure to perform, how it empowers the kind of teacher-student relationships that lie at the heart of transformative education, how it creates a staff culture of forgiveness and hope – indeed, if we excavated all the riches of the gospel for North Star “even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” (Jn 21:25)

So we’ll stop here for now and say: A gospel-shaped school pursues Truth because it knows the Author of Truth is the Giver of Grace. Amen.