My first car was one of Honda’s early US market entry models. It was a rather small, two-door car with a faux back seat and a tiny four-cylinder engine that was better served on a lawn mower than a four-speed manual transmission. It had natural air conditioning, an AM radio, and was powered by hand-cranked windows. The best part was that it could seemingly run for a month on $5 of gas, and it was mine—bought and paid for with newspaper route earnings.
I loved that little car. It afforded me a taste of freedom and responsibility that comes with ownership. Because of that little car, I learned to drive a stick—an increasingly rare skill. I also started listening to Paul Harvey’s radio show, The Rest of the Story.
If you aren’t familiar with it, Paul Harvey had a deep and distinctive voice. In his unique storytelling way, he would share background about a famous person or event, beginning with the obscure and moving toward the great reveal at the very end of the show. He famously ended each episode with… “and now you know the rest of the story.”
Besides contributing to my love of history, Harvey’s show unwittingly provides a bit of a biblical hermeneutic. Scripture is not exhaustive history. For example, about 600 years pass from the end of Malachi to the birth of Christ without comment. Reading scripture, we often encounter people mid-story. For example, we encounter Zacchaeus when he is already in the tree. We have sketchy details about the childhood of Jacob and Esau. John specifically states that Jesus did many signs and wonders that are not recorded in his book. Scripture is not a detailed history book—God did not design it that way.
Sometimes, however, Paul Harvey’s hermeneutic is helpful when reading scripture. We ought to ask and wonder about the “rest of the story.” In reading biblical accounts, the end is often obvious, but not what had previously transpired. Consider this illustration: Imagine you are walking through a field of rolling hills on a beautiful spring day. The wild flowers and tall grass sway in the wind, and you find a turtle sitting on a fence post. Clearly, that turtle had help—someone put him there. That is the rest of the story.
An Old Testament Example
In Daniel 1, we are introduced to Daniel and his three friends Hananiah, Misael, and Azariah, otherwise known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In this first encounter, they ask to uphold Hebrew dietary laws rather than eat from the king’s table. In chapter 3, we meet them again. This time, the stakes are higher than just being kosher; the second commandment is in the balance. Upholding it came with a death sentence. Refusing the king’s command to worship his golden image, they were cast into the fiery furnace and remained unharmed. The rest of the story… they were joined by a fourth whose “appearance was like a son of the gods” (Dan. 3:25), King Nebuchadnezzar praised God, and the three young men received promotions!
This familiar story ought to prompt a serious question: “What had happened before those two events that afforded faithfulness in the face of pressure?”
A New Testament Example
Mathew 4 records the calling of the first disciples, two sets of brothers, Peter and Andrew and James and John. The setting of this extraordinary encounter is a typical fisherman’s work day. One set of brothers was actually fishing, the others doing net maintenance. It would seem that Peter and Andrew were in business together and James and John were a bit younger as they were working for their father. Regardless, Jesus merely said, “Follow me.” And they did. They dropped everything and left their families. While one might proof-text “effectual call” with this passage, the obvious questions are “What did they know? What had happened before that prepared them to follow Jesus?” Their collective response is not typical or expected unless something else had happened.
That something else is training and preparation. Coaches often remind teams that practice pays off in games. Musicians rehearse for hours before the performance. In his 2008 book, Outliers, author Malcomb Gladwell suggests that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice are necessary to achieve mastery of a skill.
The Biblical mandate is even stronger than that. In Deuteronomy 6, God directs parents to teach the Shema diligently and constantly to their children. In Ephesians 6, fathers are instructed to “bring them [children] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
The first verses of Psalm 78:5-7 provide insight into the preparation of these Hebrew men. The passage begins with a bold declaration of teaching old things and the deeds of the Lord to the generations:
He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments.
Notice the progression: teach, know, understand, keep, and transformation. First, children are taught a specific curriculum. Teaching and knowing go hand in hand. Knowledge then leads to a deeper understanding, including motivation and context, which provides a foundation for transformational living. In other words, when confronting the furnace or Jesus’ call to follow, they responded according to their preparation.
The Christian School
We often refer to that process as education. However, it’s not just any education but one that specifically embraces God and the created order. One firmly planted on the foundation of scripture. One aimed at academic rigor and spiritual formation.
This preparation leading to transformational living, outlined in Psalm 78 and elsewhere in the scripture, is the purview of the church and the family. In our current context, the place where those institutions meet for this express purpose is the Christian day school. Further, the average student spends about 16,000 hours at school from kindergarten through high school graduation, and the schoolhouse is the institution designed for that specific purpose.
The fact that our children face challenges and pressures is not in dispute. Their response is not assured or given. However, we can do much to prepare them—church, family, and school functioning in community and grounded in a biblical worldview afford the best opportunity for necessary formation. In the aftermath of challenge and when the rest of the story is told, a Christian education grounded in shaping hearts and minds plays a defining role.
