Education through Relationship: Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom in the Fear of the Lord
Enrichment of a core education for children expands their horizons and involvement with God and His Creation. A good approach to structured planning is to prayerfully consider a theme of life that can lead to numerous areas of activity and exploration. There are unlimited examples of possible themes of life which can flow through the core curriculum or involve aspects of the core curriculum in new ways.
Structuring these themes with the use of a “spider diagram” is useful. For example, the theme of “seeds” brings many interesting and useful ideas for lessons and practical activities, including related Bible Studies, planting, growing and harvesting, visits to farms, study of the needs of seeds to grow (water, light, air, warmth, nutritious soil), seeds of inspiration, the wonder of God’s creation …………. Any chosen theme quickly creates many ideas to follow up in a creative way.
Inevitably we need to structure our lesson plans and may, by habit, put activities into various categories of science, language, maths, art, music etc. Whilst balance is necessary between serving a core curriculum and expanding our educational strategies into exciting new experiences of life, we must be careful of the foundations on which we are building.
The foundation of much education is academic, which can easily become an end in itself, to build up structures of knowledge and application of knowledge which feed a worldview of humanism, which is widespread in our modern world.
There is a different sort of knowledge that comes from a Hebraic rather than a Greek philosophic worldview. It is among the foundations of biblically based education strongly introduced by Solomon in the Book of Proverbs – knowledge, overlapping with understanding and wisdom. If knowledge and understanding of this kind is at the heart of our curriculum, the result is a path of wise application led by God. We should explore this.
The Lord’s brother, James, condemned the wrong sort of wisdom most strongly:
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:13-18)
In our design of educational experiences, therefore, we must be careful that the path of our children is underpinned by the pursuit of the kind of knowledge, wisdom and understanding which Solomon highlighted.
The Hebrew for knowledge is דַּעַת (da’at). It is much fuller in meaning than intellectual awareness. It is intimate, experiential knowledge. It is, for example, used to describe the relationship between Adam and Eve. Such relationship can be deeply personal to bring forth the next generation of children as well as bringing pure relationship in the partnership of life. Ultimately it is the knowledge that describes relationship with God. It does also include relationships which are applicable to practical skills and craftmanship such as is described in Exodus 31:3, where God imparts knowledge to build the tabernacle.
These are some of the things that Solomon said about this kind of knowledge and its relationship with understanding and wisdom:
- Proverbs 1:7 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
- Proverbs 1:22-23 – How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? And fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke; surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.
- Proverbs 4:7 – Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.
- Proverbs 9:10 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
- Proverbs 18:15 – The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
It is clear that in planning our educational strategies we are dealing with a most important matter – to found what we do on clear biblical principles. It is not what children do to satisfy the demands of a world that has largely written God out of their curriculum, but to nurture a way of life that leads to a walk with and a knowledge of God. Nevertheless, it is not only a blinkered life that we are considering but one that is open to all that God can show us of Himself in His entire creation, the experience of enjoying His creation, and being of practical use in serving God in our generation. The Hebraic lifestyle is never to be static, theoretical, self-serving, but practical and useful to others, according to God’s call and purpose in each of our lives.
By way of illustration:
- A workman at The Cedars once said how he had failed at school. He didn’t meet the academic goals set, continued to look down on himself but did practical tasks we asked of him with innovation. He once said of himself that he knew that he was good with tools. He needed encouragement to realise that he wasn’t a failure, but a success in a different area from normal expectation. He knew his tools as if they were an extension of him. Think about this in general educational terms. By having opportunity to use tools, apparatus etc, one becomes familiar and relational with their use. There is a knowing how but also a relational knowing. Education is about giving opportunity to explore, handle, use, try-out. It can apply to many things – a saw, a violin, use of a kitchen, a cricket bat, a snooker cue, a potters’ wheel, one’s voice, a paint brush, a spade …….. Knowing brings relationship and can result in practical or artistic excellence.
- There are different sorts of drivers of cars and commercial vehicles, handlers of boats, or of aeroplanes. For example, of the best pilots it is said that they put their aeroplane on. We can extend this easily understood example to many other things. There are those who can make their machinery, of any kind, work but there are those to whom it becomes a natural extension of themselves – a knowing. Similarly, playing a musical instrument from the heart and not just by playing the notes on the stave is a knowing of the instrument.
- There are many children who only find out what trade or profession they will be good at, after they have left school. Sometimes we give such a limited range of opportunities that they have no opportunity to gradually discover what can become natural to them in their God-given life of service. Good education, particularly in the early years is about opportunities to experience and explore widely – train a child in the way he should go ……… . How will he/she/we know unless there are relevant and wide-ranging opportunities to explore?
Biblically founded education is about opportunities to explore God’s world with one another and with Him, trying things out, knowing the animals, the birds, the plants, the vast universe, handling the tools of creation and processes of life, knowing them in a relational way – this is the meaning of knowledge.
Understanding overlaps knowledge. If knowledge brings relationships of one kind, understanding builds relationships of another – how things work together. Creativity is a product of understanding.
Jesus demonstrated how a teacher leads a disciple to understanding. He took His disciples to various places and related a new idea to what they saw and were already familiar with. He spoke through parables, which drew a relationship of understanding from a familiar area, extending it to a new area. The types of soil that make up the fields were familiar to an agricultural community, as was the growing of seeds. Through considering this, in the parable of the sower, He brought understanding to the nature of our heart and receptivity to the truth about God. Another time, someone asked, “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus answered by the parable of the good Samaritan – taking the familiar to give understanding of the unfamiliar.
Job tells us:
But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
And the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you;
And the fish of the sea will explain to you.
Who among all these does not know
That the hand of the Lord has done this,
In whose hand is the life of every living thing,
And the breath of all mankind? (Job 12:7-10)
Through opportunities to gain knowledge we move on to relationships between one thing and another – understanding. This comes through observation, handling, exploring, describing, acting out. A mechanic understands a machine by taking it apart, re-assembling it, sees the interacting parts working together – a metaphor that can be applied in many ways both physical and spiritual.
We have an advantage that the unbeliever does not have. Through prayer we will find that God will inspire us to the path of experiential learning that is suited to the stage and group of children under our care. This can be accomplished through a Learning Centre but also in the relationships of family life, as God has ordained for fathers and mothers:
Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you—‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:1-9)
Solomon told us that the fear of the Lord (that is, the true reverence we must have for the Lord with whom we walk) is the beginning of our education, based on knowledge and understanding. This results in application of our learning in the way ordained for each person by God – that is, the wisdom of our life.
Therefore, as we plan our themes of life to extend education outside the bounds of a core curriculum, whatever categories we use to define the chosen activities, we must ensure that they are full of the experiences that lead to relational learning founded on knowledge, understanding and wisdom within the fear of the Lord.
A final quotation from the Bible blends all this together at the deepest level. In His great High Priestly prayer in John 17, He made known the reason for His sacrificial death:
Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:1-3)
Central to our education system, through all the relational activities of gaining knowledge of the right kind, there is always the supreme objective of knowing God and His Son Jesus our Lord.
Dr Clifford Denton
May 2026