Get Wisdom! Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People

By Ronald Kirk

Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ!

With a truly Biblical philosophy exercised by faith, there should exist no significant gap between theory and successful Christian living, between the Spirit of God and His fruit. A now almost forgotten body of Biblical wisdom laid the foundations for America’s great Christian institutions. Its scholarship is a powerful instrument toward replacing secularism with a Biblical view and practice in every area of life.

Issues concerning psychology, education, business, management, law, family, church and civil government, the natural sciences, the arts — all human endeavors — are legitimate and necessary Christian concerns. For in these lie the influential institutions that will either help prepare the soil of men’s hearts for the Gospel or harden it.

Get Wisdom! emphasizes the centrality of Christ and applied faith in learning and doing, and in spiritual and practical character development. It prepares the student for godly relationships of all kinds. The student learns to handle the material resources of life in Biblical terms for God’s glory. Christian liberty is central. Internal freedom from sin and external liberty are necessary to obey God’s calling on one’s life, individually and in community with others.

Get Wisdom! identifies a method of scholarship and education consistent with Biblical goals for the mature Christian. Applying these concise principles consistently will take students from rudimentary accomplishment to mastery in every conceivable life subject.

Ron has applied the content of Get Wisdom! for over forty years in varied educational settings. He has trained many classroom teachers, home school parents, and adult learners of every kind to apply these principles successfully in their educational and life domains. Many young people educated in the Get Wisdom! program have established Christian families, demonstrating that this instruction produces adults of elevated character and accomplishment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronald Kirk
• Release date: Oct 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005882594

Ronald Kirk

Replacing atheistic behavioral psychology with an updated historical Biblical educational philosophy, Ron Kirk developed and tested custom teacher training and curriculum and classroom teaching of the school subjects in every grade from kindergarten to adult. Ron carefully identified educational purpose, methods, and strategic content, with startling results regardless of native gifting or educational experience. Challenged young people overcome toward remarkable accomplishment. Children and adults with poor education experiences likewise overcome their challenges, even dyslexia. Ready students soared beyond ordinary expectations, often advancing several years over their peers.

Book preview

Get Wisdom!

Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People

©2022 by Ronald Kirk and Get Wisdom! Ammon, Idaho

Applied Biblical Faith,

Christian Worldview Education Training

This edition is an extensive edit and first formal publication of a community and teacher training course text and syllabus, first distributed to class members in manuscript form and others beginning in 1988, Camarillo, California. This edition adds coursework and a Scripture index.

Cover from a book of public domain early American images, associated with Get Wisdom! since 1988.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Capitalization in Scripture has occasionally been modified from the original.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise — without prior written permission.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Get Wisdom! Program

Chapter 2: A Biblical Philosophy for the Christian Life

The Seven Principles of the American Christian Heritage: The Personal Principles

Chapter 3: The Christian Principle of Covenantal Individuality

Chapter 4: The Christian Principle of Self-Government

Chapter 5: America's Heritage of Christian Character

The Seven Principles of the American Christian Heritage: The Application Principles

Chapter 6: The Christian Principle of Property

Chapter 7: Appropriate Christian Expressions

Chapter 8: The Principle of Christian Reproduction

Chapter 9: The Christian Principle of Unity and Union

Chapter 10: Additional Foundations and Corollaries

Chapter 11: Goals of the Biblical Christian Curriculum

Chapter 12: A Historic and Biblical Method of Scholarship

Chapter 13: Principled Relationships

Chapter 14: The Purpose of the Master's School: A Conclusion

Chapter 15: What Now?

Appendices

Essay Tutor

Course Work Assignments

Important Additional Background Reading

Scripture References

End Notes

Preface

The publishing of this work as a complete book is a labor of love decades in the making. Beginning as a course outline to train teachers in 1983, I early began to flesh the work out in manuscript form as a class syllabus.

Why would I persist in this work for so long? Not experiencing much vocational success through the work of reforming education on strict Biblical grounds, I have experienced some setback. Such is the way with pioneering effort.

Yet beyond anything I and associates could have designed or accomplished, the Lord brought amazing results to our efforts to reform education on historic Biblical foundations. Without pressure to perform, from the first year bright and able students of good character foundations nonetheless soared. By end of first grade, the young people had obtained seventh grade ability in literacy. In math, these students mastered the concept of number so well that they quickly followed up with mastery of the arithmetic operations. When we introduced multiplication as advanced counting, they had so mastered the concepts of counting and addition, that they successfully designed their own multiplication tables upon only about a ten-minute chalkboard instruction. Before the year ended, they readily learned basic understanding of geometry and fractions. We found that these young people could reason very grown-up conclusions with leading questions, such as why the Bible enjoins generous giving, but without exacting it (as in socialism). When cultivated by careful instruction and practice, we found the children readily and regularly to choose elevated expressions of literature and music over childish ones. They quickly learned to love liberty upon willingness to government themselves. They loved work!

More importantly as encouragement to me, from that first year we found that children with attention challenges and dyslexia quickly overcame. They learned to read and write, spell, do math. More importantly, we found impressive growth in character. Attitudes changed. In our first year of the Master’s School (Jesus is the Master), a babyish and sullen little girl, barely capable of classroom learning, corrected her speech. She no longer instantly gave up but cheerfully persevered to overcome learning challenges. She learned to enjoy play with the other children. Early in the year, I was ready to give up. I hadn’t seen results. I felt the urging of the Lord to persist. Praise Him for His grace! The breakthrough became a fundamental incentive to continue to bridge the gap between Biblical theory and practice by faith. Over the years, numbers of other learning or socially challenged young people reversed their persistent failures to become very successful people, capable of walking by faith with their Lord.

An early version of Get Wisdom! Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People went to Uganda, where missionary Jay Danger required all his associates at New Hope Uganda to read it. By Jay and Vicki Dangers’ own witness, this work changed their parenting approach after spending time and study with us. [1] Then they took my work—and their own gifts, calling and inspiration to Uganda to develop a ministry to desperately disadvantaged orphans to build real families, restore the Fatherhood of God, and increasingly make the Sons and Daughters of New Hope Uganda the godly parents and increasingly the leaders of their nation. I learned in 2013, that a young man discipled by one of the New Hope founding board members Peter Kiyimba Kasaka had studied Get Wisdom! for three years. Godfrey Kyazze is becoming the pre-eminent education advocate in Uganda. By the hand of God, Godfrey, with his Master’s Institute of Education, is creating a whole home school movement, previously unknown in Uganda.

Chairman of the education department at Hillsdale College, Professor Walter G. Lewke, became aware of the Get Wisdom! manuscript when my daughter Hilary attended Hillsdale. Though I held no ordinary academic credentials, Dr. Lewke twice tried to recruit me to the Hillsdale education faculty. He recognized reading the Get Wisdom! manuscript and some of my other work, that they wanted a non-behavioral approach to teaching reading instruction to teachers.

Again, numbers of successes of the Get Wisdom! program in practice over the decades have encouraged persistence in seeing the publishing and propagation of the Get Wisdom! program a reality—including this book, the forthcoming School and Classroom Principles and Methods, and programmed course development in the school subjects. The early, Christian McGuffey’s Readers and teacher’s classroom lessons are already available as eBooks. Lord willing, much more will soon be available—grammar, math, natural science, literature, history, and Bible.

Several friends encouraged publishing this Get Wisdom! manuscript over time. Editing came in spurts as my knowledge and understanding, and my ability to write grew. I came under conviction that working as a publishing scholar for the world-class Chalcedon Foundation required elevated communication skills. Perhaps this work will never be finished. However, with the financial encouragement in 2021 of devout and active Christian Rob Monster, founder of internet service provider Epik.com, I realized that here was the opportunity to make publishing a reality. With one last attempt at polishing for now, here is the result—a rigorous, applied Biblical faith worldview and apologetic, designed to teach anyone with the humility and heart to keep at it, how systematically to think and live Biblically, with the aid of the lessons of our Providential heritage. This work has served to prepare many fine classroom teachers and disciples in other disciplines. May it now serve many, many more in Jesus’ name.

—Ron Kirk

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Get Wisdom! Program

I. For Whom Get Wisdom! Is Intended

First, the title of this work, Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People, requires a little explanation. Hero is a term given to a class of extraordinary men of the Classical era, who because of their exploits qualified as demigods. To the Greek mind, a god was merely a bigger and more powerful man, a difference not in nature but degree. Some may thus consider the term hero objectionable. Admittedly, the term faithful may be more apt for our purposes, as Get Wisdom! intends a thoroughly Biblical work. However, in our age, faithful has lost its full meaning to the average Christian mind. To most of us, faithful speaks to a personal holiness, a soul withdrawn from action into the more spiritual realms of life. The term hero may evoke a response to our hearts closer to the Biblical idea. However, that Biblical idea has fallen into disuse in modern times, replaced by personal pietism—an internal holiness, not necessarily fully expressed in life. Therefore, we use the term Christian hero. If the reader will be patient, this odd initial distinction should soon become much clearer.

Get Wisdom! Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People, then, is for the humble believer who knows deep down that God intends the faith of Jesus Christ to be vital and real. He knows the Gospel to be the power and inspiration for every part of this present life in anticipation of the next. Get Wisdom! is for people who know or sense that the faith of Jesus Christ ought to be grand and comprehensive, an adventure of heroic proportion. Get Wisdom! is for people who are ready to let God be God, but may lack the skills for a proper response to Him. Get Wisdom! is for those who may lack some or all the resources needed to produce those skills. Get Wisdom! is for people who have or desire to have a spirit of learning in the Lord. Get Wisdom! Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People is for persons of all levels of previous accomplishment, from the beginning learner to the accomplished professor of any discipline. Indeed, Get Wisdom! also purposes to reach those who have not yet experienced personal salvation, but who may nonetheless seek a greater understanding of the faith of Jesus Christ—a reason for the hope that lies within those of us who love Him. We offer Get Wisdom! to those who wish ever more to yield to God, accepting the bounteous life and high calling, pressed out of a commitment to become everything the Lord has called the Christian to be. What else ought we to expect from the God who created this glorious universe and made men co-inheritors of it with Christ? What else ought we to expect from ourselves?

More particularly Get Wisdom! should provide the professional or home school educator with a set of tools which will enable taking command of the school curriculum, no matter what curriculum content one may use. Serious students and scholars of the Christian worldview may find relational and nature-dominion theology further developed for ready application. Pastors may find applications in their teaching ministry, or in church government. Anyone who seeks to find or expand appropriate outlets of the Faith for the expansion of the Kingdom of God ought here to find apt tools toward this end.

Teachers may wonder why they should study such topics as liberty, justice, and civil government. These and every other topic considered in this work are things intimately important to the Gospel of Jesus Christ—either contributing to or detracting from Christ’s kingdom. The point is that all of life and its activities matter to the Gospel, the Great Commission, and our ultimate destination, even table manners (First Corinthians 10:31). Therefore, all subjects are important. Take every thought captive (Second Corinthians 10:5). School subjects are strategic life subjects, designed to lay a foundation for every other activity of life on godly grounds.

As to need for this work, I take myself as perhaps a typical example. I found that though relatively well educated by most standards my schooling and four years of church experience failed me when I first attempted to derive a uniquely Biblical view of education. I simply did not have the needed tools of scholarship. (I break with the tradition of authorial dignity and use the first person because this work has had a very personal impact upon me! I’ll likewise advert to an editorial we along the way.) I had taken a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley, after having previously studied in physics and mathematics through differential calculus. My lovely wife Christina excelled in an academically demanding course of study in her two years of college. Though we were well educated by traditional standards, when my wife and I first found ourselves with the responsibility for our church's education ministry, we also found ourselves quite in over our heads. When it came to teaching four-year-olds, we were sadly lacking. Yet, if nothing else, our formal education taught us that we were capable of learning.

Therefore, I began to study the best literature on evangelical Christian education available. Sadly, the best I could find merely attempted synthesis between a Biblical faith and secular behavioral psychology, an unacceptable compromise. I found the published Christian education literature to be evangelical and Bible-centered enough in the introductory and general discussions. Yet, for educational methods, they claimed we must abandon the Bible in favor of science—that is, behavioral psychology. [2] Not so! Modern psychology’s roots lie in mere collected observation, as if human nature were a natural or physical science. Christianity’s true psychological foundation rather stems from the truth of human nature as revealed in the Bible by our Creator. Modern psychology walks by sight. Christianity walks by faith, accepting the unseen things as God declares them. Christians ought not to underestimate the difference between these two views. Furthermore, as behavior psychology finds it roots in evolution—where the environment determines nature over eons of time—man cannot in any fundamental sense change himself. Rather, he can change only his behavior. True, science may aptly observe fallen human nature or incidentally an elevated, regenerated nature in the new man of the Gospel. However, it is impossible to state what a man, woman or child ought to be, except by the very Word of God. Modern psychology has become the religion of choice in our secularized world even in the Christian church. It dominates everything. It claims knowledge of origins and purpose. It has its sacraments and its rituals. It is a false religion, that every Christian should first discover to himself and then repudiate in favor of the very Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Left with a less than satisfying conclusion from the available literature, I began to search the Bible. After all, I had been studying the Bible as a Christian for four years and for over two years before my conversion. Alas, I found that my secular education left me lacking a method which could open the Scriptures to me governing any given subject.

Somewhat discouraged now, but not quite ready to abandon my efforts, the Lord providentially led me to a group of people who documented America's early Christian heritage from original sources, and who, in the process, discovered coherent and repeating Biblical principles of Christian life and education, principles that laid the foundation for American free and just institutions. Beginning with a television presentation on Christian history, the Lord led me to an increasingly deep walk with Him through the discipline of Biblical learning.

In rather a short period, I found myself acquiring the elementary education I never had. As I prepared to teach primary-aged children in math, science, history, and literature, I began to make, what were for me, startling discoveries about the nature of the school subjects. Why, for example, had my teachers never attempted to define mathematics or ascribe inherent meaning to math in the context of the world in which we live? I now see that every department of true mathematics has a relatively small set of governing principles, which students can effectively learn and use from kindergarten arithmetic through calculus and beyond. Moreover, I now know that math has a distinctly Biblical purpose in God's economy! As I now speak to accomplished people in various disciplines, I find that my Biblical approach to scholarship leaves me no poor stepbrother to those more conventionally educated. I claim no special dispensation from God or anything special within myself. I claim that God honors with success, in due season, honest attempts by faith to anyone willing to view His creation and live it on God’s terms.

Indeed, I have seen both the accomplished and the relatively unaccomplished benefit from this study—those, that is, who are humble enough and brave enough to undertake it in the first place and then persevere a bit. Why must we be humble and brave? We must be brave because a determination to view and live life Biblically requires a willingness to allow the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to go deep in our souls, to work us over. He will challenge our preconceptions and our sinful loves. Perhaps God’s way will rebuild our entire intellectual framework. It can be extremely painful to make such change. However, willingness brings great reward. We must be humble because God may challenge what we think we know about anything. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him (First Corinthians 8:2-3).

The content of Get Wisdom! largely arises from pointed Biblical scholarship applied to the administration and classroom work of the Master’s School. Through the Master’s School of Camarillo, California, founded in 1982, we intended to bring a rigorously Biblical view of education to a Christian day school. Constant application to Scripture with direct application and evaluation of the fruit produced formed a sound, correctible, reciprocal relationship between theory and practice. Get Wisdom!, then, began as a Bible course designed to train prospective teachers and prepare school parents for our unique work together. God graciously used the course to prepare consistently excellent teachers, often upon the humblest native ability or previous accomplishment. The course often dramatically changed lives. Based upon our personal successes and with refinements over time, the content of the course became the present work. Get Wisdom!’s peculiar structure reflects the effectiveness of the original course. (We will here occasionally refer to the pioneering work of the Master’s School in this regard.)

Get Wisdom! Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People makes an appeal and teaches a method. Get Wisdom! first appeals to the Christian or potential Christian to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In our age, we desperately need a life-directing vision for our place in Christ's kingdom. Mistaking God's mercy for His approval in our thought-life and actions puts us in a very precarious position. We ought instead to desire to do anything necessary to avoid making ourselves practicing humanists. If we do not, we make ourselves practicing humanists because we never bothered to seek God's mind regarding our many activities in life. We are humanists quite by nature! Without correction by the Holy Spirit of God our natural sin will become the essential cause of our normal conduct (e.g., Galatians 5:19-26).

As to method, this study will teach a comprehensive approach to Biblical scholarship and its direct application to anyone who desires to be a disciple of Christ and to leave no stone unturned in pleasing Him. This effort to learn and practice God's ways in so many particulars demonstrates our due gratitude to Him for His unspeakable gift to us.

We, therefore, direct our efforts toward applying the Word of God to whatever calling, vocation, or subject He puts into our hand. The Lord calls us to be lovers of learning, with Christ as our teacher. He calls us to master the tools for learning, since by very definition a disciple is a learner. The Get Wisdom! program seeks to enable holy and practical success in any earnest learner.

Whether one seeks to become a teacher, a parent, a gardener, a scientist, a lawyer, a farmer, a politician, a citizen, a business man, a minister of the Gospel, a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, the manager of a household, a laborer, a servant, a leader of any kind—Get Wisdom! lays a comprehensive foundation for learning the mind of Christ, our Creator and Lord, in every subject, issue and discipline. You may consider Get Wisdom! Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People a universal self-help course, not because it covers every subject in detail, but because its vision, governing principles and method are comprehensive and will lead directly to the ability to take dominion over and gain skill in any subject. This is possible since the Lord designed His Word to be the One set of Commandments, Propositional Truth, and Principles needed to govern every human activity, to His own glory. Commandments are clear statements of God’s direct mandate to man. Propositional truths, such as the just shall live by faith, proclaim God’s mind (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; and just in case we don’t get it, Hebrews 10:38). Principles are implicit, requiring study and inference, and ultimately spiritual wisdom attained through faithful application over time, and a gift of God by His Spirit. For example, it required many centuries for the principles of Biblical liberty to become widespread and institutionalized. The American founding fathers realized wonderful fruit by their exercise of this Biblical understanding. [3] By God's grace, our generation is rediscovering this extraordinarily powerful truth.

To those who claim inability, Scriptures tell us to study to show ourselves approved. We are to be ready with an answer. How may we contradict our Lord? So many of us, disadvantaged by modern schooling, believe that we are determined by the universe, and if a task appears difficult, we must not possess ability for it. Don’t hurt yourself. Give up. These are the temptations of demons. Rather, the Word says I can do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13). We thus draw this compelling conclusion: we simply must learn. New skills require an investment of toil, including sometimes a period of apparent wandering or thrashing. In faith, we pursue those skills. Courage means an overcoming faith. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go (Judges 1:9; see also First Corinthians 16:13).

This study does not address the self-strong or self-accomplished, but rather the humble. Get Wisdom! seeks those humble enough to say, Here I am, Lord (First Samuel 3:4). Then, God makes them able! May beginners be intrepid to plow through the material which may not, at first easily fit into your present thought framework. I believe, with patient application, mastery will result and blessings follow.

I often find it most difficult to persuade those already accomplished to re-study their own discipline on Biblical grounds. This is sad. Pride may cause God to take the resources intended for the more accomplished and give them to the humbler but more faithful individual (Matthew 25:14-46). May accomplished scholars take patience with the homely style and deference to beginners this work represents. May advanced scholars humbly undertake to further their education on God’s terms.

I sense the sighs of some and the encouraged hearts of others!

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works—Second Timothy 3:16-17

Here, then, is one of the first lessons of this study: Scholarship belongs to those who thirst for learning, not merely to those who are accomplished. I can do all things through Christ, means that through diligence and perseverance by faith, God will in due season reward the intrepid one with the sweet fruit of His provision. He will say, Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord (Matthew 25:21).

Everyone possesses some gift, some calling, some kingdom purpose. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Matthew 6:33).

May those who read these pages so make their own resolution to become prepared in Christ for every good work, according to each one's unique and individual set of gifts and calling.

For Thought and Study

Always answer the why, if possible.

1. What does the term hero mean, Biblically?

2. Is this study only for accomplished scholars? Who then?

3. Do mainstream Christian education institutions currently answer the need for Christian education?

4. What’s wrong with behavioral psychology?

5. What areas of life lie outside the scope of Biblical faith? What areas of life do not belong to Him?

6. In Biblical terms, what is the purpose of education?

II. Some Claims of Get Wisdom!

The content of Get Wisdom! Making Christian Heroes of Ordinary People results from a study of the hand of God on history in the light of Scripture. In other words, we have studied the progress of mankind where the new life in Christ expresses itself through the ordinary and extraordinary occupations of living. In this sense, we attempt to study the fruit of the work of God in real peoples' real lives. In so doing, we analyze whether a given interpretation of the Scriptures has produced good results or not. This is not to pass judgment on the great historic tenets of the faith. Indeed, the historic doctrines have withstood the test of time. Rather, it is to refine our perceptions of them, and then seek to apply them in new or better ways for improved results. Doctor Rushdoony observes that only God and things pertaining to Him are absolute. With man, all is change and, ideally, growth. Have we exhausted our applications of the Scriptures to the ordinary and extraordinary conduct of life? Hardly! How may we correct and refine sound interpretation to produce even better fruit? If we produce better fruit, we then take our new insight back to Scripture to see if our perception is so. One may view this concept as applied theology (man’s understanding) tested in the crucible or the forge of life, with the Holy Spirit Himself bringing the fruit of increase as we exercise faith.

Using this approach, historic Christians, notably early Americans, discovered numbers of recurring Biblical principles, which when taken together produce an amazingly comprehensive view of Biblical truth in a concise form. [4] Rather than replacing Scripture, these principles continually direct us back to the Scriptures for an ever more thorough understanding.

With respect to Biblical principles, it is important here to comment that we ought not to take Biblical principles in some isolated or abstract sense. Rather, Christian history, the documentation of the work of God in peoples' lives, reveals rich, wholesome, comely, relationship-oriented, and elevated results. Biblical principles bear the fruit of the Spirit if rightly applied. Much of this study results from the work of the late Dr. Rushdoony, Verna Hall, and Rosalie Slater, and in their marvelous original source documentation of the fruit of applied Biblical principles in early American history. Their work, published by Ross House Books and the Foundation for American Christian Education, respectively, is highly recommended for an expanded inspirational and example-rich testimony of the Lord's work in our own heritage. The present work will concentrate on the philosophy, principles, method, and application. However, I suggest an inspired and complete study will include a more comprehensive historical and literary background.

This comprehensive and systematic approach most importantly leads to a spirit and habit for repentance. Repentance is the turning of the mind from old ways and toward the Lord's new ways. Systematic repentance makes us ever more ready vessels for the work of the Holy Spirit through us.

As a Biblical approach to life the teaching of Get Wisdom! is self-correcting where flaws appear, simply because systematic repentance is at its root. We must realize that no one has a monopoly on rightness. Indeed, if we are not perpetual learners of Christ—and repenters—we likely offend our Lord (First John 1:8-10). Therefore, systematic repentance is a central tenet of any truly Christian system.

We claim that Get Wisdom! is essentially a spiritual process. Yet that process requires effort and application. Nevertheless, in the end only the Lord can bring the increase! Only by His power and not our own can we accomplish anything good.

Some have criticized the teachings of Get Wisdom! on the ground that they are too intellectual. Does the Bible condemn knowledge, understanding and wisdom? Read Proverbs and decide! Yes, knowledge inflates and love builds. Yet knowledge humbly and correctly used is itself an expression of love, and therefore knowledge, too, serves to edify! Our present purpose is to help the serious believer to align head and heart into perfect agreement the one with the other.

Consider some of the distinctive and promises of Get Wisdom!:

• The Lordship of Christ in every aspect of human life

• The Excellence of Christ expressed through His people in all areas of life

• Replacement of secularism—worldly thinking and practices, the result of modern cultural influence—with Biblical and historical Christian thinking and practices which have proved themselves over time

• A love of learning kindled for the foundational life-subjects which God created for His people to handle: literacy and literature, math, history and geography, the natural sciences, the arts, etc.

• Biblical wisdom to combat corrupted, humanistic, modern approaches to contemporary issues

• Practical decision-making for every area of life and every subject from the principles of God's Word for God’s glory

• Christian principles for human relationships which allow for the greatest expressions of love your neighbor, at every level, from the most personal to the greatest spheres of civil government

• Christian principles for handling natural resources as tools for the Gospel and for personal and public increase

• Preparation for the work the Lord established beforehand for each of us to walk in, no matter the individual calling

• Training of the Christian character necessary to a godly life, resulting in:

• Faith, steadfastness and cheerfulness in all circumstances

• Individual responsibility and Christian liberty

• Skill, industry, and productivity in one's calling

• Voluntary love and care for one's neighbor

• Christian liberty under law as a unifying principle of life

• Skills to handle the things of God, a workman not ashamed

• Tools for building every institution as a foundation for the Gospel—whether the home, the church, school, business, industry, the arts and sciences, or civil government

• Ready mastery in a surprisingly short time, with a moderate investment in scholarship, by even the least accomplished individuals

• Parents able to teach their children to live Biblically and thoroughly equipped through the mastery of American Christian scholarship

Experience—Biblical, historic, and personal—has proven that certain courses of study represent strategic preparation for life. The school subjects are strategic life subjects, preparing a foundation for virtually every other endeavor. Investment in intensive phonics and grammar readily produces ability to learn by reading and to communicate. Investment in mathematics produces a foundation for solving real-life problems in the world. Likewise, this study will provide a handy carrying case for applying Scripture to every particular God calls you to handle. Study in one area, serves to build understanding for application to every other area.

What will one do with resulting understanding and skills? Whatever God wants to do with you and them. As everyone has unique gifts and calling, everyone will have differing outlets and applications. Preparing is a first step toward finding ultimate kingdom purposes (Proverbs One, First Timothy 1:6). Remember, God told Abraham to go to a country He would show him (Genesis 12:1).

For Thought and Study

1. Is it Biblical to study history? Whose story is it? Scripture references?

2. What is systematic repentance?

3. Why should a Biblical study be self-correcting?

4. How do we know God wants us to use our minds, our intellects?

III. The Plan of Get Wisdom!

First, please understand use of the term American Christian in this course. A cultural bias, from secular sources as well as some Christian sources, against a positive view of the founding era of America has grown to have profound influence on the thinking of the present generation. Certainly, no human can represent a perfect expression of the faith of Jesus Christ. We make no claim for such perfection in America. Americans are not superior to others before God. Nonetheless, with all its faults, early America left us a marvelous heritage of Biblical thinking and conduct which manifested itself in every human institution—from the family and the church, to business and the civil government—often with historically astounding results. The Bible had tremendous influence on real peoples' real lives. Those lives expressed the work of Christ on their hearts. The result is a legacy of responsibility toward the gift given, including, as far as it is Biblical, its sharing with the world.

Let’s quickly deal with the elephant in the room—American slavery—a great blot on us as a nation. American slavery was man-stealing a biblically capital crime. The Bible allows for two kinds of involuntary servitude with very specific rules governing them—bond-serving and slave-holding, namely, serving to work off debt or to pay restitution for crimes, or as the just result of losing an unjust war of aggression (see Leviticus 25). In the conquest of Canaan, the nations who ultimately lost to Israel always came out as the aggressor and Israel the defender. God does not violate His own Law. American slavery came under neither of these permitted practices. Since as many historically have confessed, American slavery is indefensible. Our best path is to confess it, as Daniel did to pray to God for forgiveness of our national sins (Daniel 9; also see Nehemiah 8 and 9), and now to repent—do everything in our power to reverse the remaining evil legacy of slavery. We have already suffered a great chastening over slavery in the form of the great war of the 1860s, at the cost of two-thirds of a million lives, and much, much material destruction.

Comparing early American personal letters, literature, sermons, and such political documents as the Federalist Papers against the Scriptures support the veracity of this claim. We do not deny the evil which existed here. We simply claim that the good of that time calls on its posterity to become fitting stewards of its legacy. We do not focus upon men and their accomplishments or goodness, or their failings, but upon the very Providence of God. If we focus on men, we will always be disappointed. If we focus on God, we can accept the good work of sinful and fallible men as examples to emulate or correct where appropriate.

In the same vein, the issue is not whether so and so was a born-again believer or not, though many more of the founding generations professed and practiced the Christian faith than typically acknowledged. Rather the issue is whether so and so represented a higher expression of Biblical ideas in the conduct of his life. If he did, with his ways otherwise lost to our generation, then Christians should learn how and why his life represents a higher expression. If a donkey can teach a prophet, surely we can learn from a generation with a powerful testimony of Biblical thought effectively lived. Again, the point is to identify the work of God through His people. We are Christ-centered, not man-centered.

For this reason alone—the powerful effect of the Gospel in America as an educational example and the responsibility it imposes—we present the subject in terms of American Christianity. We understand that if God so blessed America, there is no cause to gloat. Rather we have every reason to view, in awe, our duty in gratitude for the gifts that God has bestowed. We must learn to handle righteously the amazing gifts of justice, liberty, prosperity, and generosity—the direct results of our early history. We seek God's glory and not our own. As part of the Great Commission, our job requires relearning the Biblical view of life that produced the character and ability to forge our amazing heritage of liberty. Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls’ (Jeremiah 6:16).

The larger plan of Get Wisdom! is simple. We will first develop an American Christian philosophy, a set of Biblical leading ideas representing the best of God’s Providence on our behalf—and arguably one of the highest expressions