17 Oct Cultivating Wisdom by Stuart Elliott
Cultivating Wisdom
(Click the link above to read the full transcript.)
I encourage you to read and contemplate this transcript of a talk given by Stuart Elliott at the recent ACCS Regional Training Conference, hosted by St. Stephen’s Academy on October 6th. Mr. Elliott is a semi-retired teacher and most-time farmer living in central Washington, where he and his wife raise children, sheep, hogs, chickens, grapes, and many thoughtful questions. This particular talk is a distillation of Stuart’s thoughts when he was writing and teaching a 7th grade Bible class on Wisdom and Poetry in the Bible.
To whet your appetite, consider the following quote from page 9:
“Our schools must serve as life rafts that move upstream against the wisdom of this age. Where the wisdom of the world tells us that the past is irrelevant and has nothing of positive importance to give to us, we provide a place that draws deep from the wells of history in order to learn more of who we are, where we came from and where we are going. We make known the mighty acts of God in history as he has revealed himself and his redemptive purpose for the world. Where the wisdom of the world tells us that words are inadequate to convey meaningful truth and that truth itself is not something that comes from outside of you but something you construct for yourself from within, we dig our paddles in the water and push against the current of relativism and autonomy by submitting to God’s word and the fear of the Lord. Where the wisdom of the world tells us that traditional forms of authority, especially in the form of old institutions like the church, are highly suspicious and not to be trusted, we build upon the ultimate authority of God’s word, submitting to his ordinary means of growth in knowledge and wisdom and the structures of authority he has built into creation and revealed in his word. … We have developed a much grander vision for what it means to cultivate wisdom, one that answers our need to make sense out of life in terms of a cohesive story, that brings us into the sweeping narrative of redemptive history and confronts us with its central character, wisdom incarnate. Therefore, we must not turn the secret hidden wisdom of God into something to do when indeed it is someone to know. It is in knowing this person, Jesus, and being brought into the story of the Gospel, made to be “in Christ Jesus”, that he becomes for us wisdom from God.”
Travis Koch, Dean of Academics