The Right Kind of Dangerous

Education is first and foremost not about training to one day have a well-paying job. Nor have you done your job merely if your kids graduate from high school and get into a really good college. Do we learn to read so we can send emails with minimal to no typos? Is the point of arithmetic so we can safely run transactions of various scales whether we are behind a cash register or working for some financial consulting firm? No. No it is not. If success in education isn’t good grades for the sake of getting into the right school or getting the right job, what is it? How will parents and how would students know if gold is struck in all this education business?

The first main point that would be great to take away from this talk is that The Truth is personal. All truth is personal. And you know why… in everything you ever learn, ever… you are learning how to glorify God and enjoy Him in truth as it consists in Jesus the Christ, the Living One, who died and is alive again forevermore. Jesus is your reason for pursuing excellence in all learning in and outside the classroom.

The second main point is that The Truth must affect us as deeply as the Holy Spirit desires to work. What is good and beautiful about The Truth as it consists in Christ should make us a danger to the principalities and powers that work wickedness and lawlessness in this world. You should want this for yourselves, and you should accordingly want this for your children.

Parents ought to find themselves often wanting to ensure their children’s safety, and that is the best place to start. Babies are rather fragile and must be kept from much harm. But as children grow older, remember that as surely as Psalm 127 calls children arrows in the quiver, don’t forget that arrows are for shooting at enemies when necessary! The education of Christian households that gets supplemented here at Schola is for sharpening God-given arrows to do damage to Satan and his cronies.

When these children were tiny and cute, their sins were tiny and seemed on the outside at times to be cute. "Ohhhh, this is just what babies do." Soon children are a lot less tiny, and their sins are a lot less cute. But the answer is still the same. Your children always need your love, attention, and support. They just express the need for it with a bit more sophistication.

Your children are adults in progress, and they are naturally going to be hungry for adult responsibilities. The awkwardness of new hormones makes them often bad at wielding all sorts of adult responsibilities with consistent success. But God demands that the season of adolescence is theirs for practice. So parents, show them how their school duties fit into preparation for the real world.

The Lord says six days are for work, and a seventh is for worship and rest. The six days of work are for sowing seeds of fruitful labor. God is not mocked. You will always reap what you sow. Sow laziness and reap more work than necessary to make up for it. Sow a bad attitude and reap people not liking your presence very much. Sow rebellion and reap no one taking you very seriously at all.

Taking out the log in your own eye so that you can remove your neighbor’s speck and see clearly is a text for the Christian household. Therefore parents, you cannot risk suffering from the same bad habits you want put out of your kids. Learn their needs so that you may meet them differently as appropriate. In closing, I have a lengthy but worthy quote from a Christian newsletter I follow, in which Brian Moats describes teens living out their identity as citizens of God's Kingdom ("theopoliteens").

“Our covenant young people have been baptized into an army. They are in wartime preparation with their King. The teen years are boot camp.

This isn't a war of swords and guns, but is the great cosmic conflict between the City of God and the City of Man. Every TikTok trend, every Netflix show, every album of music, and every classroom conversation is part of it. Teens don’t have the option of passive neutrality. They are either being shaped by the liturgy of the world, or they are being formed by the worship of our Triune God.

To be a Theopolitan teenager is to love the Church’s worship more than the world’s noise. Their bodies are formed by standing, kneeling, singing, eating, and drinking in the presence of Christ and all the heavenly hosts week in, week out. Sunday is not their escape from reality—it is reality. The rhythms of worship are their training ground, as they are becoming what they adore.

Theopoliteens dwell in the Scriptures until their imaginations are baptized and renewed in the image of Christ. They read Leviticus without flinching and Revelation without fear. They revel in types, shadows, commands and corrections. They chant Psalms louder than the culture chants its serpentine slogans. They don’t just memorize verses—they learn to wield them.

And when the serpent shows up—slithering through screens, slipping lies into conversations—they don’t blink or shrink back. They don’t laugh at what God hates. They don’t make peace with idols. They give no quarter to sin.

Yes, teens are young. But they are a well-armed group, for they belong to King Jesus.

And He intends to rule through them, as they ride on white horses behind the white rider, whose garments are dipped in blood (Revelation 19).”

We are citizens of God’s City, the New Jerusalem. And living lives of joyful obedience makes you the right kind of dangerous to those who hate the Lord very much. So let your homes be places of swift repentance, eager forgiveness, and earnest expression of gratitude, compassion, and love. Say “I love you” often, mothers and fathers, so that it is without doubt. Our Heavenly Father opened Heaven at Jesus’ baptism to let everyone know He loved His Son, and that He was proud of Him. You go and do likewise, for your children are His children.

--Nathan Eleweanya is Honorary Chaplain and sometimes teacher at Schola.