← Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life
Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life
Educators Forum: The Gospel Changes Everything
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- [00:05]
Tim Keller
Welcome to the Gospel in Life podcast. What if the gospel didn't just shape your private life, but transform the way you show up in the world? One of the most visible places that would play out is in your work. Join us, as Tim Keller teaches, on how the Gospel reshapes the way we approach our jobs. After you listen to today's teaching, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal and other valuable gospel centered resources. Subscribe today@gospelandlife.com by the way, I was actually a real live formal teacher for five years at graduate school seminary. I actually lectured and I created tests and I graded tests and papers for five years. I said, get me back in the ministry where you can teach and teach and nobody knows whether the people are learning or not. That's wonderful. And there's no way to find out. It seems like so took all the pressure off. Let me. Let. Yes, okay. Let me suggest the only book that C.S. lewis ever wrote on public education. That's what this book's supposedly about, the abolition of man. Little book, see, short books, the sort of thing that everybody wants. And let me share two thoughts from the book. If you are a teacher and have never read it, or if you, if you haven't read in a long time, I suggest you read it because it is about education. The first essay is called Men Without Chests. Very famous. And in it he, he, he, he takes a book that was written at the time, I guess in the 1940s, a book that was supposedly a textbook for English literature for high school students, what we'd call high school. And in the book, there's this great quote here that Lewis quotes. He says, the textbook says when people say a waterfall is sublime, they think they are saying something very important about the waterfall, but they are only saying something about their feelings about the waterfall. And Lewis pointed out that this is the very essence of modern, this is the essence of modernity, this is the essence of modern Western culture. What they were saying is if you say, if you talk about an objective fact, something that can be proven, something that's empirically investigatable, that's a fact. But if you say anything that can't be proven empirically, if you say adultery is a sin or I believe in God or a waterfall is sublime, you're just talking about feelings. It's subjective, it's not really important. They even said, and Lewis points out, this is the essence. And this is if you're a public school teacher, this is the essence of your problem that you are allowed to talk about. Supposedly you're allowed to talk about anything that's objective, empirically proven, something that can be rationally investigated. But when it comes to moral values, religious beliefs, I believe in God, I think adultery is wrong. Whenever you get into anything that can't be proven that's subjective, that's supposed to be kept private, you're not allowed to talk about that. It's of course a big hot issue in politics. Am I allowed to bring my moral views into the public realm? Some people say no, of course not. You don't bring your religious or moral views into the public, into politics. There we only talk about what's reasonable and rational, not what you think you know is your moral values. Lewis responds by saying if you really believe that everything is relative when it comes to morality. He has this very famous place where he says. He says you can hard if you're actually educating students in this way, if you're actually educating students to believe that things that are objective fact are one thing, but all moral views, all views about morality, religion or anything like that is completely subjective, completely to be kept private, completely relative, that is to your individual consciousness or to the culture you're in. He says, you realize what's going to happen. And this is the quote that ends that essay. He says, you can hardly open a periodical without coming across a statement that our civilization needs drive or more self sacrifice. In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. And what he's really saying is if you really say everything is relative except that which is empirically proven self sacrifice. Why be self sacrificial? Why care about the common good? Why be a good citizen? Why? He says you can't educate people like that. So what's the answer? He actually brings out something called the dao. And what he means by the dao Tao, taken by the way from the Chinese idea that there is a kind of he would call it's natural law. He says he believes that and most all religions believe that. Though religions actually differ on many things like how you're saved, there's a all human beings have some basic understanding of God and some basic understanding of right and wrong that we kind of know intuitively. And Lewis makes a case that on the basis of that what Catholics would call natural law and what Protestants would call common grace on the basis of the fact that people know some things intuitively, you can educate and you can appeal on the basis of this understanding that there's such a thing as common grace. Now we. What do I mean by that? Well, this is actually very important for both people who are in Christian schools or private schools as well as public schools. And I'm here, by the way, I'm giving you more of a Protestant view of natural law and common grace. The Protestant view is if you have a thin understanding of sin that is just breaking certain rules, you should make that more robust. A thick understanding of sin. According to the Bible, a thick, robust view of sin is, is that sin is making anything more central than God. Sin is idolatry. So nationalism and making your family or making your moral record or making doctrinal purity, the thing that makes us better than everybody else, those are all forms of idolatry and self righteousness. But of course, materialism, sex, power, aggressive violence, those are all idols. And so a robust understanding of sin is not just your breaking rules. Because as you know, the Pharisees were horrible sinners because they were terribly self righteous and filled with pride and were terrible people even though they were obeying all the rules. Secondly, if you want to understand natural law and common grace, you have to have a thick understanding of grace. And here's what I mean by a thick understanding of grace. You need to understand that In Romans chapter 1, verse 18 to 25, we read this, if I can find says yes, Romans 1:25 says, since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made. So men are without excuse. Now what that's saying is all human beings basically know the golden rule. Basically know we must not be selfish, basically know we should care for our families, basically know right and wrong. But they repress it. But what's interesting is the verbs are being understood, are being seen, are present passive participles. And what that means is that at any given time every human being on the face of the earth is experiencing in their inmost being a dialogue between what they know about God and what they know about right and wrong and their own idolatrous hearts. So every cultural product, every poem, every work of art, every essay, every op ed piece, everything that is ever produced is a result of that dialogue. Which means that if I'm a Christian and I'm producing a cultural product, which is a sermon, by the way, that there's Idolatry in it. There's something wrong with it. There's idolatrous discourse in it. I'm in some way, I'm never quite hitting it just right. I might have pride in my own Presbyterianism. I might have just a lack of humility in the way in which I speak. I mean, there's all. In other words, there's both truth in what I'm saying and idolatry. But in non Christians, According to Romans 1, people who even overtly say they don't believe in God when they produce movies, when they produce films and they produce art and they produce essays, there's always some witness to God's truth in there. It shows there's good things being stated by non Christians all the time because of common grace. And CS Lewis says, you have to understand common grace. You have to have a robust view of sin and robust view of grace if you're going to educate. And here's the reason why, if this is the case, this is one of the reasons why, when I get asked this question, it's hard for me to believe that Christian education, Christian schools or public education, Christians in public schools is. It's hard for me to believe that either one of those is the only way to go. It's hard for me to believe that's the only way to educate people. It seems to me that if you're in a Christian school, I did have, as you're going to hear in a minute, I've had my children everywhere, which shows a lack of discipline or a lack of coherent philosophy, or maybe I have some other reasons, but it's not hard for me to see that when I put my kids in Christian schools, very often they come out with some ways in which, though they're learning the Bible, you can see idolatrous discourse. You can see rigidity. I never forgot my first grade son comes home from his Christian school in Hopewell, Virginia, and he says, we were praying for the children in public schools today. Why? Because they can't pray and their faith is being assaulted all the time as first graders. Well, there's some idolatrous discourse in that. Okay, that's all. On the other hand, in the public school here, you're going to be having to educate not by quoting the Bible if you're a Christian, but by appealing to natural, uncommon grace. You have to expect that first of all, people who aren't believers or who are believers in other religions are going to have some understanding of the truth. You know, just to give you a real example, obvious example, rape Almost everybody thinks rape is wrong. Why? Can you prove it scientifically? Absolutely not. Is it rational? Well, you might. It's practical. But there's no rational or empirical way to prove that rape is wrong. Why do we all think rape is wrong? Why is it enshrined in our legislation? And why can we say in a public school room that rape is wrong? Do you realize that's a value, that is a faith leap? That is something we believe is wrong, but we could never prove. But common grace and natural relation, no matter almost who we are, we all intuitively know it. Now, what you have to do is you have to find those other places. You have to reason on the basis of natural, uncommon grace. And lastly, just to conclude here, one of the things that's important to realize is increasingly, though, some of you are going to say, I don't see it. Okay, but I see it increasingly. It's going to be harder and harder for public schools, in fact, for our public institutions to keep maintaining this difference between fact and value. More and more people are recognizing that everything you say is based on faith assumptions. Like I just gave you the example of rape. When someone says, we all know rape is wrong, why do we know rape is wrong? That's an act of faith. That's a moral judgment. And when someone says, you can't bring your moral judgments into the classroom, you have to realize everybody's doing that. Everybody is saying, on the basis of my understanding of the nature of reality, on the basis of my understanding of the story that I think we're all in, there's an individualistic enlightenment story that says there's really no truth except human rights, and we all should be free to decide what is right or wrong for us. But that's a story. That's a way of understanding all of reality. It's a worldview. It's a faith thing. You can't prove that. And if you're a Christian teacher, whether you're in private schools that aren't Christian or your public schools that aren't Christian, or you're in Christian schools, it's going to be increasingly important and possible to show your students that everything, that every statement practically comes embedded in a moral view of the world, a worldview, and you have to identify it as such. So, you know, you say, Martin Luther King Jr. Worked for civil rights because why? Why did he do it? Did he say everything is relative and every individual has to decide what is right of him or her? No, he said, because the Bible says so. He did do that. He said, Let justice roll down. He was an African American Protestant. And within his understanding, the reason, as you know, I guess the reason that black activists went into civil disobedience, as opposed to what their white liberal friends said in the 1950s, was their white liberal friends were humanists who didn't believe that human beings were sinful. But the black activists who were reading Reinhold Niebuhr in the Bible, and they did know that human beings were sinful, and they were never going to, that the Americans, white Americans, would not give up power unless they were pushed. And yet they wanted to do it in a way that was still Christian and loving. So they did. Civil disobedience, peaceful civil disobedience. You have to show that what Martin Luther King Jr. Did came out of a particular understanding of human nature and of God and of right and wrong. Because everybody who says anything, even people who believe in human rights, that comes out of an Enlightenment view of what life is like. Increasingly, you're going to be able. You're going to have to tell people these stories and let your students recognize how every moral claim, every claim of any sort is embedded in a worldview. You have to be able to say that increasingly the people at the top, the philosophers know there's no such thing as reason that is just unembedded in a particular understanding of ultimate reality. And increasingly, you're going to be able to do it, too. So on the basis of common grace, on the basis of this understanding of things, I actually think that it means those of us in Christian education, like me, have to recognize the limited nature of our Christian education. Those of you who are Christians in public education have to realize, I think, real possibilities for instructing people in wisdom and maybe increasing possibilities in talking openly about various faith views. So now that's. I'm saying that because my guess is that when I get these questions now, I'm going to tend to refer to this basic insight that comes from the abolition of man. Okay, so I'm supposed to lead for the next 45 minutes while I'm supposed to take questions. And I think what this means is, panel, you're supposed to shoot me questions about, first of all, what kind of school? Private, public, Christian homeschooling. Isn't that right, Kathryn? Let's try. Let's shoot me questions about that for a while, and I'll try to make answers, and you can maybe respond. And then, well, I'll start, too. I think when we talk about no choices and philosophy, what it really comes down to is how we live Our lives and where we place our children and where we choose to live. So I know from a long term relationship with you, actually your youngest son went to a Bronx science and he had a math tutor who was a teacher at a Christian school that I was running at the time. Right. My oldest son went to public schools. All the way through. All the way through. Right. New York public schools.
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Kathryn
New York public schools.
- [16:25]
Tim Keller
But I know for sure that you sent your other children to Christian boarding schools. And my question that I had for you was how you've gone through that process, what the difference was in the choices, why you made those choices. And going back on reflection, how would you advise parents today to live their lives with their children? Okay, there's two questions. The first would be why did I do what I did? And my middles, I had three sons. We've been here almost 16 years. Well over ended our 16th year. Our oldest son went through public school away. Our other two sons went to public school. Michael, my middle son, went to public school until ninth grade. And I sent him to Stony Brook, which is a Christian boarding school an hour and a half away. And my youngest son, Jonathan went I think till 4th grade to public school. From 5th grade to 8th grade went to a Catholic school. So I'm really diverse, by the way. And then he went to Stony Brook, the Christian boarding school as well. Number one, I really mean it. My wife, I talked about, make sure my wife and I were still in agreement on this before I came is that we really do see advantages to the various forms of education. We do not at this. And I would be disappointed if Christians didn't vigorously go into every one of these kinds of education, private, Christian, private and public. I think we can do a huge amount of good and renewal in each one of them. And that's why, because I had no philosophical problems with any one of them, we were free to choose the one that we thought fit the kid. And we didn't have a problem with Christian education or problem with public education. Therefore, we were able to make a choice. If he had gotten into Townsend Harris, we might have kept him here. He tried to get into Townsend Harris, but in hindsight, we really made the right choice because he would have been living at home and that wasn't the best thing for him. Jonathan just insisted he would want to go to Stony Brook too. And when we look back on it, we're still not sure it was the best idea, but it was also we thought it was okay. And so he did it because he really, really wanted and this is, by the way, those of you who are parents as well as teachers know this is how you do this. You do it on a case by case basis. Now, if we thought public school was no good, or Christian schools. No, no, no, none of that. We would have not been able to have all those options. But we have. In fact, by the way, on top of that, my sister, my dear sister, I love to the sky, is the best homeschooler I know. She's homeschooled. A lot of people, believe it or not. You say, well, not only all of her five children, but everybody else's children in the neighborhood, I think. And it's been. So I've went all around the block. What would we say today? I would say the same thing to parents who are Christians, that you do have a number of options and that you really ought to do it on a case by case basis. And I would actually hope that Christians would somehow be well distributed. I do think we actually do need more Christian schools in the city than we've got. I also think we need Christians to be much more actively involved in the public schools and the renewal of the public schools. I would like all the thousands of flowers to bloom. I really think it's really possible. I think, because a lot of us, it's hard. If you're into public school as a teacher, I hope you'll feel like this is the. There's nothing wrong with you feeling like your approach is the superior one. If you don't feel a little bit. I mean, I like to, you know, there's this really odd tension. I want to feel. I want everybody on my staff to feel like there's no church like Redeemer. You know, you gotta feel like this is the greatest church. You have to be careful about that because it's more emotional than it is intellectual. When you stand back, you have to say, now wait a minute, there are a lot of other great churches, so you should feel the same way. If you're into public, if you want to create great Christian schools for the city and you define that and you really want to do that, that's all right for you to feel like, this is my passion, this is what I want to do, and to feel like I want to recruit as many people into that as possible and vice versa for public schools as well. So that's the reason why we have said do a case by case basis. Okay, other questions?
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Kathryn
I just want to give a little background. I'm a product of Christian and public school. So I think not only what fits the child, but different times in the child's life. So I think that's very important. I also just want to kind of reemphasize, make a point about why I'm sitting here as an administrator. As a direct result, Katherine mentioned that I'm in the Leadership Academy. The reason I'm in a Leadership Academy, to make a very long story short, is from a conversation on a site visit that Chancellor Klein had to a school that I was working at in East Flatbush, a failing school teacher there, and I couldn't wait till he got there to tell him everything that was wrong and to talk about how can you let children live in these conditions? So anyway, out of that conversation, and he said, well, how did you get the students to read? Their older siblings can't even read. And so did you do this and did you do that, and was it where you went to graduate school and was it that? And I said, actually, it's about creating a caring community first. So every day in my classroom, I start with morning meetings, and we talk about what it means to treat each other the way we want to be treated. And I went through this whole thing expecting him to, you know, run away, because that has nothing to do with the reform effort that they were moving in terms of the unified curriculum. And actually his response was, he listened for about 30 minutes, and he said, can you please email all of that to me? And I thought, well, you know, that's just some kind of, you know, let me make her feel good. She gave me all this garbage or whatever. But as the conversation went on, he said, as a matter of fact, I really need you to apply for this program. And I said, which program? And he said, the Leadership Academy. I knew nothing about it. And I said, oh, no, I want to be a teacher. I have no interest in administration. And he said, I know. That's exactly why I need you there. So what I ended up emailing him was a policy memo basically entitled, Transforming New York City Schools with the Golden Rule. And no doubt about it, that's been the voice that I've brought to the Leadership Academy and that I'm trying to bring to the school. So I just want to say that that is very true, that there are so many opportunities and we're in such a crisis in public education that I'll be honest with you, they don't really care where you say it comes from, as long as it works. So what goes hand in hand with that is the quality. You can't go around and say, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian. And yet you're doing substandard work and too often that becomes a crutch. So I just want to reemphasize that this is, you know, and for all the, you know, not talking about politics, there is an open opportunity to impact the schools. That's my context for the question that I agree with, Tim. What I do have a problem with is that the loudest voices in Christianity today seem to be people that are anti public schools and anti having Christian students in public schools. And I do believe that there's different settings for every child. But I just want to read a statement that kind of set off my whole concern. This is by Mr. Ray Moore, who runs an organization called the Exodus Mandate that are asking all Christians to remove their students from their children from public schools. The quote is a movement to purge the public schools of Christian children would literally electrify and invigorate the church as nothing has done in modern times and might trigger the revival we are all awaiting so expectantly. So that. And that's actually he has support of Dr. James Dobson of Kennedy. So this is what's going on circulating and you know, maybe not here, but in other places in the country. So I guess my question is, and I have asked this also too in email, kind of dialogue with Mr. Moore, especially in a city like this, in a crisis, we can all acknowledge it's a crisis situation. What do we as Christians, what is our responsibility to students in the public schools? And what are the ways that we can work together to bridge this divide between home school, private school, Christian school as a church? You know, so I don't know if that's a question.
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Tim Keller
No, it is. Let me, I'll say something. I want to make sure Scott or somebody asked me a question about Christian school. You will wait a minute. So the other shoe drops, but let me just say something good about, well, no here. Should we just plant new churches or should we renew the churches that exist in a city? Now, I've done a lot of thinking about that since I'm a church planter and it is fairly easy when you plant a new church to give the impression or maybe even believe that all the other churches around here are dead and this just won't work. So we have to start a new church that's really on fire now. The fact is that a city will not be reached for Christ only by new churches. There's tons and tons of people that will go to the existing church and only to the existing church. The Older church, the church that, you know, their parents and their grandparents were at, it's only going to reach. That's the only way that a whole lot of people are going to be reached by the existing churches, the established churches, the older churches. It's also true that unless you start new churches, the older churches don't sometimes get pricked into making changes. We found that when Redeemer got started, we started doing a lot of stuff that the other churches in town said would never work. Uh, oh, it did work at Redeemer. Next thing you know, they started doing it in the older churches. There actually is therefore a need for something like a Christian school movement. And there's no doubt that there's a lot of schools that are outside of the public school system that can do things that the public school system can learn from. You've got to have renewal like that, but you also have to have renewal of the public schools, too. You just can't abandon all the students in public schools. And it's so. I know the way to reach a city is to not only plant new churches, but to renew the old churches. It's not an either or at all. Over the years, there have been church planters who are like the people in this petition or this movement who are really saying the existing church is just a whole lot of crap and it's just going to hell in a handcart. We're just forgetting about it and everybody should come out and join us because we're the true new church. That never works. It creates friction, sectarianism. So you just have to have both, as simple as that. I think that would be the thing to say. I really do believe there's going to be an opening more and more for Christians who are careful not being sectarian, understanding, understanding, common grace and natural law. There's going to be a way for us to be able to talk in public settings about the faith basis for what we're saying. Because you have to say, everybody's got one, Everybody's got one. So when you come and say this, look at that. There's a faith basis to that. You have to explain everybody. The reason for this is out. Let me just finish this one. Alastair MacIntyre wrote a book in 1984 called After Virtue. It's had a huge impact on the thought life, especially the philosophy world. He said, you can never talk about something being good unless you answer the question, what is it for? Some of you may have heard me use this illustration. You can't say whether it's a good watch unless you ask what is it for? It's lousy for hammering nails, by the way, if you've ever tried. But it's wonderful for telling time. So the question is, is it a good watch or not? Or is it a bad watch? It all depends on what it's built for. What's it for? As soon as you start to say, is this a good person? Is this a good human being? You can't answer that question unless you ask what are human beings for? What do they mean? What is the meaning of human life? What are we here for? What is the important stuff? And you can't answer that question from science. You can't. There's a Hindu answer, there's a Buddhist answer, there's an individualistic Enlightenment answer, there's a secular answer, there's a Christian answer, there's a Jew. Anybody who says anything about this is good behavior, this is bad behavior, is embedding it in a particular worldview, a set of faith assumptions. Now, there's no way that anybody can. If you say that, well, in any public setting, nobody knows how to gainsay it anymore because the, the Enlightenment idea of some kind of objective, neutral view from nowhere is gone. Everybody begins to understand that there's got to be a way for us as Christians, therefore even in public education to say here's the way the Christian thing works, here's the way the Jewish thing works, here's the way the Hindu things work, and talk about it with our students. Christianity, whenever it's compared, always looks pretty good. It's got a whole lot of great practitioners like Martin Luther King Jr. If you're allowed, for example, to make him what he really was, which is a minister of the gospel. And we have an awful lot of really great examples. I find in some way, if you're in a more evangelistic church where you're always working with non Christians, you always are so excited about it. But you wonder. I wish I was in a church where there wasn't as much transience and the people were there from year to year and I could work on discipleship. In other words, I've been in churches where every. I had a church in Virginia where nobody ever left and nobody ever came. And I had a lot of. I was able to do a lot of discipleship and deep drill down theological education. But I had a passion for evangelism and reaching out. And I think if you're in public education or if you're in Christian education, you're going to find in general that you get different things done. You're going to find one enables you to kind of talk more and reach out to people. And yet you always feel like my hands are somewhat tied. I can't completely go down where I would like to go. And very often in Christian education, sometimes you feel like it's kind of a hothouse. So I just don't know that one is the ideal. And I think we got to have both. And anybody who gives the impression that if everybody came out of public schools and went into Christian schools, that would be wrong. However, because I'm doing this thing on Proverbs this year, I now understand probably what the goal of a school would be, would be wisdom, which is helping kids understand how life works, how the human heart works, so that they know how to make right choices, even in areas where the moral rules don't apply. That would be. And I think that what's interesting is that could be something that both public school teachers who are Christians and Christian school teachers could both be trying to do. They're going to go about a little bit differently. Having said that, Scott, you want to ask your question? Actually, I do. Thank you. Thank you. Since the schools are not redeemed yet and that they are still, to my understanding, hostile to the faith. Yeah. By and large, why should parents put their children in the hands of a school system that is so hostile? Especially in light of the fact that even if the child is growing up in a Christian home, is aware of the gospel, perhaps already accepted Christ, their faith is still being formed, that it's not yet resilient, they can't stand on their own. Why would a parent turn their child over to such an institution when their opportunities to unwind that indoctrination is so limited? I think that is since I don't believe in neutrality and I don't believe there's such a thing. As I just said, therefore, I have a lot of sympathy for the idea of putting my kid in a Christian school. My children who were in Christian school benefited from it. Put it this way, I have found in New York that the real anti Christian schools are private schools. In other words, Buckley and Chapin, not Bronx Science or Stuyvesant. I think to be fair to non Christian schools, we need to make that distinction. I've seen a huge difference. Now, I found the public schools in the suburbs, very often in their thinking, you either have secular people or Christian people, these crazy nutty Christians. Here in the city, the public school teachers are dealing with Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists and Jews and Christians. And Orthodox Christians and Catholic Christians, Protestant Christians. And I found them incredibly careful and unbelievably respectful. So for example, every year in Roosevelt Island Elementary School, I was asked to come in along with a rabbi and along with a priest, priest. And we came in and we talked about the holy days because the Jewish teacher, that public school teacher taught all of my kids, they all went through, just said, look, you know, I really want them to understand these different points of view. And she says, I'm even trying to make sure I don't let them think that I believe that they're all relative, even though she was secular. But she said, I realized in a sense she understood that if I just said, well, there's this view and this view and isn't it wonderful? Everybody's got their own religion, they're all equally valid. Even to say that is actually a totalitarian point of view. Even though she could never say that's an enlightenment view, she understood that in a way that was putting secularism over the other religions. And I think to some degree she was scared. She was scared of some angry Hindu or Muslim or Christian parent coming in and screaming. And I guess in New York everybody screams. And so I found that public schools were extremely respectful of different religions and weren't that hostile and seemed to even have an intuitive understanding that even secularism couldn't be pushed down the throats of these kids or else their parents were going to come take the teachers heads off. I want you to know that when it comes to some of the quote unquote, elite private schools in the city where a lot of people want to send their kids there, there's overtly hostile, and I'm not kidding. I mean, they delight in dismantling any kind of traditional understanding of authority or morality. And therefore I think you ought to make a distinction. That's the first thing. Secondly, though, I was kind of glad that my kids, I think the two that were both in public school and Christian school probably benefited. I think then if they had been in Christian school all the way or had been in public school all the way, I saw some advantages of that. So I don't know what that tells you. Am I just a wishy washy Charlie Brown guy? But I think you do have to watch very carefully because I think Scott's question is right. If I was talking to parents, I would say you really need to know how hostile or what your school district or your local school is like or what the teacher's views are like, because you really don't have the right to abandon the Bible. Deuteronomy 6 says, Parents, you are responsible for your children's upbringing. And when I can't delegate that away, I mean, I can delegate away the actual day in and day out work of teaching to somebody else, but I can't delegate away the responsibility. It's estimated that most of us spend half of our waking hours at work. How does the wisdom of the Bible apply to our careers? In other words, how can our work connect with God's work? And how can our vocations be more missional? In his book Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller draws from decades of teaching on vocation and calling to show you how to find true joy in your work as you serve God and others. The book offers surprising insights into how a Christian perspective on work can serve as the foundation for a thriving career and a balanced personal life. Every Good Endeavor is our thank you for your gift. To help Gospel and life share Christ's love with more people around the world, just visit gospelandlife.com give us that's gospelandlife.com give now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. One of the things I've noticed in reading New York Times Magazine recently, I'm sure Tony, being a journalist has noticed this, that increasingly when reporters are doing when they're writing articles about hot topics, instead of acting like they're the all knowing, objective, omnipotent, omnipresent, you know, narrator, they are making disclaimer of what where their own position is. Like this. It was interesting, this article on faith in the marketplace. It was in the COVID story of the New York Times Magazine last Sunday. The reporter did a great job and he came right out and said in full disclosure disclaimer, here's my view. This is my religious view. And nevertheless I'm going to say this. I'm going to try to really be fair minded and recognize the advantages over here. And I think that's increasingly possible. You have to I know that there would be certain, you have to watch out with certain teachers and certain other parents. So I would be very careful. But I bet you increasingly if you say, well, this is where I'm coming from, we're all coming from someplace and I just want to, in the interest of full disclosure, let you know that this is my viewpoint, but I really can appreciate yours now. I think that therefore is possible. I don't think even 10 years ago you could have done that. But I think increasingly people are going to recognize that we're all embedded in moral communities. We're all embedded in faith communities that even the secular people is a kind of faith. And what's important is not do you make truth claims, but how do you treat people who have different views? And I think that you have to say, it's not a question of whether I believe this, it's how I treat the others. And I want to show that I really respect and I also want you to help me understand your viewpoint and maybe this will change some of the ways in which I see things. So I think you can be more open. But I'm afraid of be careful, you know, don't say, oh, Tim Keller said. And then you go back and next time you have a parent interview, you say, by the way, I'm a born again Christian. But it needs to be relevant to the subject. You don't just say, I want you to know, Tim, my pastor told me I can do this. It needs to be relevant to the subject. But if it is relevant, then say something about it. It's not bad. Somebody else I do a lot of.
- [38:27]
Kathryn
Polling and religious issues during the campaign.
- [38:30]
Tim Keller
And there was sort of a disinterest, actually among certain esteemed.
- [38:38]
Kathryn
Journalistic organs here in the city until about 7 o'.
- [38:41]
Tim Keller
Clock on Tuesday evening, my mailbox was flooded with calls. Oh boy.
- [38:47]
Kathryn
And all week turned on a die and apologies. I'm sorry we didn't publish anything you wrote, but now we want everything but. So you do get changes. But I do. One weakness is that if we're in such a position is that in graduate.
- [39:05]
Tim Keller
And undergraduate education for teachers, we don't.
- [39:09]
Kathryn
Actually provide too many tools for believers to be able to work out their faith in an intelligent way into their.
- [39:18]
Tim Keller
Teaching and in their educational philosophy. That's right.
- [39:24]
Kathryn
Put on your hat. You're asked to come to Teachers College at Columbia and to give some advice of changing the design so that you.
- [39:31]
Tim Keller
Can enhance the educational experience of believers who are increasingly appearing at our gates. You know, I think it's fair to be as suspicious as I think you are about motives here. You know, Rick Lintz, you know who he is, teaches at Gordon Conwell. I think he's probably right about this. He says, because in secular society, politics is everything, because power is everything. Right now. Suddenly everybody seems to think, oh, religion is important for getting elected. So we have, I think Kathryn told me this just this week. He says, there's an awful lot of people are suddenly going to say, we got to figure this out, we got to figure this out. We got to understand this phenomenon, religion, and especially orthodox religion We've got to figure it out. Figure out what makes it tick. Maybe learn how to dismantle it, maybe weaken it or maybe use it somehow. Figure out a way. And, you know, if somebody comes and says, we want to do a story because we understand you're a Christian school teacher and we're doing a story on Christians who are in the public school, be careful about all of that for a while, because I'm afraid. I don't want to just be a specimen that people certainly. I guess, maybe all. I guess we are anyway. But I would be careful about. I'd be careful about what the motivation is. I want to use you to show us how to market to evangelical Christians. Well, let's say they're serious and they.
- [40:54]
Kathryn
Say, you know, we're not really.
- [40:58]
Tim Keller
A lot of our students complain or.
- [41:00]
Kathryn
Say that they don't really get really.
- [41:03]
Tim Keller
Intellectually developed because that side of them is never done. So what would you suggest? Yeah, I think I probably would. There's a new book by. You know what I do. There's a new book by Nicholas Wolersdorf called Educating for Shalom, even though it's mainly about. He taught at Yale for years. He just retired. Strong Christian guy, Dutch Calvinist, kind of Kyperian theologian. And he's written. It's actually a bunch of essays on. It's mainly Christian education. But he would say, for example, Tony, there's the old myth of the universal, that I'm just the human being. I'm not coming from any particular perspective. I'm just telling you the facts. He says there's a solipsistic kind of particularism where it just says, I have the truth and you don't. I have the Bible, and you're the unbeliever. And then he calls what he calls accessible particularism, which is to say, let's all get out. Let's get out on the table. The fact that what we're saying is embedded in various faith narratives. And let's talk about it, and let's try to learn from one another. And let me, therefore, let me actually give you my Christian approach to economics. Brothers and sisters, have you got questions on the education reform? Maybe I have to take questions from everybody else, but here, Rebecca, I just.
- [42:19]
Kathryn
Want to encourage everyone the space that's being created. If anyone has read Thomas Sergiovanni, I urge you to look him up. Because the interesting, the tension that's going on in the system is while there's this instruction, instruction, instruction, focus. Thomas Sergiovanni is one of the most revered People in the field of education and the board of education pays him to come here. So when he comes to talk, I was sitting next to an Orthodox Jewish colleague of mine and we listened to his entire speech, which was all of the top brass of the doe. And it was so funny that everything he outlined was completely about faith based communities. But talking about how this is really the way schools as organizations should be. Oh, that's wonderful. You know, he knows just enough scriptures to put in. Actually, in his writing he does reference scripture. And so I'm just. I guess I'm curious because with school reform, what's happening and a lot of the criticism of the academy and things that the chancellor's doing is that they're trying to take business strategies and just dump it on top of education. So I guess. And Sergiovanni was making the claim that schools are more akin to churches and social organizations. So I guess my question is, what are some of the elements of church life and other social organizations that we can use to help reform schools as opposed to what's happening now, which is, you know, if it works in business, the whole Jack Welch just, you know, drop it on education.
- [43:35]
Tim Keller
Well, you know, you were right in picking up, because I started answering your question just a second ago. Well, I'm not an educator. I don't know what all the tensions are. I understand why we have a little bit of this problem in the church. For example, when we examine ministers who are coming in, who want to be ordained ministers, the easiest way to do it is we give them an enormously. We do this. We're Presbyterians. So, you know, you have to master this much doctrine and we give these very detailed exams on doctrine. But what you really want to assess is, do they know how to. What's their bedside manner like? Do they know how to inspire people to want to believe in God and to know Christ? That's not quantifiable. It's not quantifiable easily. It's much harder to find out whether this is a person who really can be a gospel minister like that. I want to. The way I can just systematically just create a kind of a production assembly line is tests, tests and scores. And you got this score on theology, this score on Bible, this score on church history, this score on this. And hey, they got 97. And we all know, of course, that you can get 97% on all the scores and be a terrible minister, as you all know. So how do you assess it? Unfortunately, as soon as you start talking about character and wisdom, I don't know how to do it other than to say you have to create communities who evaluate people communally. You know, you have. It's actually not that hard to see if a kid is doing better in school, is showing an interest in learning, is relating well to his classmates. I don't know. Can you quantify that a little bit? Usually their grades go up. Yeah, you can quantify that some. But is it completely quantifiable? Is it maybe. No, it's probably not. So I think probably what you have to do is you have to. I don't know how this works, but you have to try to argue for letting the schools do not be quite as test score oriented. That's all I can tell you. That's not the movement, is it? The movement's all in the other direction.
- [45:52]
Kathryn
Well, it's kind of. What I'm saying is that they say they're speaking both ways because it's instruction. Instruction. But then money is, you know, spent to bring in people like Sergiovanni who are giving exactly the opposite message, who says that, you know, kids create social capital outside. If you don't allow them to create it in their schools, then they'll create it on their own. And that's why we have the problems we have with school violence, which, you know, is, you know, driving a lot of the conversation in the city with the impact schools and police officers in schools. So it's kind of, you know, but people that. It's kind of as if we'll be quiet about that. They know where it's working. And I've had conversations with teachers in here. I see some people out here where their classrooms work in the middle of absolute chaos. And the reason is because of what we're talking about. But you're told, well, it's really about the work. So there's kind of this unspoken. So I guess part of the question too is how much do you reference the real reason for it? Because my school's turning around. Well, I have five rules. One of them is treat others the way you want to be treated. I understand that's not addressing long term things that I can't do as a parent that it's at least establishing, you understand, but it's almost as if.
- [46:51]
Tim Keller
So you're keeping the golden rule. You're making it, you're making it explicit and you're basically judging the kids on the golden rule. But that's not something to be tested, right?
- [47:01]
Kathryn
Yeah, but it ultimately impacts test scores. Like, you know, how much do you say? Because the classrooms that are working. When they ask why and they find out, it's typically a teacher who's using that philosophy. It's not about the insurance instructional approach that they're using. So how far do you go in engaging people in that?
- [47:16]
Tim Keller
Well, as far as you can. Because don't you think in some case your superior will just take your head off if you're in other places? It won't. Try to put yourself in a place where you think that there's, as you know, public. It's like a swimming pool. Your public school system has got hot spots and cold spots. Try to get into a hot spot and then push what you know is the right way. Take questions. Right.
- [47:37]
Kathryn
Okay, I have one.
- [47:38]
Tim Keller
Oh, we have another one. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes.
- [47:40]
Kathryn
As a Christian administrator, what do you see our roles in terms of how we lead our schools as part of a community? You know, many schools, people go in and they come out at the end of the day and there's no interaction with the community. And I think we have a responsibility and more so as Christian administrators. And so what do you see our role as?
- [48:10]
Tim Keller
Yeah, and you're right. It's your job to convince the people of that. Here's a suggestion of a book. I guess in the end it looks pretty pessimistic, but I got a lot out of it. A friend of mine wrote a book called the Death of Character by James Hunter, and it's actually about moral education. And his basic point, which is kind of hard to argue with, maybe you could get some stuff out of the book to use on your teachers, is to say communities create character. So he says case studies don't do it. He says communities create character, where the kids see certain behavior modeled and they see people saying something of the same thing. If the teachers don't talk to each other, if each one of you is an independent operator, just an entrepreneur, you're not a community at all. And the point is, the character is formed by the community. It's not. It can't be formed in a classroom. You give great case studies. Here's justice, here's equity, here's love, here's patience. But unless they see equity and love and patience modeled for them, they're not going to learn it. And they have to see it affirmed and reinforced that way. So if your teachers don't believe it, to the degree your teachers believe it and to the degree you make it a community, to that degree, you'll be an effective school. I know it's a big fight. Do you want to have people Ask questions.
- [49:39]
Kathryn
I teach high school in the South Bronx, and luckily, everyone in the Bronx knows they need God or something, so they let me pray for their kids. I don't really have an issue. I teach in public school. But what do you do when you rejuvenate yourself? Because as a teacher already, I feel like. And you are a teacher. I mean, you come back with your right, and you're. And you're real strong.
- [50:01]
Tim Keller
Like, I'm a teacher.
- [50:02]
Kathryn
Right. Okay, good. Thank you. An educator, really. Like, as an educator, you take this sabbatical, right? You take this time in the summer. And I want to know, what do you. What parts of you. Do you feel depleted after doing this for many years? Because it's finally my second year. And what parts do you know God needs to work in you? Because I feel like. Like this summer I taught again. You know, I didn't take time off, but I'm feeling kind of, you know what I'm saying, Worn down. So what do you do? And have you come about it after a number of years?
- [50:34]
Tim Keller
Yeah. Okay. Well, I have two. As you probably some of you, if you're counting, I actually take two months away from preaching. And what I'm doing for one of those months is I'm actually writing. I decided to try to pull together a book each year, or if I didn't, I'm not saying I can write a book every year, but I'm trying to write a book, trying to work on a book for one month. One of the advantages of that is it's actually fairly hard work, but it's not out with people. It's more research. And I usually get a terrific amount of ideas for my sermons from working on the book. The second thing I do is for one month, I take a whole month off as vacation. But during that month, I probably triple my amount of prayer. Like, I try to do two or three hours a day. It sounds like, wow, what a spiritual guy. Well, I mean, I'm reading, you know, I'm reading the Bible. It's not like I'm just sitting there looking, looking at. I don't look at the clouds for three hours. I, you know, I use the Book of Common Prayer, and I, you know, you know, read meditative letters and sermons and study the Bible and pray. And I actually, the other thing is I've got a. Probably about 12 people. I don't mean people really like couples. People I've known for many, many years who are people that I can relax with, people that I can confide in, people that I can share with what I'm facing and I make sure I get around to them, actually. I try to take vacations with them if I possibly can. So it's a whole month of very intensive people time and prayer time and one month of very. Actually fairly intensive. Actually. What I like about the week, the year. What's left? Month. The month of working on a book is I actually have more time to work than I can working on my sermons during the rest of the year because I only have so much time every week because I'm busy, I'm out, I'm doing stuff like this. So it's really like really in the ivory tower for months and then really out with people and praying for a month. But a change is as good as a rest, by the way. But you do. If I was just preaching, which I used to. What I used to do is I used to go on vacation and people say, oh, when you're in the neighborhood, would you please preach down here? And I used to do that, and that was not a good idea. You have to let the land lie fallow for a while, otherwise it depletes and eventually you can't get any more crops out of it. Okay, that's a little bit. Yes, go ahead.
- [53:12]
Kathryn
Good evening.
- [53:13]
Tim Keller
Bless you. Hi, everybody. Hi.
- [53:15]
Kathryn
I've always worked in underserved schools. I started out working in East New York and then I transferred to the South Bronx and I did what is called an integration transfer. Schools that need to be diversified. So this September was my first time going to District 2 in region now, which is on 21st and 1st street, there's majority Caucasian and Asian students. There are some Hispanics and blacks there. But at the other schools, the underserved schools, you had the freedom to teach what you wanted to teach and use the books you wanted to use. And at this school, everything's very regimented. We have to teach Freak the mighty of Mice and Men. And I'm having a hard time with some of the literature because, you know, Of Mice and Men, there's a lot of expletives in it. And I don't want to read aloud the book to the class. I want some suggestions.
- [54:10]
Tim Keller
Now, are you saying. Are you saying you would like some help with you know how to under. How to teach it or you just don't.
- [54:15]
Kathryn
You have. No. You have to read certain books and certain books.
- [54:17]
Tim Keller
You have to read it out loud.
- [54:19]
Kathryn
Yes. I'm not comfortable with saying certain words and certain books.
- [54:24]
Tim Keller
Well.
- [54:26]
Kathryn
I know it's an end.
- [54:27]
Tim Keller
You know what? I know that sounds like. Sounds like the sort of thing a pastor should answer. But I'm. I'll go out and say, it seems to me that when you're doing it as a teacher, I mean, Christian actors have asked me something similar, only it's worse. What they say is, okay, I'm a Christian, and here I am being called to act and say something that I, you know, I use expletives or actually act in a certain way that I don't really agree with. And I said, well, when you read the Bible, there's a lot of horrible things in the Bible. There's places in the Bible that talk about some pretty bad things. In fact, there's a lot of the. Sometimes you notice, because I say this in the services, the translations sometimes kind of prettify what the Hebrew and the Greek actually are saying. It's telling you the story about how bad things really are. People really talk like this. People really do these awful things. It's. You don't want to have to even look at that. But the purpose of the literature is to bring it out. And so I would say that there's nothing wrong with you saying it out loud, because in a certain sense, you're an actor. When you're reading it, you're taking the role. It's not who you really are. You're getting the book across to the kids. They certainly have heard the expletives. They live in New York City.
- [55:54]
Kathryn
But I'm always telling them, I don't swear. I don't use curses like, you hypocrite.
- [55:58]
Tim Keller
Yeah, you're right. No, no, no. Yeah. I think I ought to just say this. I'm doing this for the book, but I don't want to hear anybody talking like this in my hearing. And I don't talk like this. Okay.
- [56:09]
Kathryn
On a different note, I'd like to ask you something about exhaustion, just to follow on from what you were saying. I have a very good summer, and I'm totally relaxed and I'm enthusiastic to start the year. And after a week, it's already. I feel like I'm too tired to do anything. And I think one of the difficulties. Difficulties with teaching is you never get to an end point. There's never a point where you feel, okay, I've done everything I need to do and that's it. And that I can switch off and the marking keeps coming, but it's not even that. It's the going through lessons in my mind and continually not being able to switch off the job. And the weekend comes along and the entire Sunday is spent doing, marking and preparing so when for example the services changed from the 9:30 to the 10:30 I was annoyed because it meant I got home later and couldn't do as much schoolwork. But I mean it seems like I can't get this under control and I've been teaching for 15 years and every year I say to myself I'm going to achieve a balance and it never happens. So I'm just.
- [57:12]
Tim Keller
What time do you get home? Do you work at night?
- [57:15]
Kathryn
I'm at school at about quarter to seven every morning.
- [57:17]
Tim Keller
What time do you get home?
- [57:18]
Kathryn
I get home at about 7 o' clock in the evenings and then the weekends as well.
- [57:23]
Tim Keller
Do you work on things at night?
- [57:25]
Kathryn
No.
- [57:27]
Tim Keller
Think about this. I was a. I've always been, I've always tend to overwork and I've always worked probably about 75, 80 hours a week all my life as a minister and yet here's if you think of your seven days and let's just say you have morning, afternoon and evening admittedly if your Evening starts at 7 it's a little bit of. That's all right, still have three hours or so four hours. So you have morning, so you have 21 segments, right? Seven days, three times. I wasn't a math major math teachers is seven times 3:21. Okay, you have 21 segments make sure that you take seven of them off under all circumstances that you're not teaching and you're not working on lessons. Seven even I have been able to do that I have take one day a week off Tuesdays there's three and that means somewhere I have to take one afternoon off and three other evenings off because I'm out evenings. I work evenings sometimes. If you can take off seven, you can survive. I have for quite a long time and my kids for some strange reason do not remember me being an absentee father which is still something. I don't know how I dodged that bullet But Kathy says where you take those seven if you've got, if you've got kids, just make sure and that's and sabbath yourself and also the other thing is do some reading that has nothing to do with your job and make sure, you know, be disciplined about that and say I'm going to have at least two or three hours a week reading, maybe even every night an hour some book that you're working through that has nothing to do with your job always makes you feel like I've got more of a life. Just a couple ideas. Think of seven out of 21. Yeah, Rebecca.
- [59:11]
Kathryn
I actually tell my teachers to go home and I go home. And because this references what we were talking about, to be fresh and to have ideas for them and to be emotionally rested. That's what they're getting, in my opinion, more out of than the actual lessons that you're preparing. So you might not even recognize how you're not able to interact in the situations when they're high pressure. So you just have to step out. And you are not your job. I say that to my teachers. You are, Hillary. You are a teacher that you don't become your job, especially as a Christian, that you have an easier way to ground yourself and say, this is where it ends. And if you get lesson thoughts, I know that happens all the time, you know, get up and write them down and then leave it because it's just not sustainable. And I think you have to remember, ultimately what they are getting is the spirit that you're bringing to it. And if you're exhausted and you're not replenishing yourself with what's great for you, the gym or whatever it is, then this is going to show anybody else.
- [59:59]
Tim Keller
Here want to say something about it. Are you just too exhausted? Do not work in the summers. I don't care what your finances are. Do not work in the summers. Katherine, can we still take a question or two? Yeah, go ahead.
- [60:14]
Kathryn
I was a teaching fellow, and for the two years when I was a teaching fellow, I felt like it was a race. And I got to my second year and I said, I'm done. I'm going to leave my school and go for somewhere a little bigger and better. But it was actually, I teach in the Bronx, and it's actually the parents that convinced me to stay at my school. And, you know, for all the great reasons. So with that said, Rebecca, you know, you said something about the Golden Rule teaching the golden rule. I have 26 kindergarteners in my Bronx classroom, and all we do is teach the golden rule to them about, love one another, be kind to one another. But what do you do when these kids go home to these parents who obviously are not communicative with their teachers, who teach the extreme opposite, because we do really well in the classroom. There's no violence in the classroom. But out on the playground, why did you hit that kid? Because my mommy told me that if somebody hits them, I hit him back. So this is something that goes beyond the classroom, beyond your role as a teacher. And how do you address this? You can't go to a parent and say you Got to practice the golden rule. So what is a practical approach to these parents teachers?
- [61:34]
Tim Keller
I run parenting workshops. One of the things we did in October 2nd and Janet was at the piece. What we did was we invited parents with our community based organization, Arts Connection, and we did a drama workshop, a dance workshop and a drawing or media workshop. And we did it as a family day where we carved out time with the families, we invited the children with the parents to our school. I think it's an administrative capacity that you need to go to your administrator and ask them to think creatively about not having a parent meeting where you're sitting. In fact, one of the parents that was at the meeting at the end, we debriefed and they said to me, this is so refreshing. Whenever I went to a parent meeting before, all the administrator did was bark pieces at me, you know, and my deal is like, you know, I'm not interested in doing things like barking at people. I want them to sit down and actually do activities with their children. And we invited staff to also do those activities in. But I think you need to go to your administrator and say, I'm having an issue here. Can we brainstorm ways of solving that? And I think you need to do that holistically at different times throughout your community. We have a difficult population of kids in my place who have parents who have a lot of the same issues, you're saying, and they're in high school, by the way. You can do that as a principal though, she couldn't do it as a teacher. She could go to a principal and ask the question.
- [62:57]
Kathryn
But I mean, my principal does that. We do Saturday workshops, family workshops, what not. But these parents don't come. They don't come to them. They don't come to parent teacher conference conferences. They don't come when you call them. They don't pick up the phone. And you know, I want to stay and I want to do this and I want to work with these parents who are absent in their kids school lives. So what can I do as a teacher to go out there and talk to these parents? One of the things that were, and this is the story of my life, I've been in four hours of meetings today trying to explain some of the same things. And if you're just very, if you explain it logically, which is, I understand that on the street, because this is exactly what I mean. My kids get jumped. They're afraid to confess who's doing what because they get jumps when they leave school. It's very serious. There's bloods members. I mean, I know it's the same story a lot of us have, but the explanation is school. When you enter the door of school and the yard is school, that is part of your responsibility. What happens at recess? So I have not had a parent yet that doesn't come to the agreement. And I have had parents put it in writing. I am telling them to hit back, just so you know. But once you have a conversation with them and you can do this as a teacher, which is, how do I protect your child? If you're telling your child to hit back and he's telling his child to hit back, and then everyone's hitting. And what I say to them is, I don't want to usurp your authority. And they always respect that. I don't want to usurp your authority, but I can't protect them. What if it's your child the next time whose parents said the same thing? So when they walk inside the school door, we have to operate differently. And I say to them, I can't tell you what to do out on the street. I understand that's a different issue. But inside the school doors, if you could help us by saying to the child, give the teachers and the staff the opportunity, give me the opportunity to keep them safe. Is that what you say, what administrators do in our buildings even today? I understand there were some situations like that where a parent actually tried to hit another student and the administrators have to step in and make the parents realize, what would you want us do to. To do for your child? And I think once you bring it home to the parent that his child could be the next victim, then they do step back and maybe think a little more rationally, be logical with the process and then follow it through. They usually come along.
- [65:12]
Tim Keller
These are great answers. Go ahead.
- [65:14]
Kathryn
I have. Can you hear me? One thing is, you know, sort of under the current in all conversations with educators is as your teachers trying to implement kind of the big picture from up above, from administration and for the public school teachers, the doe and I've been a teacher, so I understand that, but sort of on the other side of the coin, I'm now with the doe and I just wanted to let you all know that it's incredibly encouraging for me to be here tonight. And for what it's worth, there is somebody at the DOE praying for you all every day. It's probably hard to believe, but. And I will certainly say I would appreciate. And we'd all. Well, I would appreciate your prayers as well. And Then my quick question for you all is, when I was a teacher, and I both worked as a teacher in the public schools and then worked with parochial schools in the Bronx, in Manhattan, there are a few moments where I just could really sense that God was sort of showing me that the way I was interacting with a parent or my attitude in a certain circumstance was totally infused by the grace that he had given me as a Christian. And I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous. And so my question for you all is maybe if you have a little anecdotal story from your own experience as educators of when you just said, like, gosh, I couldn't have handled that unless I had this worldview, I'll begin. We talked about that, that we pray, many of us pray. And we said we couldn't start our day without prayer, either reading the Bible or even at school or with others, because when I go to school each day, it's with a sense of adventure because we'd never know. You have the best laid plans and everyone is supposed to be in place, and then a child falls and gets cut. We had an anecdote. A kindergarten kid fell in the yard and they thought that she had just bumped her chin. And when she went to the doctor, she had fractured her jaw, and her jaw had to be wired, and it was with fear and trembling. How do you speak to that parent when she comes? What do you say to a parent in that case? How would a parent react? And so there's always this prayer and the parent comes in and the administrator is there, and we talk to the parent. And then sometimes they come in very hostile, sometimes they have issues and they just need someone to talk to. And as we speak to them and asking the Holy Spirit to put the right words in, at least in our mouths as we speak, the parents, sometimes they become very calm or that parent may just cry or need just a hug. We have instances of children whose parents are dying and they know they're dying and they have issues of what's going to happen to my child, and just a hug. And then when that parent leaves and they feel better or the situation is calm and we say, thank God, God is so good. We say it all the time because we had no thought or no plan of how we would face that situation. So it happens, I think, almost daily at my school. Just going back to the parent issue that June brought up a few minutes ago, it just happened, actually, before I got here and I said I'd spend. I spent a lot of time investigating a gang related incident. And I actually school safety had to walk out two parents today because they were so enraged over the conversation. And I guess to be honest, like one of your first tendencies would be, well, I wasn't able to complete the investigation because you had to be escorted out because of your behavior. So maybe I'll just go ahead and record it. As this did happen without getting to the bottom of it. But I persisted for another rest of the day and I called the parent back on the phone, which was really not what I thought I should probably do, coming here and trying to be positive after the way the last meeting went. But I told her the status of the investigation and that her son actually had not been one of the parties that had participated in the occurrence. And she said, Ms. Marlow, I felt so bad all day. I just wanted to apologize to you. And so I just knew that in that like the fact of just being able to call her back, it was not, it was just the grace of God just giving me that after it had been, you know, two or three people walking out. And I know that was just totally grace.
- [69:52]
Tim Keller
You're trying to reweave something that you can tell needs to be. Things need to be related to each other and they're not. And it's very, very, very frustrating. But you're Christians and you know what that means. That means that eventually the things you want to see happen are going to happen. There will eventually be peace. There will eventually be justice. There will eventually be whole families. There will eventually, you won't have parents dying. You're going to have a rewoven creation. God is going to do it. There's a lot of jobs that are more satisfying than your job because you're making something and you make it well and then you send it out there and people buy it. You make your money, you go home, your product are changed lives and maturity and wisdom. And therefore you're always unhappy with your product. I mean, it's just never what you want it to be. It's very, very frustrating. But you're Christians. You're not fighting a losing battle at all. Everything sad is going to come untrue someday. So you're on the right side and you got to live in that kind of hope. Now let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have called us in this room to be educators and that you've called us into a job that it seems so messy. It's not like producing a piece of machinery and then selling it. It's not like so many other jobs in which the product is quantifiable and the bottom line is so much easier to grasp and to drive and to recognize. We're talking about change lives, we're talking about learning wisdom, we're talking about maturity, talking about people becoming real human beings. And it seems like an endless maybe losing cause, but it's not. We know it's not because we're Christians. And we thank you for all the ways in which the men and women in this room are your agents for healing in the world and repairing and reweaving your creation. Thank you that the resurrected Jesus proves to us that someday you will completely you will fulfill our deepest desires to see our city whole and this families whole. So thank you for this time and continue to be our great teacher, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the wisdom of God's Word to your life. For more resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com there. You can also subscribe to the Gospel and Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals and other helpful resources. Again, it's all@gospelandlife.com you can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's talk was recorded in 2004. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
- [73:00]
Kathryn
Sam.