Tuesday, October 2

Art Lesson: Validity of Scripture

Art classes have become notorious for bringing out the deepest of conversations. I don't know if has to do with the mind being led to higher thoughts while the hands are distracted by work or if it's simply the paint thinner fumes circulating throughout the room. Either way, interesting topics continually arise.
This last week my high school class launched into a discussion on Catholicism vs. Protestantism. One of the girls in my class was raised Catholic and has very strong (though misguided) views regarding that. I had recently had the same misconception conversation with a friend a few weeks earlier and was prepared to talk to her on the subject. However, when she stated that she wanted to believe in purgatory because she wanted to believe that she could get her friend, who had recently died, into heaven, I knew I was dealing with deeper issues than theology.
Yesterday, the class started out a little different than normal with one of the boys telling me beforehand that he had figured out some reasons that this other girl was wrong in her views on the death penalty (another conversation from another day). As the class period went on the conversation progressed to other religious matter, eventually leading the girl to state that she calls herself a Christian but she does not believe that the Bible is true and therefore any "fact" that others say against her belief will do nothing to change her mind since we are all just brainwashed into thinking the Book is the Word of God. She stated that she never reads the Scripture, it is too full of contradictions and confusing information. She believes in herself that she is good and knows the difference between right and wrong and therefore can determine good and evil based on herself. Whoa. Postmodernism? Relative truth?
After that another girl proclaimed that she didn't believe she had a conscious and that even if she did have that she definitely did not have the Holy Spirit, her mother had killed it from her when she abused her as a child.
However, these girls continued throughout the entire conversation to call themselves "Christians".
I am saddened by the state of these girl's souls. I praise God that I was able to speak some truths in the class period, if not for their benefit but for that of the other students. But their hearts are so hardened to what is true, the meaning of truth.
Aside from praying, I want to equip these students with real truth. I've prepared some information on the validity of Scripture that I will be giving them in class today. Praise the Lord I'm at a Christian school and have the freedom to do that.
Will you please pray for my students, too. That their eyes would be opened to the lie they believe and their hearts would be softened toward Jesus. And would you pray for me, too. That I would have wisdom to know what to speak and how to lead my class. It's an awesome and scary responsibility to be a teacher.