All right, please open your Bibles with me, if you will, or your digital devices to Philippians chapter four. We're gonna be looking at one verse, Philippians chapter four, verse eight. And here, Paul is going to tell us what things we ought to be thinking about. In fact, he's going to tell us above all other things what things we ought to be thinking about. And so this is what the Apostle Paul says, Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Now notice what the command is. The command is to think about something. What is Paul telling us to think about? Well, he's telling us to think about everything that preceded, which is the true things, the honorable things, the just things, the pure, lovely, commendable. Anything that is worthy of praise, think about these things. Paul had a theology of the true, the good, and the beautiful. All of those things that he just listed in that verse could be put under those three heads, the true, the good, and the beautiful. Now it was Plato the philosopher who was first credited with placing that trio of words together, the true, the good, and the beautiful. By the way, that's the name of my talk this morning, the true, the good, and the beautiful, how a Christian classical education transforms the soul. Now that trinity of virtues, the true, the good, and the beautiful, has made quite a comeback in the backdrop of the resurgence of the Christian classical movement. Now, if you're new to the Christian classical movement, maybe you've never heard those three things, the true, the good, and the beautiful. But I promise you, if you just Google it, you'll get a gaggle of articles that deal with the true, the good, and the beautiful. There's been tons of books written about these three things. because even pagans like Plato recognized these are things that have transcendence. Now, like I said, these three virtues have made a comeback in the backdrop of this resurgence of Christian classical education, and for a good reason. Western civilization is self-destructing, and people are on a frantic search for objectivity, which is the true. They're on a frantic search for excellence, which is the good. And they're on a frantic search for the longing of another world, which is the beautiful. And much philosophical ink has been spilled dissecting these three eternal ideas, the true, the good, and the beautiful. Some of that philosophical ink has been helpful, and some of that philosophical ink has been unhelpful. But this morning, my main objective in bringing these three ideas to you is threefold. Number one, I want to convince you that when we are speaking about the true, the good, and the beautiful, we are speaking about God. So all the hubbub in the Christian classical movement about the true, the good, and the beautiful, or just the pagan classical movement about the true, the good, and the beautiful, if it's separated from God, we're not talking about the true, the good, and the beautiful anymore. Secondly, I want to convince you that God's great aim in education is to make souls that are true, good, and beautiful. And then thirdly, I want to convince you that the scriptures have a specific methodology for making souls that are true, good, and beautiful. So that is my outline. Number one, God is the true, the good, and the beautiful. Number two, God desires our souls to be true, good, and beautiful. And then number three, scripture has a specific methodology for making true, good, and beautiful souls. And so here is our big idea. Here at this church, we simplify our teachings by making one doctrine or one big idea that pretty much encapsulates the whole teaching. So if you get lost at any point, if you write this down, this is what I'm teaching this morning. The big idea is this, that the true, good and beautiful are eternal realities built into the human soul by a Christian classical education. One more time, the big idea is that the true, the good and the beautiful are eternal realities built into the human soul by a Christian classical education. All right, so let me go to this first point. First of all, God is the true, the good, and the beautiful. Now, I felt the need to make this short defense on this first point because the Christian classical movement is still somewhat of a novel thing, at least in this part of the country. It could be easy to get carried away with the mantras of it and misplace what it is truly aiming at by somehow treating Christian classical education like it's a product and that simply that the true, the good, and the beautiful is some sort of slogan at the end of a commercial for it. as if you should choose Christian classical education because it sounds innovative, or it looks shiny compared to all the other alternative products out there. But that is not why you should choose a Christian classical education. The true, the good, and the beautiful are not a product. The true, the good, and the beautiful is God. God is the true, God is the good, and God is the beautiful. So let's just unpack these one at a time. First of all, God is the true. The reason why there's any truth in this universe whatsoever is because God has deposited there, deposited there as a reflection of himself. One of my favorite authors, G.I. Williamson, he's one of my favorite contemporary authors, he has said that God has deposited truth in the universe and it's man's task to discover what it is. What a grand statement that is. Scientists, their task is to discover the truth that God has deposited in the universe. English professors and logic professors, their task is to discover the meaning in logical propositions. Mathematicians, their task is to discover the truth and who God is in math. They might not attribute it to God. That's totally besides the point. God is truth. All the members of the Trinity stake their claim on this particular attribute. The father is called truth, Isaiah 65, 16. The son explicitly calls himself the truth. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And then the spirit is the truth, called the spirit of truth in John 14, 17. Secondly, God is the good and the only good. Jesus said this very clearly during his earthly ministry. He said this in Mark 10, 18, no one is good except God alone. No one is good. Nothing is good except for God alone. And if there were any good people, we might suppose that perhaps out of the Bible, King David was a good man. because it says specifically that he had a heart after God's own heart. But what does he say? He says this in Psalm 16 too. You are my Lord, I have no good apart from you. There is no ultimate good in education apart from God. No good. The Holy Trinity is the very embodiment of good such that no good can be discovered apart from him. And then thirdly, God is the beautiful. The premier book of poetry on planet Earth. Does anybody know what the premier book of poetry on planet Earth is? Want to try? It's in the Bible. Psalms. The premier book of poetry on the Earth is the Psalms. And this book places God's beauty as the crowning jewel of all other beauties. Listen to what David said. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. To do what? To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. That's the one thing that David wanted. He had wealth, he had riches, he had fame, he had women, he had children, he had power. What did he want? He wanted God's beauty, is what he wanted. When God's beauty shines forth in its full splendor, all other beauties are weighed, measured, and found wanting. And the psalmist here was telling us that he was willing to trade all of them in order to gain the beauty of God. So these three virtues are lifted up in scripture as God. Now, before we move on from this section, I don't understand one thing about the relationship between God and his attributes. Because what I'm claiming is that the true, the good, and the beautiful are attributes of God. But that might put the idea in our head that they are separate essences outside of God. But that would be wrong. God is not truth merely because he tells the truth. God is not good merely because He never does wrong. God is not beautiful merely because He has no impurity. Those three things, truth, goodness, and beauty, are not standards outside of God that He aligns Himself with. No, God is the very essence of truth. He's the very essence of goodness, and He is the very essence of beauty, such that if God were gone, There would be no truth, there would be no goodness, and there would be no beauty. Period. The universe could disappear, and guess what? Truth and goodness and beauty would not, because God would still be here. But if God disappeared, there would be no truth, goodness, or beauty. And this should give us our first real clue as to what all education should ultimately be directed toward. If we are serious about pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty, if education, if the educational system out there, if classical education out there is serious about pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty, they have to pursue God, because there is no truth and goodness and beauty outside of Him. And therefore, we should be most serious about pursuing the Lord, who is the very essence of these three virtues. All right, our second point. God desires our souls to be true, good, and beautiful. God desires our souls to be true, good, and beautiful. Let me ask you guys a series of questions. What do we hope our children to be transformed into as the result of the education that we are giving them? What are we aiming at ultimately in our education? A good job? a successful career? What would success for your children look like to you? Someone asks you, interview on the street, hey, what would success for your children look like to you? And maybe a more important question is, does your definition of success line up with God's definition of success? We cannot rightly pursue education if we do not understand what our ends are. What our ends are. Because our ends, what we're aiming at, always must determine our means. So what are God's ends in education? Does he desire that our children's education will transform them into something? Or nothing? Or randomness? Yes, He actually does desire that our children's education will transform them into something. He desires that our children's souls will be true, will be good, and will be beautiful. But what does that mean biblically? Well, it means that God desires our children to be conformed to the image of His Son. It's very, very specific. It's not some ethereal abstractions away from God. What is true, good, and beautiful? It's being conformed to the image of Christ. God has predestined all believers to these particular ends. He didn't save us. Now consider, why did God save you? Well, He wanted to forgive me. True. Why did God save you? Because He wanted me to go to heaven. Okay, that's true. Why did He ultimately save you? Did He save you for those ultimate ends or is there a higher end? There's a higher end. He ultimately saved us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. He wants little images of His Son filling up heaven, because that's what glory and the very essence of happiness is. And so we have a verse for this, Romans 8, 29. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. Why did God predestine us? Why did God save us? so that we would look like Jesus. He planned every detail of our life so that we would be made like his son. That's the essence of what our salvation is, is to be made by Jesus Christ. And oh, what a day that will be. Can you imagine on that day when we are conformed to the image of Christ? That very thing will bring about the fullness of holiness, the perfection of love, and the zenith of all happiness. Why? Because everything in us that is evil and bad is gone, and only Christ remains. It is on that day when our souls will be made perfectly true, perfectly good, and perfectly beautiful. That's what God is aiming at in our salvation. And that is what he's calling us to aim at in our education. If all things are aiming at conformity to Christ, education is one of those things that ought to be aimed at conformity to Jesus Christ. If in our education we are merely aiming for our kids to have a secure future, well, the question needs to be asked, what future do you have in mind? What future do you have in mind? Our children have souls that will never die. Consider just for a moment. Think about this just for a moment. Your children that are alive right now will be alive 10 billion ages from now. Is their future secure? Did them being successful in their career here secure that then? Guarantee you 10 billion years from now, your children aren't going to be saying, man, I'm glad I was a fill in the blank person while I was here on planet Earth. He's going to be exploding or she's going to be exploding talking about Jesus. The ultimate question is, will our children have souls at that point that are true, good, and beautiful in glory with Christ, or will they have souls that are deceitful, wicked, and hideous in hell under the wrath of God? That's the question. Are we thinking of that future when we're educating our children? The chief end in our education should not be the same as the world's chief end. You know what the world's chief end in education is? It's to gain the world. Didn't Jesus say something about gaining the world in the scriptures? He said, for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? If you follow the world's aim in education to gain the world, you could forfeit your soul. So what is our end in education? What is our end? If it is not to try to form Christ in our children, our end is bankrupt. Listen to what Paul said. Paul anguished over his spiritual children in Galatians 4.19. He said this, My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. I know some of you might have felt the anguish of childbirth when you're teaching your children mathematics. Will this ever end? But Paul was in anguish, like in childbirth, to try to form Christ in his spiritual children. Do we adopt that mindset with our physical children? Is that our end? Is our highest end aimed at forming Christ in our children? Is every other consideration subordinate to that end? Because here's the thing, we can say, yeah, yeah, I'm totally for Christ. I'm totally for that being the chief end in my education. but then there's a way we can deceive ourselves and actually not subordinate every other thing underneath that. For the true, the good, and the beautiful to be our main objective in education, we must have Christ as our main objective, and not merely pragmatic concerns. We must treat education as a kingdom-seeking enterprise first, and not a career-building enterprise. That must come second. You can build the kingdom of God by building a career. if it's in subordination to building the Kingdom of God. And this is exactly what Jesus said. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. Yeah, but not in education. Don't seek first the Kingdom of God in education because that's not pragmatic. We need to make sure kids know these things so that they can get along. Get along doing what? If we don't subordinate everything to kingdom building activities, then we're disobeying Christ and we're setting up our children for a miserable future. Okay, third point. Scripture has a particular methodology for true, good, and beautiful souls. So I'm really transitioning now in this part of my talk. Historically, the classical model has consisted of two parts. One dealing with content and one dealing with methodology. The content is the what of education and the methodology is the how of education. Now, I've touched briefly on the what of education. in the first two sections and Matt will be unpacking that more in his talk. So now I want to move on to methodology because I know that there are some people that are new to this and I want to make it clear. Christian classical education has a particular methodology. What's a methodology? A methodology is how to do. How do you do this thing? That's a methodology. It's a method. God made our souls in a particular way, and he is most fit to prescribe the particular method in which we learn best. And so he has prescribed this method in scripture, which we're going to see here in a bit. But this method has been called the Trivium. Sorry for that print being small, but Trivium is Latin for three roads. or the place where the three roads meet. Doesn't matter if you remember that word, it's just a word that gives us a handle for what the methodology is. The Trivium is composed of three distinct stages or three roads. It's composed of the grammar stage, it's composed of the dialectic or the logic stage, and it's composed of the rhetoric stage. And these mirror the biblical categories all over the Proverbs. It talks about these three things. Grammar stage, the Bible talks about knowledge. Dialectic stage, the Bible talks about understanding. Rhetoric stage, the Bible talks about wisdom. Those are biblical categories before they were formed in the Trivium. Listen to this verse, Proverbs 2.6. For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Those three words are not synonyms. They're not the same words. They mean different things. And the Trivium unpacks this as to what each stage looks like. So first of all, let's look at the grammar stage. The grammar stage is the earliest stage. This is the knowledge stage. This is the input stage. And the ages for this stage are approximately 5 through 11. And of course, there's overlap. And the truth is, let me just put a little parentheses here. The truth is that all of us are in these stages at different parts of our life all the time. When you learn a new skill, you learn the grammar of it. When you're starting to figure out how that skill works together, you're in the dialectic stage of it. When you actually practice the skill, you're in the rhetoric stage of it. Let me give you one example. If I want to learn how to play guitar. The grammar stage, I have to learn what the chords are and the fingering positions and the strumming patterns. That's the knowledge. I haven't even picked up the guitar yet. Dialectic stage is trying to work my fingers on it and then getting it down. That's putting the pieces together. And then the rhetoric stage is where I'm performing. These stages are happening at all points in human development. But they're really important for our children because this is where we lay the most foundational pieces of education for their lives. Okay, so here we are, that's the end of the parentheses. Here we are at the grammar stage. So at this stage in the child's development, their brain is like a mental sponge. It soaks everything up, which is good and bad, right? It's good when they soak up good stuff and not so good when they don't soak up good stuff. And so the name of the game at this stage is memory work, memory work, Memory work. We cram as much data in their minds as their minds can take and their minds can take a lot. Their minds can take a lot. And so our objective here is to exploit their God-given ability to memorize. Now, one point at this stage, this happens generally every year, where probably in the first two or three weeks, where mamas start to come to us and say, there's too much information for our children and I don't know what to do with it because their heads are going to explode. What do we do with all this? This is too much. And every year we remind them, okay, if you're in the grammar stage, we're not aiming for comprehension. We're aiming for storage. Don't worry if they don't comprehend it at this stage because that's what the next stage is for. What we're aiming at is getting all that data in. And guess what? They're going to comprehend what they comprehend. And if they don't comprehend it, get it in their minds. Okay? Get it in their minds. Now, question. Is there a biblical warrant for the grammar stage? Is there a biblical warrant for the grammar stage? Absolutely there is. Notice what Paul says here to Timothy. Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me. In the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Now notice two things that Paul says here. One, follow the pattern of sound words. And two, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Paul considered it utmost importance that Timothy obey a system of words. A system of words? Yep, that's what that word pattern indicates. A system of words. Systematized truth. And that Timothy guard those words. Those words are deposited in him and he is to guard those words. That system of words. Now, the context here, obviously, is Paul is preparing Timothy for the ministry and that these words are gospel words, but the principle applies to education. In order for words and their corresponding meanings to have any lasting effect in our lives, they must be systematized. That is, they must be organized in a hierarchy. They must be memorized. They must be put in a pattern. How many of you remember words from your education that you just stored in short-term memory in order to pass a test? You are gifted. You are gifted. You are gifted. Most people who put words in short-term memory, short-term memory. don't remember. Because they're cramming, they're shoving it in there as fast as they can, and just so they get to the test and they explode out of the paper, don't have to memorize that anymore. That is not what the grammar stage is. The grammar stage is long-term, deep memory. And our kids can do it. How do we know that? Well, God was Pretty confident that people can memorize things. How do we know that? Because the scripture is full of places where he gives us clues. Psalms. There's nine psalms in the Bible that are alphabetical psalms. Meaning that their lines start with particular letters in the alphabet. Why would God do that? for memory. Josiah, my son, what's your A-verse? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Josiah, what's your B-verse? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Josiah, what's your C-verse? Children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Gotta love that one, right? The verses in the scripture were alphabetized so that we would memorize them. And in fact, the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119, there's 176 verses in that chapter, and it's divided into 22 sections. There are 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each section is a corresponding letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each line in each section starts with that letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Why did God do that? so that we would memorize it. God is very interested in us memorizing things. In fact, perhaps the premier verse of memory is Psalm 119, verse 11, where he says, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Do you think God cares about memory? Absolutely. Memory work is not an insignificant task beneath the dignity of human beings. That's what our culture would tell us. Dewey was fantastic about pooh-poohing the idea of memory because that's not pragmatic. His problem was that once he got the memory in, he didn't know what to do with it. He couldn't get to the next stage because the atheistic worldview has no categories for putting truth together. There's no unity that brings all the diversity together. And that's what you need. God designed memory work as a foundational means of getting truth into our souls. So Paul says, follow the pattern of sound words, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. That's the grammar stage, the knowledge stage. Let's go to the next stage, the dialectic stage. This is the stage of understanding. It's approximate ages are 11 to 14. This is a stage where we take those pieces of knowledge that we got in the first stage and we start reconciling them together or synthesizing them together. Now, this actually follows the soul of the child. Like I said in the first one, the kids are really good at soaking up all these things in their mind, and then in the next stage, they're really good at saying, why, why, how does that work together? Why is it like that? Why is it like that? This is the dialectic stage, where we're taking truth X and truth Y, and we're bringing them together, and they show how they correspond with one another. So is there a biblical warrant for the dialectic stage? Well, absolutely. Absolutely. There's just a few verses after Paul said, guard the good deposit. He says this, think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Great things there, responsibility of man, thinking, the sovereignty of God, giving insight. But our responsibility is to think. Think over what? Everything that he said, what was that? The pattern of sound words. What was that? The deposit that he gave Timothy. Timothy was required to think hard about the truths that Paul taught him and how they apply to every other truth. And this is the same in the second stage of the Trivium. Mere memorization is not the finish line in education, it's the starting line. It's the starting line. Our children must think deeply over the pattern of sound words that they have stored up. This is where they naturally start to develop their worldview and so they start asking important questions about theology, who is God? About ontology, what is reality? About epistemology, how do I know that I know? About anthropology, what is man or who is man? About ethics, what should I do? These are the questions that our kids are wrestling, even if they don't ask it like that. Even if they don't vocalize it, they are human beings and they have those questions in their mind. And if we don't answer them for them, guess who will? The culture will. Movies will. TV will. The culture desires to put a worldview in your children's souls. They're going to tell your children how the world works. And so this stage is critically important. We are fighting for the souls of our children at this stage, and that is not hyperbole, that is truth. All right, that's the dialectic stage. Next is the rhetoric stage. The rhetoric stage. Rhetoric just means, it's a word that means the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing. This stage approximately runs from the ages of 15 to 18. And this is the stage where output begins. So the first stage, grammar, is input. The second stage is synthesis. And then the third stage is output. Now, students are still storing up knowledge, like I said earlier. We're in these cycles all the time. And they're still synthesizing knowledge. or understanding, but here our focus is on output. This is where we are seeking to develop our students' practice of biblical wisdom. which means that now they are required to argue a worldview for themselves, to argue a worldview for themselves, to think and to speak. They need to be able to answer objections. They need to learn, as the Apostle Paul said, to destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Now, I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. I don't know where everybody's at. Paul said this. Paul was not a physical pugilist when he went out on missionary trips destroying people. No, he was the most loving man outside of Christ in the first century. But he destroyed arguments in himself that the devil would try to tell him, that his sinful nature would try to tell him, and he destroyed arguments in the culture. Why? because this was the natural outflow of the input or the knowledge and of the understanding or the dialectic. This is what we're called to do. We're called to do this. This is the Great Commission. The Great Commission is teach everything that I've commanded you. Teach you what? All the knowledge that you've stored up, all the knowledge that you've thought hard about, and now go out and do this thing. Go out and do this thing. Now, at this stage, our young adults are challenged with the utmost rigor because they just will be challenged when they go out into the world. If we don't challenge our children at this stage, guess who will? The culture loves taking young Christians who come into their university. Their goal is to destroy the faith of those Christians. That's why there's books been written, how to stay Christian in college. Our kids need to be, if our kids gain the worldview that we're giving them, they can destroy the worldview of their college professors. I promise you, not because we're wise, but because God is wise. This is God's truth. We need to give our children an adult faith so that when they go into the adult world, they can handle the adult objections. All right, so that's the methodology. Now, I'm going to move on to application. Now, I'm going to circle back. I guess before I go, real quickly, before I go into the application, is there any questions on those three stages, grammar, dialectic, or rhetoric? Are most people familiar with those three stages? I wasn't when I first, obviously, when I first got introduced to these things. And actually it's helpful to talk about them quite often because once you're into the school, if you come, you're like, why are we doing this memory work? Why are we doing this memory work? This seems, what, not pragmatic? That's what the culture wants you to believe. We're storing, we're putting a deposit in their souls. Why? And then you get to the next stage. Why is all this arguing? Why is all this arguing? Because the culture is going to argue against your children. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, I have a question. You gave rough age approximations where these take place. I understand that it's always going on in all three stages. What happens when you're trying to then give this information, you know, send the same information to your children, but you will kind of miss some stages here. Yeah. Because they're old enough now that they've already gone through the stages and you weren't packing the information or the memorization. Right. Well, that's why education is really a lifelong process. You know, why is, so a lot of people come into our church And some of the difficulty that they have outside of sin and deception from the devil is that they hear words from the pulpit that they don't know. What are they missing? They're missing the grammar stage. I don't know that word. And so I can't synthesize the information because I don't know the word. And so what it requires them to do is to learn that word to be able to synthesize the information. That's why education is an ongoing process. So in our school, the great thing about our school is we've gotten lots of feedback from the moms where they're learning more than their children are in the classrooms. because they're taking in this, this worldview for the, for the first time or for the, um, for a very, for a thorough time anyway. So, um, if we, if our, if our children are learning stuff that, uh, we are ill equipped to, um, teach them, I would say, isn't that what we want from our children anyway? Don't we want them to be better than us? Don't we want to pass on something bigger than, than what we have? Does that answer your question or no? Jeremy, do you have a question? Yeah, I was just going to follow up. So with those stages, 5 to 11, 11 to 14, 15 to 18, there's still a parental freedom to keep children in the family groups. So just talk about the freedom that another reason that a homeschool is that you can keep those things. We're choosing to keep Wyatt back this year. By age, he could be moving forward or by vacation. Yeah. Do you want to talk about how there's some freedom? Oh, there's absolute freedom for those reasons, but there's other freedoms too. You know, if a person's coming into the school and say their child is 16 years old. or 13 years old or whatever, and they're coming out of a public school system or they're coming out of an educational system that they're like deer in the headlights, this is like massive. Guess what? We're going to put them in the group that fits them best. Education is not about, you know, pigeonholing people in these particular categories. Education is about setting the soul free. That's why I labored at the beginning about what is education, aiming the soul towards Christ. Does it do any good for the soul to be aimed towards Christ if you don't know what's being said? You go, my son, my 14-year-old son is behind on math, like two or three grades. Behind according to who? He's getting what he needs. I'm shepherding his soul the way he needs it. And so there's the freedom for the family reason, but there's also freedom to come in and nobody needs to be embarrassed. If anybody's going to be embarrassed, it's going to be the adults in this school. We're all embarrassed because our kids come home and they're like, dude, my kids are, my kids are blowing me away. I mean, haven't you had this experience, Carrie, where your kids are like running logical circles around you? And we've had that same experience. Josiah learned all these fallacies from Pastor Matt two years ago. And he's like, that's a straw man, mom. Ad hominem, mom. Circular reasoning. And me and mom are like, what? What are you talking about? So, yeah. Well, let me apply this and then we'll answer more questions. So, I'm going to circle back now to the true, the good, and the beautiful. I gave you, what I've given you so far is that the true, the good, and the beautiful is God. Secondly, I gave you that God is aiming our souls to be true, good, and beautiful, namely conforming to Christ. And then thirdly, I gave you the methodology for classical education. And now I'm going to move to application. to application. How do we apply the true, the good, and beautiful to subjects? To subjects. So in our application time, I want to show how truth, goodness, and beauty are three different lenses for our souls to look through at the different subjects. There's a truth lens, there's a goodness lens, and there's a beauty lens. And we apply each of those lenses to each of the subjects. The language that we've been using in the academy this last year is doctrine, duty, and delight. Doctrine, duty, and delight. So there's a doctrine of each subject, that is the truth of it. There's an ethical duty of each subject, that is the goodness of it. And there is a longing or delight of each subject, that is the beauty of it. And each of these lenses that we're going to see correspond and appeal to the three parts of the soul. This is our soul. Why are we said to be made in the image of God? Because our soul has the imprint of the Trinity on it. We have an understanding, that is our thinking. We have affections, that is our feeling. And we have a will, that is our doing. We have a mind, a heart, and a will. And doctrine, duty, and delight, or truth, goodness, and beauty, appeal to those three parts of the soul. And I would argue that our soul actually needs to be addressed by those three things. Have you ever sat in a sermon before, and all the guy did was explain what the text meant? That's all. That's all he did. There's something wrong with that because why did you go to church? Couldn't you just open up a commentary and get what the text meant? Preaching and teaching must address not only the mind, but it must address the heart, and it must address the will. If it doesn't do those things, it's not complete teaching. It's not complete preaching. And so we must aim at truth, goodness, and beauty, which means we must aim at doctrine, duty, and delight. OK, so let's use these three lenses and apply doctrine and duty and delight, that template, to three different subjects. I'm going to pick one from the humanities, one from the sciences, and then I'm going to pick theology. And I'm going to apply doctrine, duty, and delight to each one of them. So what is, let's first of all think about the humanities. We'll just pick one subject, philosophy. What is the doctrine of philosophy? Well, the word philosophy means the love of wisdom. And there are lots of different sub-doctrines within philosophy, not all of which are created equal, because not all of them are true. There are analytical philosophies, natural philosophies, political philosophies, moral philosophies, etc. So there's lots of different doctrines about philosophy. And when you go into a philosophy class, you're learning what the doctrine is. Now, what's the duty? What's our duty regarding philosophy? Well, philosophy puts a duty on us to discover what is true. What is true. That's our duty. That's our ethical obligation to discover which philosophy or philosophies are right by testing them according to the scripture and then holding fast to what is right. Philosophy puts that duty on you. Oh, I don't believe in philosophy. That's a philosophy. And apparently your philosophy tells you that you shouldn't believe and pursue right philosophies. Right thinking. Philosophy is the love of wisdom. That's your duty in light of philosophy. So what's our delight in light of philosophy? So, the doctrine was the love of wisdom, the duty is you have to, you are obligated to pursue what's right. What's our delight? How can philosophy be a delight? Well, the greatest philosopher in the universe is Jesus Christ. You know that it says in Colossians 2, 3, that in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. If you don't like philosophy, you don't like what's hidden in Jesus Christ, because what's hidden in Jesus Christ is wisdom and knowledge. And that means that we should, so part of our delight here is that means that we should never be afraid of going deep intellectually, because the deeper we go, guess what we're gonna see? More beauty, more glory, more Christ. When we get to heaven, guess what we're gonna be doing in heaven? Forever learning about Christ. Is anybody gonna say, man, this learning about Jesus stuff is boring, let's do something else? No, but what are we doing? We're having our minds filled with Jesus. Okay, so let's take mathematics. What's the doctrine, duty, and delight of mathematics? Doctrine, duty, and delight of mathematics. What is the doctrine of math? Well, mathematics is the science of quantity. More could be said, but we'll summarize it at that. The science of quantity. And there are different branches of mathematics which include arithmetic, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, calculus, etc. Each of which contain different doctrines and new truths which build on its predecessors. What's our duty in light of math? Well, there's many duties in light of math, but let's just pick one duty. First Timothy 5.8 says, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than unbelievers. We have an ethical obligation to take care of those whom God has put in our sphere of influence. That means that we must be good at calculation. If we have to provide, we have to have some sort of understanding of what I need to provide, which means I have to have some grasp on mathematics. Have you ever seen someone who's not good at math do a checkbook before? There is an obligation that we have to be good at math in order to live our lives in a particular way. All right, what's the delight of mathematics? There's no delight in mathematics, come on. What is the delight of mathematics? Well, mathematics is delightful because even the most simple problem shows the glory of God. What's the most simple problem that you can think of? What? 1 plus 1 equals 2. When does 1 plus 1 equal 2? Always. So that means it has the attribute of eternity. Where does 1 plus 1 equal 2? In Boise, Idaho? Or does it equal that in China too? China? Does it equal that on Jupiter? So 1 plus 1 equals 2 has the attribute of omnipresence. Can the truth of 1 plus 1 equals 2 be changed? Has the attribute of immutability. Can the truth of 1 plus 1 equals 2 be broken? Are you strong enough to break that truth? So it has the attribute of omnipotence. 1 plus 1 equals 2 shows us God. It shows us God. Math is a delight. That is, it is beautiful. Why? Because it makes us long for something. Now, perhaps you've never thought about that before, but you're thinking about it now. And if you're thinking about it now, you can see, man, this subject really does say something about God. It's not just some thing that I have to do, it's something that I get to delight in God about. When you sit down to do education with your children, when we sit down to do education with your children, guess what that is in one sense? That's a worship service, because we're worshiping over the subjects. Every subject is either a work of God or an attribute of God. And in either case, it's meant to be delighted in. Our verse for the academy, great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. Okay, last one, the subject of theology. the subject of theology. And this is where actually that catechism right over there on the table, this lays out that template and it applies it to all the different attributes. Doctrine, duty, and delight. So let's look at the doctrine. Let's look at the attribute of God's infinity. What is the doctrine of God's infinity? What does infinity mean? Well, for God to be infinite, it means that he's not limited by time. He's not limited by space and he's not limited by any other quality. He is incomprehensible and exhaustible in all of his attributes. If that's not the God you worship, you don't worship the God of the Bible because that's who God is. He's infinite, not limited by time, space, any other quality, incomprehensible, inexhaustible in all of his attributes. And what I told the children at this point during the class last year, I looked at them right in their little teenage eyes that were screaming at me, I'm bored. And I said to them this, if you are ever bored with God, it is because you're not thinking about God rightly. If God is infinite, where he's inexhaustible in all of his attributes, in delighting the soul, in loving the soul, in showing wonders to the soul, and you're bored with that, you're not thinking about infinity. You're thinking about a reflection of yourself in the mirror. That's the doctrine of God's infinity. What's our duty in light of God's infinity? What does God's infinity press upon our souls? Well, because God is infinite, we are obligated to remember that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts. Isaiah 55, eight and nine. This gives us a template to interpret the world. It's our duty to remember that. That's what Isaiah says. Just remember this thing. You mean that's my duty? Yes. Your obligation, your ethical obligation in order to be good is to remember something about God. What am I supposed to remember? That His thoughts and ways are higher than my thoughts and ways. Guess how much that will affect your life. Guess how practical that is for your life. When our autistic child, for the umpteenth time, was freaking out. One of the things that Monica and I told ourselves all the time was the Westminster Shorter Catechism question number 11, which is, what is the providence of God? What are God's works of providence? God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, powerful, preserving, governing all his creatures and all their actions. Guess what that made us do? Okay, so he's banging his head against the wall again, but somehow God's thoughts and ways are higher than our ways, and he has a purpose for this. Lastly, how is God's infinity our delight? Saw the doctrine, the duty, and now the delight of it. How is the infinity of God our delight? God's infinity is our delight because... You ever hear that pop song? Actually, it's a country song. Everybody wanna go to heaven, but nobody wanna go now. Isn't that an awful song? I don't want to go to heaven. Why doesn't the culture want to go to heaven? What's that? Can't sin anymore, which they think will bring them boredom, which means that they don't think that heaven is a place of happiness. And Christians can drink in this poison too, where we think, well, I've got so many things I want to do. And that's okay. You know, Paul had a theology of doing things of the earth for the good of other people. But he also had a theology that to be with Christ is far better. So let me go back now to my delight in God's infinity. This is what it says, God's infinity is our delight because even after being satisfied in Him for countless ages, there will still remain pleasures at His right hand forevermore. After 10 billion ages in heaven where our soul has exploded with joy, guess what we're looking forward to? Countless more ages of having our heart explode with joy over Christ. This template of doctrine, duty, and delight should be applied to every subject, truth, goodness, and beauty, because every subject is either a work of God or an attribute of God. And therefore, education should be the most exhilarating thing that we can be exposed to, because what are we learning about? God. Let me pray for us, and then we will field some questions and or comments. Heavenly Father, We thank you so much for this morning. We thank you, God, that you are truly the true, the good, and the beautiful. We pray that even as the Apostle Paul told us at the beginning to think on these things, those things that are true, honorable, excellent, lovely, whatever is praiseworthy, Lord, that you would fix our hearts on those things and help us to have a vision for education bigger than what we previously thought. But we love you and we pray that you would help us to love you more, and that you would give us energy for this upcoming year to put this vision in our children's hearts. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.