Education and the Great Commission (Part 1)

The other day a friend of mine asked me how I thought my profession (education) fit into the gospel/great commission.  While at the moment I didn't have the best answer, on my way home I was reminded of a quote from the book Radical, by David Platt.

"I think of Andrea.  She is a college student who, by her own admission, doesn't like college.  Upon graduation from high school, she immediately wanted to go to another country.  In her words, 'I did not want to go to college because I felt like it would be a waste of time.  After all, people were dying without Christ, and I did not have time to be educated.'  Her parents wisely persuaded her to go to school in Alabama, far away from Asia or Africa, where she really wanted to be.  

Andrea struggled with the relevance of school until one day in our worship gathering we were talking about the needs among the Bedouin people, most of whom had never heard the gospel, and it clicked.  Andrea was in school for the sake of the Bedouin.  As soon as she was able, she signed up for Arabic classes.  Not long after beginning these classes, she e-mailed me that she was going to spend a semester studying Arabic in the Middle East, where she would have the opportunity to be among the Bedouin people.  She wrote, 'I wanted to let you know that Brook Hiss is going to run into the Bedouin people this semester, and I will have the opportunity to tell them about Jesus.'

Consider what happens when all of us begin to look at our professions and areas of expertise not merely as means to an income or to career paths in our own context but as platforms for proclaiming the gospel in contexts around the world.  Consider what happens when the church is not only sending traditional missionaries around the world but also businessmen and businesswomen, teachers and students, doctors and politicians, engineers and technicians who are living out the gospel in contexts where a traditional missionary could never go."

There it is, David Platt says it all for me.  Education opens doors to unlimited opportunities - one of which could be bringing the message of Jesus through whatever service an individual might offer.  A profession, that otherwise wouldn't have been achieved if it weren't for public schools (more than likely).

Will be digging deeper into this topic on Part 2 - stay tuned!