The Alpha of Education

UV 3020/10000 The Alpha of Education
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
Luke 2 v 52

This uni-verse that sums up the entire early biography of Jesus is truly the cornerstone of understanding what is education. Education is to be lifelong learning resulting in growth first in wisdom, then in stature, physical, intellectual and social, followed by spiritual intelligence( in favour with God) and man (emotional and social intelligence). The highest priority is wisdom or applied knowledge. Scirpture states that wisdom comes only from reverence for God. Its source is spiritual and eternal. True wisdom is morally and spiritually pure, peaceable or gentle and considerate, reasonable, full of compassion and the good fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self control . In contrast, counterfeit or superficial wisdom is proud, arrogant, insincere, provocative, having double standards, wavering, selfish and cunning. The source of such wisdom is the enemy and this world. Knowledge of this world parades itself as such superficial wisdom. True wisdom promotes peace with self, others and God. Counterfeit wisdom promotes strife, rivalry, envy, conflict and disorder. True wisdom increases in proportion to our reverence and devotion to the Lord.

Apart from gaining a heart of wisdom that is continually learning from the Lord and growing in His wisdom, we need to learn continually and grow in stature. In physical terms, once we have done our growing by the age of eighteen, we should focus on maintaining our fitness and health and improving thereon in whatever way we can. We should grow intellectually by learning as much as we can about our chosen domain or field of study or profession. We should grow socially in terms of our relationships with our fellow beings, reaching out to help the needy and disadvantaged as Jesus did through His earthly sojourn and to this day.
Finally, education implies that we should win the favour of the Lord and grow in terms of spiritual intelligence. The Lord marvels at the extent of our faith and how we apply our faith in our everyday life and in confronting challenges. We need to increasingly depend on His grace or enablement and empowerment. We seek the seven -fold anointing of Jesus that Isaiah prophesied about: the spirit of God, the spirit of wisdom and knowledge and understanding, the spirit of might, the spirit of counsel and the fear of the Lord. We should obtain and exercise both spiritual gifts and spiritual fruit through our intimacy with the Holy Spirit. Being spiritual does not mean we cut off ourselves from our fellow beings but increasingly relate to them and influence them in a positive way. We learn to manage our conflicts and resolve our differences in an amicable way without anger or violence. We manifest or bear practical witness of all the above traits or qualities of Jesus to all of our associates- spiritual wisdom, continual learning and development, the grace of the Lord and the approval of our fellow beings.