What Is Classical Christian Education?

“Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.”
(Psalm 111:2)

Joy

One of the mottos that that you will hear if you visit BCS is nascatur in admiratione: “Let them be born in wonder.” We want students to experience heartfelt joy as they encounter the true, good, and beautiful things that God has built into the world around them. We intend for this joy to flow primarily from the wonderful things they are learning (rather than from the occasional ice-cream party, though ice-cream parties are wonderful, too). Psalm 111:2 assumes that humans will delight in many aspects of creation and history, and we aim to direct that delight toward the loveliest and noblest features of God’s world from junior kindergarten to twelfth grade.

Study

When we delight and wonder at something, our natural impulse is to study it, and Psalm 111:2 affirms this truth. We desire not only that students delight in the good things of the world around them but that they come to know them deeply, to recognize them in relation to other good things, and to join understanding to their joy. It turns out that, as we learn more about God’s world, we find more delightful layers of truth. We discover things that Psalm 111 calls “full of splendor and majesty” (v. 3), “wonderous” (v. 4), powerful (v. 6), and “just” (v. 7), leading us back again to greater joy.

God

In addition to generating joy, the study described in Psalm 111:2 leads naturally to the conclusion that the wonderful works we see in God’s world are, in fact, God’s works. Creation and history bear the fingerprints of God’s sovereign, creative, instructive, and merciful character, and we aim to direct students to see all that is good and perfect in this world as coming from the hand of God (James 1:17) and, therefore, as one more avenue by which God may be known. Woven throughout Psalm 111 are some of the character qualities that are evident when we study God’s works in our world: God is discovered to be righteous (v. 3), “gracious and merciful” (v. 4), and “holy and awesome” (v. 9). We want students to see these attributes of God and not to miss the fact that God has designed his works with the purpose of revealing himself to us.

Praise

The response that we have when we discover that the beautiful things in our world are the handiwork of God is to lift our voices to God in praise. Psalm 111 begins and ends with wholehearted and eternal praise of God for all that we discover of him through his work in the world: “Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart!” (v. 1) “His praise endures forever!” (v. 10) The God who made and rules our world is worthy of praise, and we call students daily to join their voices to the chorus of all creation in praise of God!

Change

Finally, as we grow in our knowledge and worship of God through his works, we are changed. Psalm 111 describes people who recognize that God is trustworthy (v. 7), who resolve to obey him with “faithfulness and uprightness” (v. 8), and who practice the fear of the Lord (v. 10). The end goal of our instruction at BCS not merely for students to grow in knowledge but for them to be transformed increasingly into the image of Christ. As we are so transformed, we find ourselves taking greater delight both in God and in his works, leading us back to the joy with which the journey of classical Christian education begins.

Next time someone asks you, "What is classical Christian education at BCS all about?" just tell him:
Joy, Study, God, Praise, Change . . . like Psalm 111 says.