Pride in School

Pride in School              

by Esther Vandiver

What should we teach our students to feel towards their school?  Should we teach them to be proud that their parents send them to a private school?  Should we teach them to boast about the caliber of teachers we have at GCA?  Or perhaps we should train them to feel superior because they are able to get a classical education!

If we gain students in this school and teach them to act properly, think logically, and speak eloquently but fill them with pride—a fault so insidious that it parades as a virtue while devastating everything it touches—then we have done them a great disservice.  I Corinthians 13 says that if we have all knowledge, the ability to speak like angels, and even a willingness to appear holy but do not have love, it is worse than worthless.  I Corinthians 1:28-31 says, “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.  He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’

Instead of pride, I hope the students in this school are grateful for the opportunity God has given them and grow to love learning about all the subjects over which God is the Lord.  I hope they learn to truly love their teachers and fellow students.  And most of all I pray they love and glorify the God who takes regular people like you and like me and works His wonders!  Together, may we grow in unity in this love of God and each other, beginning even now to enjoy our Heavenly Father forever!