Rooted: the Goal of Christian Education

Through Christian Education- at School or at Home- We Can Help Our Students Grow Deep Roots of Faith

Colossians 2:5-7

For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Is this passage not great for both teaching in general and also the distance learning that may be necessary due to COVID? The 2020-2021 school year brings a first to many educators: they must launch the school year without physically being in the presence of some or all of their students.  But, like Paul, though absent from their students in the body, they are certainly present in spirit, praying for the young lives they will interact with and, Lord willing, impact permanently for the Kingdom.  

Whether together in person, or learning together from a distance, the Christian educator’s desire is the same: that students would be rooted and built up in Christ, their faith strengthened as a result of the instruction they receive.  

This idea of being rooted in Christ seemed to be very simplistic to me at first glance.  We all know roots anchor a tree to the ground and help it “drink” the water it needs to survive.  Those ideas alone hold many correlations to a Christian’s being rooted in Christ.  He is our anchor, the One who holds us through all of life’s ups and downs. Similarly, his Living Water is the drink that sustains us and allows us to walk through life faithfully.  

I suspected that there may be more to this idea of being rooted in Christ, though, because as I continue to mature in my faith, I find that many of the ideas found in Scripture that seem simplistic actually hold beautiful depth and interesting implications for the believer’s walk.  So, I dug a little deeper and learned a few interesting things about roots that can perhaps help us grow even more in our faith.  

One of the first interesting facts I found is that an oak tree can take in up to 50 gallons of water through its roots each day.  Fifty gallons sounds like a lot, but really, I have no idea what that means, so I looked for a few comparisons.  I can sort of picture 50 gallon jugs of milk.  That seems more than I can see at one time in my grocery store’s milk cooler. A 55-gallon fish tank is roughly 50”x23”x15”.  50” is the size of an average 8 year old.  50 gallons can also be converted to 417 pounds.  400 pounds!  Ok, that is a number I understand.  50 gallons is a LOT of water to take in each day!  

How does that apply to us? If we think about Jesus being our Living Water, we can use the root analogy to indicate just how much of Jesus we need each day.  Not a little swig.  50 gallons of Living Water.  It reminds me of the quote from Kisses from Katie that says, “All I need today is a little bit of coffee and a whole lot of Jesus.”  Like 417 pounds worth.  

A whole LOT of Jesus!  And maybe some coffee, too. We are educators, after all.   

Interestingly, although some plants can take in a lot of water like the oak tree, others like tomato plants need a quite specific amount of water.  In fact, overwatering a tomato plant will lead to problems like stunted growth, lots of leaves but no fruit, and even yellow or brown and dry leaves. In other words, when you overwater a tomato plant, you’ll have what looks like growth (lots of leaves), but no fruit, which is the purpose of growing a tomato plant.  

Bearing fruit is likewise one of the believer’s main purposes.  Galatians 5:22-25 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”  

I find it interesting to think about what bearing leaves but not fruit might look like in a person's life.  What comes to mind for me is the believer with lots of head knowledge of the Bible.  They know all their points of doctrine, and they can “win” a debate, but this may be done without the fruit that is the true evidence of the Spirit’s work in his or her life.  

It’s only through transformative relationship with the Savior that the believer is changed from the inside out, demonstrating true love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  

Let’s face it: a person with lots of “leaves” of head knowledge, but with little or none of the “fruit” that shares the love of Christ, is not a fun person to spend time with.  Further, bearing leaves but no fruit is detrimental to that believer because they may think they have an effective Christian life, but in reality they are missing out on the wonderful benefits and beauty of a vibrant relationship with Jesus.  

Perennial plants actually store energy in their roots.  We reap the benefits of this process when we eat vegetables like carrots, turnips and beets. Storing energy (think food) in their roots allows these plants to survive a long winter and grow year after year. Anyone who has walked with the Lord for a while will likely tell you that they have gone through spiritual dry spells in their life.  Even David, a man after God’s own heart, writes about dry spells in his walk with the Lord.  Psalm 63:1 says, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”  

In order to survive these dry spells or periods when God feels far away or the Christian walk feels long and difficult, the believer must have stored up energy, or spiritual “food”, in his or her roots.  One way we can do this is by reminding ourselves of God’s faithfulness in our lives and the times in which we knew without a doubt that he was moving in our midst, much like the Israelites did when stacking stones of remembrance as found in Joshua 4.   

These ideas about roots certainly have implications for us as believers, but as educators, I know we’re also always thinking about ways what we’ve learned can apply to our students. In addition to sharing the principles above with our students and keeping them in mind while attempting to impart biblical wisdom to them, there are a few more facts about roots we should keep in mind.  

When a seed is first planted, there is not much growth happening that you can see.  If you’re planting a tree, it actually takes a few years for you to see much of any growth above the ground.  The main growth takes place in the roots, anchoring the new plant and beginning to take in the water and nutrients necessary for growth.  And at this point, we’re just talking about growth period.  

If we’re thinking about bearing fruit, we’ll have to wait even longer.  

Banana trees, for instance, take 10-15 months to bear fruit.  Avocado trees typically take five years.  And oak trees don’t bear fruit until they’re approximately 20 years old. In other words, it can take a very long time for a tree to bear fruit.  

As educators we should recognize that the seeds we’re planting may be growing roots for a long time without any visible evidence of growth.  

And seeing spiritual fruit may even take much longer.  

In Luke 4, Jesus quotes Isaiah 61.  Interestingly, though he doesn’t quote this part of the passage, the section Jesus quotes goes on to say that those impacted by his ministry “will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.” If we think of our students becoming mighty “oaks of righteousness”, we should recognize that it takes a very long time- as much as 20 years- to bear fruit.  

This brings to mind Galatians 6:9.  “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”  Let’s remind ourselves and each other that the “proper time” in which we’ll see a harvest may be a long time from now!  Let’s not become discouraged, but instead persist in this great work to which we’ve been called.

Through Christian Schooling- Homeschooling or Private Education- We Can Help Instill Lasting Faith in Our Kids

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