Enjoying God in Every Aspect of Our Culture

Dear Veritas Families,

We are thankful to God for a great start of a new academic year! This year, we are particularly excited about the theme of “creating a Paideia culture.” Paideia is the word “discipline” or “training” in the verse “Fathers, train up your children in the instruction and discipline of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). A complete education begins with instruction (a Christ-centered knowledge) and ends with training or disciplining the student to live out a Christ-honoring and Christ-enjoying life in every aspect of his or her culture.

It is this theme that we meditated on at the Secondary Spiritual Retreat this past weekend at the Oak Glen Christian Conference Center. We found out we were only the second group to use this beautiful, fully renovated retreat center after the covid period. We had the whole place to ourselves, the food was amazing, the camp staff was so kind, and our students and teachers really bonded with one another and with God.

I shared about how God created culture, and instituted every aspect of culture, such as family, children, work, rest, language, worship, all of it before Adam and Eve sinned. In other words, God expects us to enjoy God more fully through these various aspects of culture. Yes, Adam sinned, and sin affects every aspect of our culture. But in Christ, every aspect of culture can be restored, or become even better than Eden.

In particular, I talked about the restoration of our families, restoration of rest, and restoration of building the city. Regarding the restoration of rest, I talked about how in Christ, we can redeem time, space, and matter, since God created all of them (cf. Gen. 1:1). Regarding time, we need to take time off to enjoy God, particularly together with other loved ones. Regarding space, we need to visit places and travel to places to experience God more fully. Regarding matter, we need to balance contemplative life with active life, and working with our hands with working with our minds. So, we are looking forward to an academic year where we are more intentional about enjoying God in every aspect of our culture. And what better way to start that year than at a beautiful retreat center with friends and teachers!