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[Music] The Student Christian, a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. In a very real sense, education has been America's religion. Horace Mann, who was the father of our public school system, saw our schools as our chief millennial hope.

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John Dewey, the philosophical architect of American education, saw education as essentially religious in nature. And Henry Steele Cominger, one of our great historians, wrote these words, "From the first, education was the American religion. It was and is in education that we put our faith. It is our schools and colleges that are the peculiar objects of public largesse and private benefaction.

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Even in architecture, we proclaim our devotion, building schools like cathedrals." Now, to the Christian, a notion like that is at the least absurd and at the most blasphemous. The prevailing idea that it is education which will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf and give comfort to the afflicted and offer mobility to the crippled,

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that idea counters the teaching of scripture that it's Jesus Christ who redeems. And the Christian, therefore, refuses to accept such a notion. The Christian rubric is scripture and not the three R's. It's the word of God and not the words of men.

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Salvation is to be found not in a school, but in a Savior. It is imperative, therefore, that the Christian go to Christ when he or she goes to school. At precisely that time, when the student Christian is surrounded by false faiths or the absence of faith, the student Christian's eyes must be firmly focused on Jesus, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.

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Now, the temptation not to do this is very awesome. In accordance with our national commitment to freedom and equality, our society accentuates the lowest common denominator in education. Ultimate matters are ignored because they promote deep differences between people.

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The emphasis in our schools is on the non-debatable. Basic beliefs and values are overlooked precisely because they may be offensive to others. The important thing seems to be to produce packaged, inspected, and certified little Americans who will never be tempted to upset the national apple cart.

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Take, for example, a subject like sex education. The basics of marriage, its spiritual roots, are never discussed in such classes in our schools. Why? Because such a discussion might very well lead to radical differences within the school. So, we teach instead the lowest common denominator, which might be called a course on sexual mechanics.

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Now, is it any wonder that students come to see marriage in terms of sex and only of sex under such a system? A Christian view of marriage is altogether ignored in our public schools, just as the religious views of any other faith are. In the name of tolerance, a new kind of intolerance is practiced whereby no spiritual truth whatever may be announced. Now, in a context like that, it is crucial that the student Christian walk in Christ.

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It's in the valley of the shadow that the presence of the shepherd must be most practiced. And that brings me to what I want to share with you now. Scriptural guidelines to be followed by the student Christian. I've derived these guidelines from the books of 1st and 2nd Timothy in the New Testament.

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Timothy, of course, was a younger New Testament Christian. He received some correspondence from an older, more experienced Christian. And this correspondence is included in our New Testament. And from it, I would like to select and comment upon certain injunctions which it seems to me are appropriate to the student Christian.

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Now, for purposes of remembering, I'm not going to note these passages in the same order in which they appear in Scripture. Instead, I have arranged them in a way that I think can be more easily remembered and utilized. And my prayer is that this effort will help Jesus be always in your heart and in your mind, especially as you involve yourself in the educational process.

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The first reference to which I would go is in 2nd Timothy, the second chapter at the 15th verse. There the word of God says, "Do your best to win full approval in God's sight as a worker who is not to be ashamed of his work." Now, I would not want any words of mine tonight to be conceived of as anti-intellectual. There are some today, even Christians, who are persuaded that knowledge is contrary to faith.

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Now, that is a heresy. It's a false teaching and it ought to be so called. It is true that we are not saved by what we know. That's quite true. But it's also true that we are not saved by what we don't know. Scripture places no special premium on either brilliance or ignorance.

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But Scripture does teach us in both Testaments and from the lips of our Lord himself, that we are to love God with all our heart, our mind, and our bodies. Every dimension of the self is to be given over to our Lord, not just that from the chin down. The Christian, in whatever walk is his, is to do his best to gain God's approval.

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And for the student, this means very simply and obviously that you are to study hard and devote yourself to learning, to so apply your mind to the educational process that God will bless you and your work. Now, notice that there is this double emphasis in the verse.

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We are to do our best to gain God's approval as a worker on the one hand and as one who is not ashamed of the work he's doing on the other hand. In other words, we're to study and to learn and we're to make sure that what we study and learn is good. It's somewhat of an oversimplification for me to say this, but I'll say it anyway.

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It's essentially accurate to describe American education today as being of two types. One type emphasizes the freedom of the student. Let the student do whatever she wants to, let her progress be at her own pace. The function of a teacher is simply to stimulate the student, but the student moves in accordance with her desire.

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The second type of education emphasizes the ideal of comprehensive knowledge. You put the curriculum before the student. You put great emphasis on the content. You force feed facts and concepts. Now, this first type, which exalts the student, lifts up human personality.

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The second type, which exalts the curriculum, lifts up human reason. One sacrifices the curriculum to the student. The other sacrifices the student to the curriculum. But each type, whether you're focusing on the student or the guy who thinks up the curriculum, each type is humanistic.

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It is built on human accomplishment. And to this degree, it is sub-Christian. For the Christian, the heart of education is the education of the heart. It is the pursuit of wisdom, of the truth of God.

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Wisdom that directs conduct. Wisdom that gives worthy goals. Wisdom that gives guidance in confronting the perils of life. Wisdom that leads to behavior which fits a man for the service of Christ. That is, wisdom is not only facts gained, but facts gained in a way that leads to the glory of God,

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and facts gained that are themselves God-glorifying. We do not learn for learning's sake, but for the sake of godly living. A college president was showing off the Department of Religion in his school of medicine. And in the course of his showing this off, he said,

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"We have found here in our school that the soul and the body live so close together in us that they catch each other's diseases. So 70% of our medical students take courses in religion." Now what that college president was saying was this, though he might not have recognized it as he said it,

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"Out of the heart are the issues of life." If you want the same thing in a negative sense, I would refer you to a colonel in the military who was in charge of testing weapons. He said to a visiting clergyman, and I quote him directly,

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"I know about atomic fission, but not about my family. I can control a bomb, but I can't control my own boy. My PhD means phenomenally dumb because my soul has not caught up with my brain." What he's saying is, "Out of the heart are the issues of life."

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You see, heart learning is wisdom. And this college president from a positive perspective and this military technician from a negative perspective are both affirming the necessity of that kind of wisdom.

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So the student Christian is to work hard and to study hard to gain wisdom so that both the student and what he learns are blessed of God. Now I want to make a comment about this which is very practical and basic. That which is wise lives a long time.

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It has to do with ultimate truth. Therefore, beware of education which advertises itself as exciting or relevant. It rarely lasts very long. Exciting is not a synonym for interesting.

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In excitement, time and thought pass in a hurry, as in a blur. But in moments of deep interest, time passes slowly. Every minute is treasured. Now it may climax in excitement, but the climax comes out of calm and meditation.

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A symphony that was scored only for kettle drums and cymbals would be, if you'll excuse the pun, a crashing bore. So learn the value in drudgery and discipline. These place demands on you, but they force growth and real learning.

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You're called upon to do something when you take on the tough subject. And that's what you ought to be doing. Engaged in serious work, not just subjecting your apathy to some kind of academic electrode that's going to get you excited for a little while.

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What you learn by hard work and diligent effort will not always be immediately relevant. But if your education is going to stand or fall on the basis of its immediate relevance, then your schedule of studies is going to resemble a weather vane in a hurricane.

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Your learning will be the assimilation of a kind of weekly journal published by aging PhDs. What I'm saying is you should forsake the fantasy of instant utility. Give yourself to studies that are of perpetual value because they deal with final truth. They'll force you to work hard, yes.

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You may forget the details of history or of chemistry or of philosophy, but from the study of them you will gain a lifelong perspective. You will gain a sharper mind. You will gain a sense of values. If all you learn is how to run your real estate office better

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or how to make ice cream better than your competitor, well, when you forget those details, you will have forgotten everything. So focus on that which gives you a life, not just a living. Study to gain God's approval both of yourself and of what you take the time to learn.

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Now a second reference. In 1 Timothy, the sixth chapter, at the 20th verse, 1 Timothy 6.20, we come across these words, "Avoid the profane talk and foolish arguments of what some people wrongly call knowledge." Now this same thought is echoed in 2 Timothy, chapter 2, at verse 6, where it says,

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"Keep away from profane and foolish discussions which openly drive people away from God." Or again, it's 2 Timothy, the fourth chapter, in the third verse, where it says, "Avoid teachers that tell their students what they are itching to hear." That is, to seek to titulate their students or to gratify them.

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Now to understand the full meaning of these references, you need to be aware of a situation which prevailed at the time of their writing. There was in that day a philosophical school called the academics. And their idea was that by the use of logical arguments,

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you could arrive at any conclusion you wanted to. There was no such thing as absolute truth. There were equal and opposite hypotheses at which you could arrive using the same facts. You could prove anything.

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Therefore, they argued, since you could prove anything, the smart course was not to try to prove anything, but to keep yourself in a state of suspended judgment. In other words, don't do anything.

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Keep everything in the realm of the uncertain, since nothing was certain anyway. Now the young man Timothy is advised in these passages before us to stay away from that kind of dialectical gamesmanship. "Don't give yourself up," the writer to him said,

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"to cleverness without commitment. Don't yield to the deceptive pleasure of subjective self-indulgence." That's a very wise word of counsel 2,000 years ago and still today. Because there's much profane and foolish argument in our schools today,

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and the student Christian ought to avoid it. Now permit me to give you three illustrations of what I'm talking about, one having to do with content, one on context, and one on contact. First with regard to content.

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Beware of the teacher or of the fellow student who mixes the elements of life in unrealistic and irresponsible ways. If I said to you, for example, that Joseph Stalin was a great humanitarian or that Farrah Fawcett Majors is an absolute hag,

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you would know that I'm a lunatic or a liar. The data that you receive objectively through your senses makes a judgment of that kind patently absurd. But suppose that I'm dealing with some fictitious character of my own invention,

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someone I've just thought up. And I tell you about this John Doe. I tell you that he's a sex deviant, that he's brutal to his family, that he is a thief and a murderer, but that he eats well and sleeps well,

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that he's raised three fine children who worship him, that he worked diligently for the Peace Corps and set a great example of sacrifice to all those who knew him. Now you see, I can draw a picture of a totally perverse person

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and then I can mix virtue in with his vice any way I want to because it's all in my imagination. A mixture like that is completely impossible in real life. Now beware of people who when they seek to teach you

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or to engage in discussion with you will try to make villains into heroes and good people into boars. They tell you about prostitutes who are very much full of compassion and on the other hand of faithful husbands who are nothing but stupid.

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A lot of individuals you see creating these fictitious characters will tie together elements that are never present one with the other in real life. Unrealistic imagined characters and situations are distorted by these people to suit their arguments.

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Insist on sticking to the facts. Avoid twisting rationalizations which make the faith look bad. That's a distortion of content. It's false argument and it drives some people away from God.

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You find it especially in classes that have to do with the arts because it's so readily available as a form of argument there. Or here's an illustration that has to do with context. Beware of discussion groups

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whether they're in fraternity rap sessions or in classrooms. Most discussion groups are meandering exchanges of ill-expressed opinions. I know it's very fashionable to sneer at the lecture as a type of teaching. You see a lecture has order.

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A lecture has connection. A lecture demands preparation. Didactic energy is expended which is utterly absent from a guy who just kind of wanders in and talks off the top of his head.

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I know discussion groups are very popular but in the long run their return is very poor. Built on tolerance, they do not demand excellence. They do not demand preparation.

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They do not demand accuracy. There's none of that pressure which is what you'll be under when you're producing out in the real world. Oh, they're very pleasant and very formless

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and you'll be listened to whether you deserve to be listened to or not and it's very flattering. It's what people are itching to do. But as a learning technique and as a life preparation

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it is often very foolish and very profane and it leads to a false knowledge which is not knowledge and I think as time goes by you discover that. And one last illustration from the area of contact.

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Beware of the lifting up of the subjective. That which is without any contact with objective truth. See there are some in the academic world today who say that you have the right to make up your own mind

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about absolutely everything, to determine worth and values of that thing simply on the basis of your own opinion. Now that is a subtle kind of atheism.

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It's the argument that reality is defined only by the self. It's to make yourself God and to build the world the way you want to build it. You make all the rules. Now granted it's very important that you know yourself

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but beware of that kind of knowledge because it leads to pride and to presumption and to the denial of other people. Look at the so-called modern in art.

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Now let it be openly announced and agreed that it's very important that we have modern art. There has to be a growing edge to art. Some people who are going beyond the common

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in attempts to reach new dimensions of truth. But let us not forget either that there are those who flee the common in order to avoid the truth,

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in order to avoid the rules that are designed to convey truth. Some people paint pictures which are difficult to understand because they are so profound. Other people paint pictures that are difficult to understand

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because they're so poor. You see there are some who lack both a talent and a reverence for truth. There have to be two dimensions to a work of art. A subjective dimension and an objective dimension.

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What is in the artist's mind but also is the person who looks at this piece of art or listens to it going to be blessed by it, going to receive something for it.

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For an artist to despise someone who's not able to understand his pictures is both prideful and pernicious. His art doesn't advance truth,

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it conceals it. What he's doing you see is making his mind the measure of everything. And that's a dangerous process.

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So watch out for arguments, watch out for discussions, watch out for academic exercises which invite expression without responsibility.

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They may satisfy itching ears, they may gratify by giving you an opportunity for self-indulgence, but truth is truth. And it's truth which gives wisdom and blesses the heart.

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Truth involves honest content and the imparting of genuine information in a real context. What I'm saying is what the scriptures say. Avoid foolish arguments

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that some people wrongly call knowledge. A third point. In 1 Timothy chapter 4 at verse 14 we read, "Do not neglect the spiritual gift that is in you."

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That's echoed in 2 Timothy chapter 1 at verse 16 where it says, "Keep alive the gift that God gave you." The Apostle Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 12 that all Christians are given gifts by the Holy Spirit.

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That's a badge of faith. Not everybody has the same gifts, not everybody has the same number of gifts, but all Christians have at least one gift.

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Now what is a gift? A gift is a talent which is especially anointed by God. You hear one person speak and they do an excellent job,

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they're very talented in public speaking. You hear another person speak and your mind is challenged and your heart is moved.

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You're different because of what you heard. In the first instance you have heard a talented speaker. In the second instance you have heard a gifted speaker. Specifically gifted in this instance with the gift of prophecy

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or the gift of teaching. Timothy here is being encouraged to discover the gifts he has, the talents he has that God has specially anointed. He is supposed to develop them.

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And every Christian needs that same encouragement. The sad fact is that most Christians are not aware of their gifts. How many times have you heard a person lament their walk in life? They don't feel good about their job,

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they don't have a sense of being in the right place at the right time. Usually this is because they're out of touch with their gifts. I've heard students say many times, "Well, I'd like to work with people."

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Which is fine. But if you're not going to develop your gifts to discover whether you're a healer or a teacher or whatever gift has been given to you,

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then that response is too general. It has about it no specificity. You won't get anywhere just talking about being with people. And unhappiness results.

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And not only unhappiness, but sin also. Because if you deny the gifts that God has given you, you're denying part of the Holy Spirit's ministry to you. The Holy Spirit, you see, works the miracle of creation in every believer.

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He broods over the dark in your life and brings out light, brings order out of chaos. And that order is the gift or the gifts that he has imparted to you for God's service.

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And to deny that, well, that's wrong. So do not neglect the scriptures say, the spiritual gift that is in you. Work on your gift.

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Discover it and develop it. Now that task is not easy. If it were easy, well, then it wouldn't require any faith and it wouldn't require any work

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and it wouldn't require any dependence on God and it wouldn't require any dependence on others. And all of those things are necessary if you're going to find and develop your gifts.

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Now this is a very big subject, one in which we can only touch, but let me list a few ways in which you can discover and develop your gifts.

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First, study the list of gifts in the scriptures which appear in Corinthians and Ephesians. And as you study, pray. Ask God to make his will known

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and to make it so clearly evident that you can't miss it. Now remember that in the Bible, part of prayer is always action. So when you pray, you don't stop there.

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You go on to do some other things. Second thing you can do is to read about and to meditate on the lives of the great saints,

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the great personalities of the history of the faith. You will find people there who are very much like yourself. Read Christian biography. Note the methods of others.

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See the process of discovery they went through and then echo that, imitate that in your own life. Third, involve yourself in activities where you can try your gifts in non-threatening ways.

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Did you know that some of the greatest inventions of all time started out as toys? A person invested a lot of creative energy in a toy. Now the reason he did it in a toy is because if it didn't work well,

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then all that we lost was a toy. It's very easy, you see, to invest yourself in something which is not threatening. Alright, do that with your gifts.

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Play with your gifts. If you think, for example, you might have the gift of teaching, get into a few situations where you can run the risk of teaching without embarrassing yourself or embarrassing others.

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Try it out in some simple, not complex situation. This brings me very logically to another suggestion. Become a part of a group that's seeking to discover and develop its gifts. Get together with some other Christians on campus.

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Meditate on your gifts. Pray for one another in this regard. Eric Hoffer, the philosopher, has said that he was greatly influenced by a Bavarian maid he had when he was a child.

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This maid used to say to him all the time, "You remember when you said this?" or "You remember when you did this?" She said it so often that he began to think that some of the things he did

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were rather memorable. It gave him a sense of worth. Well, when you focus on another person in your group, when you pray for them and begin to encourage them,

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that leads people to a sense of self-worth and to the discovery of gifts. Another thing, suggestion number five, learn to innovate and to be creative. Remember, when you start to try to find your gift, you're rejecting the status quo.

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We live in a society which applauds those who successfully repeat themselves and only tolerates those who launch out into the deep. Please turn your cassette to the other side. We're much more ready to accept people who just do the same thing over and over again

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than the guy who really tries something different. If you aggressively seek and promote your gifts, you're going to come into tension with some of the things around you. You're going to trample on some stereotypes.

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That's another reason why it's important to be part of a group where you can be encouraged when the criticism comes. One last suggestion, learn to focus. As you discover your gifts, other things are going to have to go.

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I mean, some doors are going to close even as other doors open. You are not going to be able to do everything. There's no room for straddling here. You become aware of this more and more.

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There is a cost to discovering your gifts. Make no mistake about it. To seek out and to utilize your gifts, it's a lifelong task. It's a deep commitment.

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But it's the way you become God's man or woman in a very special sense. You wrestle with the angel as Jacob did. And it's a hard fight. And you'll be crippled in the fight.

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You won't be able to run away as easily as you used to be able to run away. But your name will be changed just like Jacob's was. And a new life will open out to you. And glorious will be the opening of it.

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So keep alive the gift that God gave you. Now a fourth major emphasis. In 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 22 we read, "Take no part in the sin of others.

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Keep yourself pure." This is echoed in 2 Timothy chapter 2 where it says, "Avoid the passions of youth and strive for right living." Sin is a big subject.

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I could talk about it all night. I have a Ph.D. in it. But we don't have the time to explore it now. So I just want to focus on one sin.

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And I focus on this particular sin for two reasons. First of all, because it's a sin that's focused on in these letters to Timothy. The older Christian writing to young Tim thought this sin was worthy of special note. And since I'm urging you to accept the counsel of this older Christian,

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I'm going to note the same sin. Second, this is a sin which is especially prevalent today and is usually overlooked. And maybe things were the same in the first century and that's the reason it was mentioned then. In any case, the sin that I'm speaking about is this one.

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Wanting to be rich. I choose a single reference from Timothy as illustration. 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 9. "Those who get rich fall into temptation."

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Now it's very important to notice a distinction here. It is not sinful to be rich. What is being held up as an especially dangerous temptation, a sin that you're warned about,

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is wanting to be rich. Hungering after money. I asked a student a few days ago why he was here and he replied, "It's the best way I know to prepare to make a lot of money."

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He typifies exactly the sin of which I'm speaking. And there are many about with exactly that mentality. Some people know they're this way and some haven't discovered they're this way. But it's a sinful attitude in either instance.

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See, there's nothing wrong with desiring to be a good businessman or a good teacher or an effective doctor. And if you are any of these things, you'll probably make a lot of money. That's not invariably so. In many instances, if you're good at what you are doing, you will be blessed with financial reward.

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There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is when you desire to become a doctor, not to make people well, but to make a lot of money doctoring. That's putting the profit before the patient.

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Or when you desire to be a teacher in order to make a lot of money teaching. That puts the profit instead of the pupil in the place of emphasis. When you desire to be a businessman just to make a pile at the expense of other people, that kind of attitude is the attitude that's being condemned.

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In the book of Proverbs, the 28th chapter we read, "If you are in a hurry to get rich, you are going to be punished." I think that's almost invariably true. And this mood is very much prevalent in contemporary education.

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And it's prevalent because of the tremendous influence which money making has had on our educational system. Alvin Toffler has a book which I suppose many of you have already encountered called Future Shock. And in it he points out that mass education in America was largely influenced by the growth of industrialism. I mean the whole idea of assembling masses of students is like assembling raw material.

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And it's processed by teachers who parallel the workers in a centrally located school which is like a factory. This kind of product you see is the result of industrial planning. Much of the administrative setup in schools today echoes the bureaucracy of business. Everything from the kind of decisions that are made with regard to curricula

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to having students move like machinery does when bells ring. All of it's designed, you see, to fit people into business-sized pigeonholes. The average high school graduate emerges from a school which resembles a factory. And he has not only learned what he needs to fit the needs of business,

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but he's been conditioned to a way of life whose goal and purpose is single, make a profit. Don't fall for that. Remember that the first step in battling any temptation is to be aware of the fact that you're confronted with a moral choice. Most people blunder through life without ever recognizing the moral quicksands in which they're walking.

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They have what Theodore Dreiser called an average little conscience which doesn't really have any moral struggle in it. I often think of that place in the Wartburg Castle in Germany where Martin Luther was tempted. He was hidden there for a while for his own safety, and he was so tempted of the devil that he threw an inkwell at him. If you go there and you're a tourist, they'll show you the ink spot on the wall.

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And you can sneer at that if you will, but I would point out that Martin Luther was so sensitive to the fact that he was being tempted that he could fight it. And what I'm urging you to do is to be so aware of the temptations toward a profit motive and a profit motive only in your process of education, to be so aware of that that you can battle it. Most people today are morally insensitive to their options.

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They take part in the sin of others blindly and carelessly. They don't keep themselves pure. And the student Christian's conduct is supposed to be the exact opposite of that. I've offered just a single illustration which is drawn from the passage.

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There are a multitude of other illustrations that could be advanced. We're all living in the midst of temptation. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." "Take no part in the sin of others."

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Now a fifth word from Timothy. And this is recorded in the first letter to Timothy, the fourth chapter of the twelfth verse. It says, "Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young. Be an example in speech, in faith, and in purity."

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Now here's an older Christian saying to a younger one, "Stand with Christ and with other Christians and do it openly in your speech and in your faith and in your way of living." Here is the call to debate those who are outside of Christ. And here is the call to demonstrate to those who are outside of Christ.

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"No single aspect of college life has surprised and disappointed me as much as the failure of students to talk, to state their ideas. I am regularly astonished by how hard it is to get students to articulate what they really believe and why. The lack of significant discussion and debate in the classroom is a tragic thing to behold." I find the same problem, of course, in other areas of life, but we're talking now about a strictly academic context.

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And I suggest to you that it's a great tragedy when it comes to matters of faith. Expressing your faith, you see, has three immediate results. First, when you articulate something, you clarify it. If you never say what you believe, then what you believe is going to continue to remain vague.

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If you don't talk about your convictions, then you'll have real difficulty in discovering what your convictions are. It's when you talk about your ideas that you begin to organize them. We often don't examine our attitudes because we never state them. Saying what you believe helps you know what you believe.

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Another thing, talking about your faith will strengthen your convictions. A lot of people fail to live what they believe because they don't remind themselves of what they believe and what they say. I mean, if the last time you expressed what you believed was in Sunday school, no wonder your Christian living is immature and weak. We need to talk about what we believe in order to build our spiritual muscle.

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I know a lot of people who are in responsible positions and have a very inadequate faith, and their faith is crippled because they've never articulated it, because they've never stated it. They've never been called upon to exercise it and defend it. Telling others why you feel as you do puts you under the gun.

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It calls you to account. It's running your flag up the mast. Strong witness makes for strong faith. Weak witness leads to weak faith. And finally, the third reason why you should articulate what you believe is that what you say is going to influence those who are about you. There's no question that the Christian faith is as much caught as it is taught.

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And when you state, know what you believe, and announce it, then you're teaching and reaching others. I don't know of a single campus where there aren't a lot of silent Christians who, because of their silence, are becoming weaker and letting other people drift away. The same thing can be said of any neighborhood of business you might want to mention. The greatest problems of our day are religious, moral, and ethical problems.

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And to witness to one's confidence in Christ and unity with other Christians is to speak to those issues. Silence isn't golden. Silence is brass. Therefore, do not be ashamed, we're told in Timothy, to be witnessing for the Lord. And, the writer goes on, don't let anyone look down on you because you are young.

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Now, this is not a plea for insolence and conceit. I mean, in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verses 1 and 2, it says that you are to treat your elders as your mothers and fathers. There is to be respect for elders always. Don't make the mistake, for example, of believing that you are on an intellectual level with your teachers.

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I think one of the most dangerous fictions of our time is the notion that teachers and students are exploring truth together and they're learning from each other. That's a cliché and it's very dangerous. It leads to lazy teaching on one hand and awfully conceited students on the other. I teach a course in religion and philosophy and I work very hard to remove my students' ignorance and to correct their mistakes and to prop up their judgments.

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And I would like to say this after a great deal of study. I have been teaching the course for three years and I have yet to hear any student in that course state a fact which I did not know or state a thought which was both true and original. Yes, it's true that both students and teachers are still learning. But this doesn't mean that they're equal or that they're at the same starting point.

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I do not consider the learning and the education of my students to be at the same level of myself. If it is, then somebody's getting ripped off and I'm not the one. Your teachers and elders ought to be treated with appropriate respect always. The fact of the matter is they're older than you.

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You may be a lot smarter and have a lot more native ability than they do, but in terms of that which has been learned, you're at the beginning of the road. But in the midst of your respect for what they have achieved, no matter how great or little that might be, your witness can still be spoken and demonstrated. What a tragedy it is when some student comes and tells me this or that was said in the classroom or this or that was said in the dorm or this or that was said in the fraternity or this or that was said in the rocker room. And when I asked them how they responded, they said they did or said nothing.

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They've been ashamed of Christ and of other Christians. They sit by while Christ's efforts or the efforts of his servants are belittled or ridiculed. Do not let anyone look down on your youth. Be an example in speech, that's debate, and in faith and purity, that's demonstration.

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And if you do this, then you come up against one last thing and this is the last thought I want to share. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 3, this word of counsel is given by the older Christian to the younger one. Take your part in suffering as a loyal soldier of Christ Jesus. The words are put in a slightly different sense in 2 Timothy 3.

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Everyone who wants to lead a godly life in Christ will be persecuted. Christians are the salt of the earth and salt smarts when it's put in decaying wounds. Jesus promised, if they persecute me, they will persecute you. If you do the things we've talked about tonight, if you study diligently and study that which is good, there are some people who will sneer at you.

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If you avoid profane and foolish arguments and waste time discussions, you will be seen by some people as a snob. If you work hard at developing your gifts, you will be criticized by some as being some kind of super-Christian. If you avoid the sins of others and keep yourself pure, there are some who will attack you as a goody-goody or a fag. If you bear witness in your words and in your deeds, there are those who will ridicule you for what you do.

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I can state this axiomatically because it's been going on for 2,000 years. In the face of it, you are called to loyalty. When a Roman soldier joined the Roman army, he took an oath of allegiance to the emperor. That oath was called a sacramentum.

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It's from that word that we get our word "sacrament." As a disciple of Christ, you are bound to him by oath, sacramentally. And that means you are loyal. Someone recorded a conversation between Marshal Fauche, the great general of the First World War, and an officer in his forces.

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Fauche said, "You must not retreat. Hold on at all costs." The officer said, "That means, sir, that we must die." And Fauche replied, "Precisely." Well, that's the plain, unvarnished truth of it.

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It's presented as clearly as I know how. The author of this epistle we're looking at tonight said, "Take your part in suffering as a loyal soldier of Jesus Christ." And the only comment that the Christian can make to that is, "Precisely." You no doubt have noticed that throughout the course of these remarks, I've referred to the student Christian and not to the Christian student.

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Have you thought about why? Because if you're a Christian, that's where your ultimate and basic allegiance is. The word "student" modifies "Christian," not "Christian" modifying "student." You are not, first of all, a student. You are, first of all, a Christian.

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It's His name that you bear. And what these words have been tonight is my attempt to help you live up to that name in the course of your education. O. Henry, the American short story writer, wasn't really named O. Henry. His real name was Sidney Porter. And early in his life, he was jailed for the crime of embezzlement.

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He had a guard in jail whose name was Oren Henry. So when he left prison, he left behind him his old name, which he had disgraced, and he took the name of the guard. And he wrote all of his famous short stories and lived the whole rest of his life under this guard's name. And the story is told that as he left the prison to begin this new life, that guard called to him and said,

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"Take good care of our name. Will you bear the name of Christ? That is a name hallowed, protected, exalted, and died for for twenty centuries. Take good care of it." Let us pray. Our Father, when it comes at us in all one great big load like this, it seems awfully heavy.

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But if it does nothing else, grant to us a sense of the seriousness of what we are about. Help us to know in our minds and in our hearts, to the very center of our souls, that cheap religion is worth exactly what it costs. Help us to know also that the riches of faith belong to those who seek in all they do and think and say,

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in whatever walk of life is theirs, to be loyal servants of Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we lift our prayer. Amen.