Unintentional Sin and the Power of Principles
When I was in high school there was a teacher that had a really strange rule in his classroom. He had a small patch of green shag carpet that sat next to his desk that stood out like a sore thumb. This piece of carpet was verboten in the strongest sense. You were not allowed to touch it, step on it, and he didn’t even want you to look at it....
...I never understood why, nor did anyone. He did not talk about it, explain it, or anything like that. If you crossed the boundary, you would be sent to the office or ISS, and somehow he had support from the administration.
This got me thinking about GCCA’s approach to ‘classroom rules’ and how we train the students to think more from a principled perspective. As you might have realized, GCCA does not have a lot of rules per se, but instead we operate under a few biblical principles: be wise, think more highly of others than you think of yourself, obey right away, all the way, and with a joyful heart. We use the term “principles” often, and perhaps we fail to properly define this word. It then becomes a simple buzzword, but it is crucial to understand how Grace utilizes this concept. It has been defined as such,
The power of principles is that they are universal, timeless truths. If we understand and live our lives based on principles, we can quickly adapt; we can apply them anywhere. By teaching our children principles instead of practices, or teaching them the principles behind the practices, we better equip them to handle the unknown challenges of the moment. By understanding the principles we are able to meet the challenges of the moment more effectively and we are also better equipped to meet the thousands of challenges of the future as well (author unknown).
It is of the highest priority that we establish biblical principles for our students. These principles are the boundary lines, the guide rails as we train them in righteousness. Consider the biblical command to be wise. God does not dole out exhaustive lists of rules, but gives us principles to apply to our lives in a whole manner of different ways.
Often we carry this notion of falling into sin. The truth is, we are fallen into sin. Anything that we do, apart from the work of Christ, is sin. A few questions from the Westminster Shorter Catechism appropriately address this concept;
Q14. What is sin?
Sin is disobeying or not conforming to God's law in any way.
Q16. Did all mankind fall in Adam's first disobedience?
Since the covenant was made not only for Adam but also for his natural descendants, all mankind sinned in him and fell with him in his first disobedience.
Q17. What happened to man in the fall?
Man fell into a condition of sin and misery.
Q18. What is sinful about man's fallen condition?
The sinfulness of that fallen condition is twofold. First, in what is commonly called original sin, there is the guilt of Adam's first sin with its lack of original righteousness and the corruption of his whole nature. Second are all the specific acts of disobedience that come from original sin.
As a teacher dealing with discipline in the classroom, I have heard countless times: “...but Mr. Taylor, I didn’t know.” This is an understandable response and one that I might even be inclined to believe (most of the time…some of the time). Here is the simple truth. We as Christians do not know. We must be shown...guided...rebuked and instructed so that we may know.
This is where the biblical notion of unintentional sin becomes so vital to understanding the mission of parents, churches, and schools like ours in training students in righteousness.
Leviticus 5:17, “If anyone sins, doing any of the things that by the Lord’s commandments ought not to be done, though he did not know it, then realizes his guilt, he shall bear his iniquity.
I would like to briefly unpack this verse. The first thing that sticks out to me is the notion of God’s sovereignty. How might one come to realize their guilt? How do we get out of this condition of sin and misery? Only through God’s faithfulness and promises to His people. In the context of the classroom, God reveals these things constantly to teachers, and the teachers get to go there with students, especially when the students ‘don't know.’
“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” Romans 10:14
We as Christians are prone to wander, to push the boundaries, but God is faithful to draw our sin to the top so that it may be dealt with. Practically speaking, this means that the students will not always know what the standards are or how they have failed to apply the biblical command to be wise. Of course, we certainly make it a priority to train the students in the standards and to take the time to explain why, but we also recognize that God ordains opportunities where we have not yet trained the students in the full scope of righteousness. This is equally God carrying out his promises. These moments are an important part of our sanctification.
Likewise, this is a lesson that must be learned to be successful in this world, inside or outside of the school. One analogy that comes to mind is of a young kid who touches a hot stove. Perhaps no one told them it was hot, is the stove unfair? “Listen, stove, you didn’t properly lay out the ground rules.” Yea, that's not how all of this works. It is a lesson that will not be soon forgotten and must be learned either the hard way, or the easy(ier) way. The world is full of hot stoves, and it is vital for the student to understand that there are all kinds of consequences for all kinds of actions.
In God’s kindness, however, there is opportunity for the students to learn these hard truths outside of noticeable danger, with relatively minor consequences...if we are faithful to hold them to it and not be swayed by paper-thin excuses.
So, next time you hear your kid say, “I didn’t know…”, say, “That’s great! Let me show you,” before he learns the lesson from the stove.
By Joshua Taylor, GCCA Headmaster