"Education with Force"

In one of our Wednesday night classes we are reading and discussing Thabiti Anyabwile’s What is a Healthy Church Member? (which I have commented on here previously). Last night we came to this quote which Anyabwile cited from Jay Adams:

“When we are baptized into the church, we thereby matriculate into Christ’s school. Then, for the rest of our earthly life, we are to be taught (not facts alone, but also) to obey the commands of Christ. This is education with force, education backed up by the discipline of good order that is necessary for learning to take place.”

That is a great quote getting at the heart of what it looks like to mature in the Christian life and the role of the church in that maturation. Many today talk about the lack of discipleship, but often people fail to realize the missing link is “education with force.” The church has mirrored many of our schools- the removal of discipline has made it impossible for real learning and formation to take place.