Renewal, Instruction, and Training in the "Paideia" of God's Way

Well, that is a hard act to follow, isn't it? That was so cute. You could tell some of them were really into that music. They were very nice. Good job, kids. We should all sing with the energy and passion that you had. So, very, very nice.

You know, as I was watching the young ones standing up there and thinking about them, and where many of us were at their ages, they live in a totally different world than we do, don't they? The things that we grew up with, they have no idea what the world was like back 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, and we don't really understand fully how they see the world through their eyes in this day and age here in the 21st century. But, you know, like all of them, we're the benefactors of many people who have gone before us who had vision and who had dreams and who had character and who had determination and the tenacity to see things through. You know, as we think of the world around us and those of us who have had the privilege of living a few decades, you know, can think back on times when we – how different things were back then. And every time we flip on a light switch, for instance – you know, we have all these lights all over this auditorium here – you know, somewhere back whenever, Thomas Edison had an idea that he would be able to create a light bulb, and Benjamin Franklin looked at the lightning in the sky and thought electricity could be captured. And both of them spent a lot of time and a lot of trial and error in making those things happen. But, you know, they never – I don't think they ever could imagine what was – what would be the end results of their inventions, if you will, that they really were revolutionizing the world with their ideas. And for a generation, after generation, after generation, just improved on what they had done and looked where we are today. Literally, the world is lit up because of what they began. Every morning when we go out and we start up our cars and go to work or wherever we're going – you know, somewhere way back when, Henry Ford and men like him had an idea that there could be a horseless carriage and that we would be able to drive around without a horse and, you know, whip and buggy and all that other stuff that goes with it – they had no idea, probably, that one day the world would be – it would just be kind of a necessity to have these automobiles and they would literally be all over the earth. And generation after generation after generation just built on that small idea that began and looked where we are today. Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin were alive today. I think they'd shake their head and be in absolute amazement of what occurred during that time. Every time we step on an airplane and, you know, we go from Florida to California or wherever we're going or over to Europe or South America or wherever we're going, you know, the O'Rite brothers, they had a dream and they had a vision that, yes, yes, man could fly. There could be a machine that would be able to fly and take people to various places and they tried and they tried.

They never gave up. They just kept trying until they succeeded. But, you know, they died having no idea, no idea, the improvements that would be made and that living in the world today, air travel would just be kind of a common thing that would occur. I mean, you could list so many things and all of us are just the benefactors of all those things.

We live in a marvelous age, you know, where technology and all these physical advancements are just commonplace to us. They had none of those things, but they had the ideas and they had the determination and they had the character and they had the tenacity and the perseverance to see it through because they knew it could happen. They knew it could happen and they probably didn't have any idea they were going to revolutionize the world and change the world, but they did and we live in a better place, you know, as a result of it in that respect. You know, you can think of people like even like Alexander Graham Bell. I mean, there's the telephone, right? We all grew up with telephones. What an accomplishment that was. But they had no idea that we would be all running around with these little things in our pockets here combined with something called a computer that they had no idea what it was back then and that we would find this thing and all over the world people would have it. But people like him and people like Steve Jobs. You know, when the Pony Express was running through America. I mean, just think what that was. That was kind of a novel thing whether it was rain, snow, or whatever. They would deliver the mail. I had no idea that one day we would just wake up in the morning, push a button and there's our mail and it's so much better. So, you know, all these things that happened to this day and age generation after generation, building on something small, improving on it, and we all benefited as a result. And in this physical world, with all those physical accomplishments, God's work can be done in a lot better way than it would have been if we didn't have any of those inventions and things that we take so common today. The same thing was true back in Christ time. It wasn't so much physical inventions then in that generation that was there, but you know when he was alive and the apostles were alive and they were walking the earth, the Romans, you know, the Romans, the Roman Empire was in force and they had conquered the Greeks, but the Romans, Rome, it was in a period of peace at that time, a period of time called Pax Romana, and they allowed people that under their domain to live in peace and live their way of life. So the Jews and Judea were able to live their religion and things like that without the government breathing down their neck on everything.

But the Greeks had preceded them and the Romans had a health of respect for the Greeks. And the Greek civilization, you know, there was a lot that had gone on during that time. Many historians will tell us, say that, you know, that was the pinnacle of human intellectual period. Many of the things that we even talk about today occurred and were developed during the political atmosphere of Greece and the societal atmosphere. You had great thinkers that were there during that time. That civilization prized that thinking. You had people that are still quoted today like Aristotle and Plato and Socrates. And I read somewhere, I don't know if it's true or not, Socrates, and all his great wisdom. You would think that these men who had all these fantasies about gods and whatever, that they would have come to the knowledge that there was a true god. And someone says that, you know, Socrates did. And when he started talking about one god, they put him to death. They didn't want to lose their whole cadre of gods that they had. But you had great men like that. You had people, you know, modern day math has its foundations. You know, with Euclid and Pythagoras, right, high school seniors and high school students. I mean, you all know the Pythagorean theorem and Euclidean geometry. Archimedes was back then and a lot of the principles we still use today were all developed during that Greek era. You have historians like Herodotus. We still refer to Herodotus today. You doubtless heard sermons where it said, you know, Herodotus is this and Herodotus that, and that's what happened during that time. They were a tremendous society that was an intellectual society and generation after generation has proven that they had some foundational things that have stood the test of time and people have continued to use those things and generation after generation learns more about it. You know, the Greeks, even the Olympics, right? I mean, they had the Olympics. They were a kind of a society that was all in the betterment of man. Not so much about physical invention, but the things they did made a difference in the world and they still make a difference in the world today. They changed the life of man with the things that they did. They were dedicated. They were dedicated to the improvement of self. You know, they didn't have the Bible. They didn't have the truth of the Bible, but they made a difference. You know, one of the most expressive languages, or actually linguists say the most expressive language that was ever spoken on earth was Koine Greek. Koine Greek. You've heard of it. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek. And even today, as we look at Koine Greek and we try to read the Bible and as we read the Bible, it's always so helpful when we go back and look at the words that are translated, you know, from the Koine Greek. And the people who translate the Bible just realize, man, there's just no English word like it. There's no way we can describe it except by a whole paragraph that we would have to talk about. We've become familiar with those words back there. And in that environment, Jesus Christ lived, in that environment, the church began to develop.

And they used the concepts of the day in explaining to us some of the things that we even have to look at as God used examples in how we would live as Christians. So we have words that we're very familiar with. Words like agape. Agape is a Koine Greek word. No word like it in the English language, so when they translated it, they just called it love. But it means so much more than love. When you even read the Greek literature on how they used the word agape, it was a sacrificial love. It wasn't just an emotional love like Eros and Philia and the other ones that the Greeks used. This was a different one.

But in English, they didn't know how to do it, so they used the word love, and it can be confusing, but we know agape in a different sense. It's the love that Jesus Christ had.

It's the love that God wants us to have. It's the fruit of the Holy Spirit. There's words like praus, and that mean meekness, or that were translated meekness. And when we look at the word praus, or prau-tace in the New Testament, you see that it has a meaning that again can't really be translated into the English word. Meekness doesn't do it justice, really, because sometimes people think meekness is weakness. What it really means is like a gentle spirit, but a strength under the control of the master. A strength under the control of the master. And in Greek literature, when they used that word, they would talk about horses. And horses are powerful beings, right? They're strong, they're magnificent, they're fast, but a well-trained horse is under the control of his master. And when God used that word to identify one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, he said it's prau-tace, that spirit that you say. It's power, it's strength, but it's under the control of the master. And it doesn't lend itself to just rolling over people or bowling over them, but being gentle with them in teaching, but having that power that comes from his Holy Spirit. Well, I could go and I could list some more words, and I'm going to give you another word today to think about as we go through some of the scriptures in the Bible.

People in Orlando and Jacksonville have heard me talk about Pistoio, and I could ask any one of them, I hope, and they would tell you, Pistoio is the word believe in many of the places in the New Testament, but it means so much more than the word believe that we use in the English language today. It actually means it's a belief so deep that it changes the way you think. Just like these men who did these things, it starts off small, but they changed the world. And in that environment of the Greeks, the Roman Empire, back in the time when Koine Greek was spoken, and Jesus Christ and the apostles lived on the earth and roamed the earth, they changed the world, didn't they? They changed the world with what was coming about. They changed the world with the teaching, and says that in Acts 17. And as we're gathered here today, and people who are keeping the Feast of Tabernacles all over the world today, you know, we're part of something that happened as Jesus Christ began His church.

Began very small, began very small, still is small today, but it has grown through the years. Let's turn back to Hebrews, Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12. As we're here, you know, we know there's many who have gone before us. Great names that you know from reading the Bible, Hebrews 11, which precedes chapter 12 here, names many of those people who have gone on before, men of determination, men of character, men of tenacity, who had a vision and who had the determination and the Spirit of God to help them realize what they were living for. In Hebrews 12, verse 1, it says, Therefore we also, that's you and me, therefore we also, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, all those people. Just like as we look at these light bulbs around here, surrounded by the Edison's and the people who have developed those things over the year, every time we look at our car, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. You heard about the race that we were running the other day, and I'm not going to go in the same direction that Mr. Hall did. But he says, you know, remember it is. Look what happened. Look at the foundation that has been laid for you. And leave behind the sin that holds you back. Leave behind the other things that ensnare you. Realize what it is. Build on what has been the foundation that God has set for you, and keep going.

It's a whole life process. If we go back just a few verses here in chapter 11 and verse 35, we see what the people that have gone before us have done. And not just the people in this chapter 11, but others that we know that we've lived with and probably have gone to church with, even perhaps people in our family. Verse 35 of Hebrews 11 says, women received their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. The same resurrection that God has called you and me to be part of. If we do the same things that they did, make the same choices that they did, still others had trial of mockings and scourgings. Yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. All because they believed something different than the world around them did. Because God gave them something, a foundation, a spark, a beginning, and they clung to it, and year after year it grew, and it gave them the strength they needed to go on. Verse 38 says, the world wasn't worthy of them, they wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth, and all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, didn't receive the promise. They died and they didn't receive it. They never lost hope. They kept going right through their entire life. They never let the vision fade. They didn't let time and circumstances and weariness get them down. They kept going until the very end and the very next moment of realization of their lives, they will receive that promise. Verse 40, God having provided something better for you and me. God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

It's our time. It's our time to do what God has called us to do. It's our time to make a difference. It's our time to change and do our part in changing the world and laying the foundation of what the world will be in our everyday lives. Back in verse 16, verse 16 of Hebrews 11, it says, they desired these people, they desired a better, that is a heavenly country, the same one that you and I look forward to. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God. He's not ashamed to be called their God. Isn't that a nice thing to say? I think every one of us would want God not to be ashamed of us. He's not to be ashamed to go, these are my people. These are my people who get it. These are the people who when I called, they answered. These are the people who repented. These are the people who heard the vision, took the vision, and they lived their life. They lived their life in what I had called them to be and in the way that I wanted them to live. Because we know our calling is not just for five years, ten years, it's for the rest of our lives, whether God called us when we were in our 80s or whether God called us as we were born into a family that knew the Church of God. Whatever it is, it's our entire life. It has to be dedicated to what God has called us to. That's what these men and women in Hebrews 11 did. That's what God looks for us to do. He calls us to a way of life, and we often use that term, way of life, and we can kind of just say it and it means one thing. But God has something specific in mind, and in chapter 12 of Hebrews 12, here chapter 12 of Hebrews, he uses a word four times that's only used six times in the entire New Testament in Koine Greek. And here in Hebrews 12, sometimes we read through these words, and they're not real pleasant words, but they have some deep meaning behind them. Let's look at four of the places in the New Testament right after God talks about men and women of faith, right after he talks about we're so crowded by this great cloud of witnesses, so let's move forward.

Let's do what God has called us to do. Down in verse 5. Well, let's pick it up in verse 4 to continue in the same vein that the author has written here. It says, you haven't resisted to bloodshed striving against sin. I haven't resisted to bloodshed striving against sin.

Maybe some of you have. I haven't. All these other people did before. You have not resisted to bloodshed striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as two sons, reminding us we're God's children. He sees us as that way. He's got plans in mind for us, just like I have plans in mind for my children when they were growing up, just like you have plans for your children, just like your parents had something in mind for you as they raised you. So one of the words we'll look at there is exhortation.

You have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as two sons. And I won't tell you what the Greek word exhortation is there, but we know what something is to exhort. You encourage, you tell people, this is the way you should go. Let's go down to verse 7. We find the same Greek word in verse 7, but it's not translated exhortation because this is one of those Greek words that you can't put into the English language. We don't have anything that is what the equivalent of what they're talking about in Greek in America today or in England or when back in the 1500s when the Bible was translated. In verse 7 it says, if you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. He exhorts you as sons and he deals with you with chastening. For what son is there whom a father doesn't chasten? Well, that word chastening is the same Greek word that's in exhortation. Verse 8, but if you are without chastening, there's the same Greek word again, again translated this time chastening, not a pleasant thing. I mean, none of us want to be chastened, right? We don't even want to be people to tell us we did something wrong. But chastening, that doesn't have a good connotation.

But if you are without chastening, of which you have all become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. What it's saying there is one of the principles we read in Proverbs. If we love our children, we correct them. We don't just let them grow up as wild weeds as we see so often being the example in the world today. That's like, let your children decide what they want to believe, even who they are. Silly stuff that you hear about. But parents' jobs are to mold those children to the way they go. If you're without chastening, then you're illegitimate and not sons. Parents don't love you. You're not doing what you need to do with your children if you're not leading them in the way they should go. Down in verse 11, Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. It has its benefits. Those who have that experience in their life, they're the benefactors of it. The apostles, as they worked with Jesus Christ, and when He would chasten them and when He would exhort them, they were the benefactors. And look how their lives became.

You know, I didn't read verse 5 there, but chastening appears up there in that word four times here in Hebrews 12. But chastening. But the Greek word that's translated there is, and I'm going to massacre the pronunciation of it, but I'll give you the spelling, and we'll just use it. We'll just kind of anglicize this word today, is paideia. P-A-I-D-E-I-A.

And four times there in Hebrews, that's what God is talking about. And it has to do with a way of life that the Greeks perfected among their children when they were being raised.

Let me read to you from Strong's, and it's the biblical usage of this word paideia that appears six times in the New Testament. It says, it's the whole training and education of children, which relates to the cultivation of mind and morals and employs for this purpose commands and admonitions, reproof and punishment. It also includes the training and care of the body. So it's a whole person training. It's mind, body, and soul, if you will, just like the body, just like the Bible tells us. Give your whole mind, body, and soul to God.

When He calls us and He puts us through life, He's training us in mind, body, and soul to be submissive to Him and to do His way of life. Second part of the outline of biblical usage here is whatever in adults also cultivates the soul, especially by correcting mistakes and curbing passions. That is, it's the route to becoming perfect. It's the route to becoming perfect. So when the Greeks would hear this word, when they would read, you know, Hebrews here and the other couple places, and they read the word paideia, they had a different idea in their mind of what you and I have when we read the word chastening. They would think of what was going on in Greece because Greece, this is what they did with their children, particularly their males, the process they put them because they had an idea of what they wanted them to become. It wasn't left to chance. It was left, and it was a program that they went through. Third part of the biblical usage is the destruction, which aims at increasing virtue, an ever-increasing virtue, a progress and a systematic improvement over the course of time. Now this is from Wikipedia, and they kind of explain what Greek paideia is. It says this, it says, in the culture of ancient Greek, ancient Greece, the term paideia referred to the rearing and education of the ideal member of the polis. You know what the polis is? It was a city, it was the state, it was the area that they lived in.

We have Indianapolis, Minneapolis, polis there, it refers to the area that they lived in.

It was the, referred to the rearing and education of the ideal member of the area. It incorporated both practical, subject-based schooling and a focus upon the socialization of individuals within the aristocratic order of the polis. The practical aspects of this education included subjects subsumed under the modern designation of liberal arts, such as rhetoric, grammar, and philosophy, as well as scientific disciplines like arithmetic and medicine. An ideal and successful member of the polis would possess intellectual, moral, and physical refinement, so training in gymnastics and wrestling was valued for its effect on the whole, on the body alongside the moral education which the Greeks believed was imparted by the study of music, poetry, and philosophy. So there's a whole system of life that they had at home.

When they were raising their males, they wanted them to grow up to be the perfect member of society. They wanted, they were schooling them and rearing them in a way that they could make a difference in that society. They would, they would go through all the processes, right?

They would see there's some who had, were intellectually gifted, some who were athletically gifted, some who were poetically and, and gifted in literature and writing, but they had something to contribute and their job as parents was to make them the best they could be. Make them the best they could be so that everyone was operating on the strength of that society. And when the Greeks were here, that word, pia dia, when the apostles wrote that word, pia dia, they knew what was going on in Greece and they knew, and they compared what God is doing with you and me to pia dia. Pia dia, a whole system of education, a whole life experience to become what he wants to become, an ideal member of his kingdom, of his polis, if you will. Not just limited to our biblical education, but our entire minds, our entire bodies, our entire souls. The apostles say that. God says it in the Old Testament. The whole body dedicated to what it is that God would have us be. It was dedicated to perfection. In fact, the goal of it was that the young man, and of course in that society it was all focused on the men, it was dedicated that they would become the excellent example of what every person should be. That was where the education was focused. And you know what? They did it very well. When you look at the names that are associated with it, when you look at what came out of that Greek culture that still exists today, there's never been a society quite like it that has produced all that they did. Yes, they had their problems. Yes, they had their falsehoods that we may laugh at today. But in their way, without God's Holy Spirit, they had a system. And when God looked at that system and he talked about all those who have gone before us and what he wants for us today, he used that term to say, this is the way I am going to educate my family.

This is the way I educate my sons and daughters who become part of my family.

Let's go back to Acts 3. I'm going to repeat a verse I read back on the opening night.

Acts 3 and verse 19. Repent, and we know what repent means. It means we are turning around from our way of life to the way of life that God had called us when he called us, whether we were called in our adulthood, whether we were born into the church. Repent, therefore, turn to God and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ who has preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all of his holy prophets as the world began. The restoration of all things. Here at the feast, we talk about the restoration of all things. The world is going to become a better place, a more beautiful place. The deserts will bloom. Animals will have a different nature. God takes things back as man lives his way of life, applies his principles into their life. The world will become a garden of Eden again when we do things God's way. But it says all things, and it's not just limited to physical earth. It's not just limited to animals. When he says all things will be restored, he means all things. And there's so much. There's so much that we've lost along the way. One of the things that God will restore in the Kingdom, and one of the things that we are restoring when we live God's way of life, is the concept of family. The concept of family. Family has been under attack so much in recent years that it doesn't even look like the same when you listen to what some of the media says and some of the reports you hear. It doesn't even look like a semblance of a family that you and I know of. But when God's way is on earth, family and the roles in the family are going to be restored. And for you and I, who are practicing the way of God today, who are in this period of piedia in our life now, the same thing that the people who live over into the Kingdom will be immersed in when they're living there, and they're learning how to become the excellent members of the Kingdom that they can be, curbing their own passions, curbing their own ideas, and yielding to the way that works. As we're doing that, family should be preeminent in our lives, and the way we live should be a witness to the people around us. I'm not going to turn back to Genesis 1. I'm going to give you some verses that you can mark down there.

You know them, but in Genesis 1, verses 26-28, it says God created males and females. And He said to them when He created them, you know, become fruitful and multiply. Man and woman marriage between one man and one woman, and from that union, when the people become one, children will be born into it. You know, over in Genesis 2, it talks about becoming one flesh, leaving mom and dad. You become a family, and then you work with God, with what God expected that family to do. Because husband had a role, wife had a role, children had a role in that. And it's all part of it. In the Greek society in Pia dia, dad was quite involved in the rearing of those children and the education of those children. Mom had her part, too. She knew what the goal was. She knew what they needed to grow up sounding like and believing and molding them into what they need to believe. Children participated, too. They understood, this is our way of life. This is what we need to do. And so it should be among us, too, that God's way of life is in our preeminent in our lives. Let's go to Ephesians 5. Let's rehearse just for a moment here some of the roles that God put in place here, and as Paul describes them and Peter here in the New Testament, because some of those roles can be clouded in a world today that, you know, is looking to really undo everything and redefine everything so often apart from the truth that we see in the Bible.

In Ephesians 5 and verse 25, a very telling and a very significant set of Scriptures here from here down into the rest of the chapter compares the relationship between man and woman, man and wife to the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church. That's how important that role of marriage is. When God looks at marriage, we may look at it as, you know, well, the world today looks at it as long as I'm okay with you, as long as I like you, I'll stay married, but when soon I'm done with you, I'll throw you off and find someone else. That is not at all what God had in mind. Jesus Christ didn't say, I'm going to just work with the church for a few years, and I'm tired of you, I'll cast you off and find another group. No, He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. He's there. He's there for the duration. And so, husbands, you know, in verse 25, it says, husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves Himself. Husbands are the head of the family. That's just the way God made it. I know there's many people in the world who would hear that and say, no, no, no, no. Husbands are the head of the family. That's the way God made it, just like Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Husbands are to be the spiritual heads of the family.

They're the ones who are supposed to be providing the spiritual direction. They're the ones who are saying, this is the way to go. This is the way. Walk you in it. Remember Isaiah 30? That will be you and me. If we're there in the kingdom saying to people, this is the way walk you in it, husbands should be doing that. No, this is the way. This is what the Bible says. This is what God's will is. This is how we do it here. Maybe different than what your friends do. Maybe different than what our neighbors do. This is the way we do it here. We're in God's pia dia. This is what we're doing. This is the way to the kingdom. This is where it begins. And then it needs to grow through our lives and not become stagnant and not just stop at a level, but continually grow, continually mushroom until it follows, until it dominates our lives and defines our lives. But husbands were there to be the head of the family and to be the spiritual leaders of the family. It doesn't mean they are the only ones who are going to teach, but it does mean that they should set the direction. And in cases where there is no, a husband isn't a believer in the wife, and the responsibility falls to the wife in that case to do that. But in an ideal family, church family, husband is the one who does that. And it says here, husbands love your wives. That's the word agape. It's not the word arrows. Arrows comes pretty easy, you know, when we're married and we're attracted to someone. Agape takes some time to develop.

And sound marriages develop agape over time. And that's what holds and binds together.

Let's go back to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3. Here's Peter 3, verse 7. Peter 2 has some words for husbands and their roles. He says, husbands dwell with them with understanding. You know, that is so important. I'm going to guess every husband here has wondered why his wife was mad at him, right? It's like, what did I do? What did I say? And sometimes they won't tell you. And it's like, no, I really don't know what I did. Dwell with them with understanding.

We have to kind of understand. One of the first principles of communication and relationships is seek first to understand. Stephen Covey said it so beautifully in his book. Seek first to understand. It's so important in a marriage relationship. And it works both ways, right?

Husbands dwell with them with understanding. Understand. You love them. You agape them.

You have that sacrificial love. You understand that when God bound you, he bound you for life not just for a few years or just as long as she makes you happy. Husbands dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. Ah, a good marriage. Working on our marriage, and every marriage has some problems in it from time to time, right? It's not just a bed of roses we all learn. There are issues that have to be discussed. There are things that have to be worked out. People come together, but God says you work them out. You work them out. You stick with it. You become one. You work on it. That's the pia dia you're in. This is the way of the kingdom. This is not a way of just temporary and my way or the highway type thing. You do it the way God said to do, and treat her as the weaker vessel, someone that you value. You value so much. And if husbands do that, if they love their wives, if they do the things, you know what? I think you find wives and husbands, if we were paying attention, when we're doing the things the Bible says, our wives want to follow. It's when we're out of line so many times that the problems develop. So when God says to husbands, He's giving us a picture of Jesus Christ. Look at how Jesus Christ works with us. He understands our every need. He doesn't deal with us harshly. He's patient. He's kind. He never leaves. He's there. His desire is that we become the ideal member of the polis. And He works with us continually in that regard because He sees our future in eternity in that role. Husbands, as we work with our families, that's the same thing we need to see with them. Help. Help. And be the guide. Look into the Bible. Look to it for the resources and the answers that you need. If we look at the beginning of 1 Peter 3 here, He talks about wives. Wives, and right there in verse 1, there's a word that so many people would take issue in the world today. Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands. No, there's nothing wrong in submission. The whole church is submitted to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ submits to God the Father. There's nothing wrong in that. It's a beautiful thing when people work together. And yet the world paints as such an awful thing. Doesn't mean the wife is inferior. It means the wife is doing her job in the pidea that God set up that He established when He established and created man and woman.

Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands that even if some don't obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives. Now, that should be encouragement to many whose husbands may not come. You live the life. You live the way it is. And you know when they see your example, what a witness of the way of life the kingdom.

Look how happy she is. Look at what our life is like. That way, that way works. That they may be won by the conduct of their wives when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. And then He goes on and He says, you know what? Yes, yes, pay attention to what you look like. Do all those things, but don't let that be the primary thing. That may be the way you catch your husband's attention, but that's not the thing he's going to look at five, ten, and every single morning, oh, she looks so good. She looks good. All our wives look good, right? But that's not going to be the thing that keeps the marriage together.

What's that? Pay attention to it, absolutely. But around here in verse 4 says, Let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God. And then He compares that to Sarah. Look at the beautiful marriage, the beautiful marriage that they had.

Let's go back to Ephesians then. Let's look at Ephesians and see what he says about wives, Paul, Ephesians 5, verse 22. He uses the same word Peter used in 5.22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. As to the Lord, if we have a problem with submission, we probably have a problem with submitting to Jesus Christ, too. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for as the husband, for the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church. And He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, remember the picture of what you're doing in marriage, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything, in everything. One man, one woman, one living God's way in the way that He called them to be. Let's go to Malachi. Malachi and see what the Old Testament has to say. Malachi 3 and verse 13. Of the things that God talks about with ancient Israel, and really this is more written to us today, verse 13, He says, Your words, God says, have been harsh against me. And He says, Yet you say, What have we spoken against you? And He answers, You said, I'm in Malachi 3.13, It's useless to serve God.

Wait, let me see where I am here.

Oh, I'm sorry, Malachi 2. I was going to say, that doesn't sound like the verses. Let's go to Malachi 2.13.

Malachi 2.13. This is the second thing you do. You cover the altar of the Eternal with tears, with weeping and crying, so He doesn't regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with good will from your hands. And yet you say, Well, why does God do that? Because He's been witnessed between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously. Look at the importance God places on that. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But didn't He make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring.

He seeks godly offspring. Therefore, take heed to your Spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of His youth. You're in a training program, a lifelong training program in the way of God. Husband, wife, the children born into that marriage? They're all part of God's program.

They're all part of what He's working with. And just like husband may have been called when he was 20, 30, whatever, and the rest of his life, and wife spends the rest of her life, no matter when she was called and began to walk down the path with God. Children from day one. Children from day one.

They're part of that training program. God sees them as His children as well as your children, and He wants them to be in the kingdom. You know, every once in a while I hear her parents say, well, God hasn't called my children yet. And I think I don't think that's what the Bible says.

In Acts 2 it says the promise is to them. The promise is to them.

1 Corinthians 7, 14 says they're holy. They're holy. They're gods.

And so, you know, we can make excuses, but what God's will is, is that the whole family is working together, and that as parents we are working with our children in this concept of Pia Dea in His way, that everything is done according to His will. And if we're following the Greek model, okay, and I use that, not saying the Greeks were perfect, everything they did when you read about Pia Dea was focused on become the ideal member of the polis. What better thing for us to do?

Become the ideal member of the kingdom. Teach us and teach our children and our whole families working toward we become what God says His people become.

Constantly improving. Each generation becoming even more close to the model that Jesus Christ sets. He is our example, closer than the ones before because, you know, as we looked at the physical things that occur on the earth with each succeeding generation, it was magnified.

It became even more pronounced. It changed the world and the way we live.

When we're teaching and when we're applying and we're living God's way, the way He wants us to live it, it will change who we are. It will change where we are. It will change the world. That will be what's happening in the kingdom when Satan is put away and God's Spirit is leading us. It should be what's happening in our lives today. With each year, we look more like Jesus Christ. With each year, our families look more like the family of God. They don't stagnate. They don't give up because, you know what, the idea that God has called you and me to is the same thing that Alexander Fram Bell did, the same thing that Thomas of Edison did. He's called us to change the world and to change the way life is and to be examples of what can be. The one area of human existence that has not at all achieved its potential but has fallen so far short and gets farther and farther from the goal with each succeeding year is the idea of human relationships and how people live together in peace. All the inventions in the world aren't going to bring peace. All the inventions in the world aren't going to bring the harmony and unity that the world desperately needs and the happiness and the joy that people need. All the intellectual thinking and all the, wow, I have this great idea and I know this arithmetic property and this principle, all that's not going to do it. It's what we do and mankind can't do it. You know, spirit and man, as it tells us in 1 Corinthians 2, it can produce the physical things that we've seen. God gave man the dominion over the world and he has done a good job. He's done a good job in capturing some of the things that God built into this universe. It's no accident that we can fly airplanes through the air. There's no accident that there's an internet. There's no accident that we can reach around the world by the things that man has uncovered. God built it into the universe when he created the universe or into the earth.

The one thing man can't do is produce peace and unity and harmony that really brings the happiness that people want. That only comes with God's Holy Spirit and only God's people have that Holy Spirit. So it's up to us. It's up to us to be in that concept and in that training program of Pidea so that we become what God wants us to become. Well, let's talk about children for a minute. Let's go to Ephesians 6. Because as children born into a family of God, as children, the godly offspring of man and woman, they have their responsibilities too and they have to be taught. They have to be taught what that is. Ephesians 6 verse 1, children obey your parents of the Lord for this is right. They have to be taught. No matter what your teachers tell you at school, no matter what you see on TV, children obey your parents of the Lord for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. This is right. This is what we do.

This is the way the world is looking for. This is the way we do it here because it's best for you and best for everyone in the world. It's the way people will live for the thousand years when Jesus Christ returns. And you fathers in verse 4, an admonition, don't provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Guess what Greek word is translated training there? Piaidia. Piaidia. Fathers, bring them up in the piaidia and admonition of the Lord. Make it a whole life experience.

Make it part of your everyday life. Make it the goal of your family. Make it the goal of your existence. Be tenacious about it. Be patient with it. But don't let it slip. Don't let it disappear.

Don't let it fade in the face of all the resistance you'll have from the world around you and the people that we want you to do something differently. Do it God's way. Don't give up.

Don't think it can't be done. It can be done. Bring them up in the piaidia and admonition of the Lord. You owe it to them. If you love them, you will do it.

You will do it. You know there's a counterpart to piaidia that we find back in the Old Testament. Let's look at Proverbs. Proverbs 1. Many of them are Proverbs. Actually, the counterpart to piaidia in the Old Testament appears 50 times in the Old Testament. Many of them are the Book of Proverbs. I would suggest that our young people might want to go back to the Book of Proverbs and read some of it because Solomon, the wisest man besides Jesus Christ, whoever lived on earth, wrote these things and he kept admonishing them. Now as we go through these things, see, remember we are all children, right? I mean we have children. We are children. What we do with our children, God is doing with us. All we have to do is follow His pattern. How He works with us is how we should be working with our children. If we want to be good parents, do what He does with us because as long as we're alive, we're His children.

And He works with us and has us in a program of piaidia. Chapter 1, verse 2, Proverbs. To know wisdom and instruction. There's the equivalent of piaidia in the Old Testament. Instruction.

Verse 3. To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity. There's the word piaidia again, the equivalent of it in the Old Testament. The word instruction. Verse 7. The fear of the eternal is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. There it is again. Piaidia. Fools despise it. We don't want to do that. That's antiquated. That was for old people. We don't need to do that. We've got a better way in the 21st century. My son, verse 8, hear the piaidia of your father, and don't forsake the law of your mother, for they will be a graceful ornament on your head and chains about your neck. Hear that young people, whether you're old enough to listen to what I'm saying, five, six, seven, eight, whether you're teenagers, whether you're young adults. God has you in a program. It's a special program. You're not going to find it in any university. You should be in a university. You should be, well, not in a university. You should be improving your education. You should be preparing yourself for life in this world, but not at the expense of piaidia. There's nothing more important for your future than what you're doing and what your parents are teaching and what God is teaching your parents day by day, and as they follow God, as we follow God, we teach you. We teach you. And when Jesus Christ returns, He'll return to a people who have been practicing it that are becoming and have become people that He says, you know what? These are the ideal members of the kingdom.

Look what they've done with their lives. It started with a little speck.

I called them and they did understood a little and it grew and it grew and it grew and it grew.

Just like the light bulb and what it's become like, just like the Pony Express and what it's become like. And throughout Proverbs, often when you see the word instruction, it's the equivalent of it.

We listen to God. We teach God in our families. We do that. And God is clear in His instructions.

Two families. I won't take the time. You know what Deuteronomy 6 says, but you should read Deuteronomy 6 again. He says, talk about me when you rise in the morning. Talk about me when you are going to bed at night. Make me part of your everyday life. Not just something you talk about on Friday night when you do a family Bible study or when you're getting up to go to Sabbath services.

Make me part of your everyday life. He's the most important part of our lives. Just like as adults, He should be the most important part of our lives. We have a relationship with Him.

We have His instruction book that we'll read 2 Timothy 3, 16 here in a minute.

That's what happens. In the Greek society, they didn't just talk about what was going on with those young people once every week. It was a daily process. A daily process. It was life.

Our lives should be dominated by the Word of God and what we do is that we make God His principles and what we have been called to an important part of our children's life, just like your and my, our adult lives. Proverbs 3. Let's look at Proverbs 3 here. Verse 11.

Proverbs 3 verse 11 is another place where the equivalent of Piediah shows up.

Proverbs 3 verse 11, My son, don't despise, and here's the word chastening. For some reason, they use the word chastening when they translated this thing. They could have used the word instruction. My son, don't despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction. Because a part of Piediah is being corrected. None of us are perfect. As long as we live, there's going to be things that we need to have our course corrected. And we're going to be responsible for helping other people correct their course as they go through their time of Piediah, whether it's yet in this life, if they're called, or certainly in the millennium when those who live over physically into that time and we work with them. My son, don't despise the Piediah of the Lord, nor detest His correction, for whom God loves, He corrects. Just as a father, the son in whom He delights. If we love our children, if we love what God has called us to, then He, then we will do what He says to do. If we really, really want what God has called us to, and like those men in the Old Testament, that great cloud of witnesses, that great cloud of witnesses that went before us, that went through so much more than you and I ever have, are willing to suffer and give their lives for this way of life that God had called them to because they counted it so precious.

Let's go to 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy 3.

You know, God is with us. He calls us when we're baptized. We receive His Holy Spirit. When we truly repent and are baptized, have hands laid on us, we receive His Holy Spirit. And that Holy Spirit does lead us and guide us into truth. It does help us understand the Bible. But God gives us this tremendous Bible that really, I say over and over again, has every answer to life. You just have to read it and you have to apply some of the principles that were there in the first century that were written into the 21st century today. And that takes some digging sometimes to see the counterpart in how it fits into our lives today. But it's all there. In 2 Timothy 3.16, a memory verse, you all know this verse. And of course, I'm not in the right chapter. 2 Timothy 3 verse 16.

It says, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Not just most of them, not 90% of them, but that the man of God is equipped for every good work. Now, the word pidea is buried in 2 Timothy 3.16. Where do you think it's buried? It's there in the word instruction. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for pidea in righteousness.

Using what was extant there in the Greek societies of the 1st century, or even before that, God used that word to say, this is what your training program is. Here's your manual. You don't have to go out and buy another textbook for this. Pidea is right here in the book that we have in front of us. We just have to learn it. We just have to apply it. We just have to know it. We just have to teach it. We just have to make it part of our everyday lives. And when situations come up, we look back and we say, what would God have us do? We go to the Bible and see what He would have us do. The answer is there. Sometimes you pray about it. Sometimes you wait. You will find the answer if you're really seeking it. If you're seeking God in not your own way, you'll find what He is looking. You'll see what He has provided for us. You know, Jesus Christ was a young person just like all of us. We're young people just like we have many young people, young children who are up on the stage. He was young just like all of us. He had God's Spirit from the beginning, but He had to go through a period of training as well. God chose His parents well. He knew what kind of household He wanted His Son to grow up in, and His parents did a good job.

And we see Jesus Christ who never sinned, but let's look in on Him in Luke, the book of Luke.

The one chapter or the one short insight we have into Christ's life before He began His ministry at age 30 when He was baptized, setting the example for us.

This is the occasion where they had pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the days of Unleavened Bread.

He was 12 years old and left behind. But here He was at that age talking with the people, reasoning with the elders there in the city, because He was immersed in Pietya. He was immersed in what was going on in His life. In verse 52, it says that as Jesus grew older, He increased.

He increased in wisdom and stature. He was perfect, but He increased in wisdom and stature.

As He grew, from 12 to 15 to 18 to 21 to 24, He increased. He didn't stagnate.

He was becoming the ideal member of the kingdom of God. He was going through the same process.

He increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.

Boy, He had become a complete person. Look at that. He was a wise man. Where do we get wisdom from?

The Word of God. The same Word of God that our children should understand as they grow up and as they have faced issues in life when they're 18, 19, they're in college or in their high school and they're facing things. Oh, the Word of God says this, so I reject it. I might listen to those arguments, but I know it's wrong because they've been schooled and they've been trained and this is the way.

Walk you in it so they don't fall prey to the things around them because they've been so schooled and they've seen it work in their lives that they know it. Jesus Christ increased in wisdom and in stature. He was physically capable as well. This is a whole experience, just like the Greek system of Pia Dea. Mind, body, and soul. Excellence in every area. The same excellence that we should have in those areas because God is looking at everything that we do, how we handle our physical lives, how we handle our mental lives, how we handle our spiritual lives, how we handle our souls.

And he increased with favor with God. As God watched the progress, he was more and more pleased with him. God said, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. He could have said that back at the time he was two and three. He could have said that at age 12. He said it as he became an adult and he began his ministry, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him, listen to him, he said in Matthew 16, in favor with God and men.

They wanted to put him to death eventually because they didn't like what he had to say because it was different than they wanted. But you know, not one of them could fault him for the patience and the kindness that he showed to them. He didn't do anything wrong.

He didn't sin. He didn't commit any crimes. He didn't do anything like that. They didn't like what he had to say. And you know what? The same thing Jesus Christ said is going to happen to us. They should not ever look at us and say, you're awful people, you're evil people, or you're temperamental people. What you do is good, but we don't like what you say. Jesus Christ said, if they hated me, they're going to hate you too. They hated him because of what he believed, not because of what he did, and because of his attitudes or anything else like that.

He grew and increased in wisdom and stature in favor with God and men. And that's for all of us. Now, you can say this is about our children. It is about our families. It's about you and me, because as long as we're drawing breath in this life, we are still a child of God and He is still working with us in Piediah, our Piediah, as He perfects us, as He makes us and molds us, if we let Him into the ideal member, the ideal member of His kingdom, one with whom He will entrust the millennium and say, this is one.

This is one that I trust. I will go out and teach, and He will teach the people I put under Him in my way, because I've seen Him do it in His life. He does it well, and I know what's in His heart, and I can see that He has yielded Himself totally to me over time. So we can look at this concept of Piediah, and maybe as we go back and go back home or, you know, continue what we're doing, but as we restore all things in our lives, that they will be restored in all families when Jesus Christ returns.

Maybe we could keep this in mind as we work with our families and as we work with ourselves, whether we have children at home or whether it's just your wife and you, or whether you're single. God has us in a concept and in the process of Piediah in training. He's given us the materials. He's given us His Spirit that, like the men that have gone before us, right, in the physical sense and in the intellectual sense, even the spiritual sense of the people in Hebrews 11 that He said His examples, that we will remember the great cloud of witnesses that we're in and that He's called us to change the world.

It begins with a very little thing. When you and I were called, we understood. We understood some of the things of the Bible, but our education never ever ever stops. We go through the Holy Days every single year and every single year if we're keeping them and observing them correctly, we learn more about what God's plan is and the depth and the wisdom and the magnificence of it. We just keep doing it and we just keep learning. In Matthew 13, and with our families, with each succeeding generation, we should see an improvement.

If we as parents are doing things right, our children should be spiritually, if I can use the word superior to us, more dedicated to God, not less, not taking things more laxly. The third generation, even stronger. They understand the way of God. They see it.

In Matthew 13, Christ gives a series of parables about the kingdom.

To come in verse 31, He gives this one. He says, another parable will be put forth to them saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds. So small, just a speck. It just begins with a little speck, whether you're 30, 40, 50, 80, whatever it is, just began with a little speck, a little seed, which indeed is the least of all the seeds. But when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree. It continually grows. It continually takes over.

It's amazing what happens when you practice the way of God. It's amazing what happens when you take it to heart. It's amazing when you have pia dia and letting God put you through that program and fully participating it in every aspect of your lives, what will happen. It becomes something so noticeable that dominates the world. That's what should happen in our lives.

That's what should happen in God's church. That's what will happen when Jesus Christ returns.

You and I have the opportunity to do that today and be part of something so great and so magnificent, just like those men that went before us. Their minds couldn't even conceive of what will happen.

But we'll be there to see the results of the things that we do individually in our lives and in our families and collectively as a church as we let God lead us through our process of pia dia.