Teaching Students to Acquire Biblical Standards

Walter G. Fremont, Ed.D., & W. Gilbert Fremont, M.A.

All schools have standards of some sort with specific directions for implementing the standards. The way these are enforced determines the extent of the school's discipline. Christian schools have biblical standards that apply to both institutional and personal standards of students and teachers. Since most homes and many churches may not have or teach biblical standards, Christian schools then have a responsibility to help students acquire biblical standards and make them part of their lifestyle. This is the only antidote to the corrupt media and peer pressure that all are experiencing in everyday life.

People in Christian schools are well aware of many students, graduates, and occasionally a teacher or an administrator, who are leading hypocritical lives while posing as model Christians. Sooner or later the dogs will return to their vomit of sinful fleshly pleasures and the hogs to their wallow of carnal self-directed pursuits
(I Peter 2:22).

Christian students, especially from non-Christian homes, need to be taught biblical personal standards to guide them in bringing their lives into conformity of Christlikeness. These standards cannot be forced on youth but must be taught until they are internalized and become a lifelong habitual response. The goal of teaching standards is to produce transformed youth instead of temporarily conformed youth. Biblical standards give students a foundation for their behavior, which gives them security and insulates them from media and peer pressure.

Definition. A standard is a principle or rule made by authority which serves as a guide for order, efficiency, behavior, or appearance to carry out the purpose of any individual or organization. There is and always will be a difference between institutional standards and biblical personal standards.

Institutional standards have to do with controlling the movement, appearance, behavior, and safety of many individuals in an organization. For example, institutions have directions for an up staircase and a down staircase, or a one-way drive to load and unload buses or cars. The directions are enforced by appeal to the authority principle in the Scriptures (I Timothy 6:1-6; Romans 13) with penalties for noncompliance and rewards or approval for compliance. Some of the specific institutional standards in a Christian organization may not have a scriptural base, but they should not violate Scripture.

Biblical personal standards have to do with appearance and behavior of individual Christian students and employees to please and glorify God and to present a godly testimony to the community. The appeal to adopt these standards is holiness before God and obeying His Word (I Peter 1:15-16; John 14:21). Personal standards based on the Word of God are permanent and result in correct behavior that forms consistent Christian character. Personal standards based on culture and fashion are comparative and result in convenient behavior that forms worldly carnality.

Attitude and Understanding the Purpose

The important thing to remember is that heart attitude is the key to success in teaching standards. If there is a right attitude, the right standard will generally follow, with proper teaching. Students should be fully informed about the biblical principles involved in an issue. They should fully understand the battle they are waging with the devil and the necessity of waging that battle according to those principles. Teachers should get them thinking along biblical lines, teaching them to ask "But what does God say about this?" and then guiding them in finding the biblical answers. If a teacher challenges students to think, question, and then decide to do what pleases God, he or she will for the most part instill an attitude of cooperation and teachability.

The most vital thing to keep in mind is the ultimate purpose of any standard for the Christian: to help one toward the goal of personal holiness, not personal pleasure (I Peter 1:15-16 and Romans 12:1). That goal is best expressed in the commands to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength" and "love thy neighbor as thyself" (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37-39).

Obstructing this purpose are two warring camps of thought vying for the young Christian's attention: legalism and libertarianism. Either of them can sidetrack and spoil a sincere believer, distracting him from attaining the goal of personal holiness.

Legalism

Legalism in standards is a problem of focusing on the letter of the law, not the spirit. It is an attitude of mistrust rather than love, communicating to the group a total lack of confidence in them as disciples of Christ. It originates from one of two sources: a fleshly weakness in the faith or spiritual pride. The former is disruptive to a group, and the latter is destructive.

For the Christian who is saved out of a wicked background, legalism can be a safety device to keep all the formerly loved temptations at a safe distance. Romans 14:1-2 and I Corinthians 8:9 describe the legalist as one who is weak in the faith. For this Christian, legalism is a defense mechanism, a reaction to a very real fear of his own weakness in the face of Satan's onslaughts. He has the right motives but the wrong focus. The Pharisees epitomized the small-minded concern for the letter of the law over the spirit of the law. Their legalism, however, was not an innocent response to some fear of not pleasing God. Rather, as Christ pointed out in Matthew 11:17-19, it was a desire to control the lives and spiritual condition of others. Consistency is not a hallmark of this type of legalist — control and criticism most definitely are.

A teacher who controls his students' lives, suspects their motives, and denigrates their spiritual desires with a harsh, legalistic attitude will see rebellion and bitterness in his students. The password for an effective teacher is love; the password for a legalist is power. Students respond to love; they react to power.

Libertarianism

For the young Christian who comes out of a highly structured background of Christian education, or for the one who is accustomed to the oppressive atmosphere of legalism, the biblical concept of liberty becomes a heady potion, and too many young people go overboard with their newfound spiritual freedom when this concept is first brought to their attention. There is no question that liberty is taught in the New Testament (in I Corinthians 8 and 10, Galatians, and Romans 14), but the danger lies in letting liberty become license.

There is a growing tendency among Christians everywhere to rationalize sin. If a particular verse has four interpretations, most Christians will choose the one interpretation that allows the most sin. When liberty is combined with self-will, licentiousness is the result. Therefore, students must understand both their liberty in Christ and the need to temper that liberty with love. As with legalism, love is the cure for this extreme view of standards.

As the teacher points out to the student that liberty should not be abused, he must explain that it should be governed by the following checks and balances.

1. God's direct commands (I John 2:3).

2. Edification of the brethren and themselves (I Corinthians 10:23, 33; Romans 14:7, 19 and 15:2).

3. Conscience (Romans 14:5, 6, 23).

4. Christ's reputation and their own (Romans 14:16).

Becoming like Christ, pleasing God and not self, is the goal. Setting personal standards is a means to that goal. Legalism and libertarianism are but rabbit trails on the path to holiness.

Teaching and Strategies

The individual needs to be taught general and specific biblical principles on which he can base his daily decisions and conduct, stressing obedience to Christ in every aspect of his life. The purpose of anyone who works with young people should not be to make standards for them but rather to teach them to make standards for themselves from God's Word. The teaching should be designed to bring young people in Christ to maturity rather than rubber-stamping them with dos and don'ts.

It is the individual who fights temptation, who witnesses, who lives a testimony before neighbors. It is the individual who will give an account before his Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is the individual who must search God's Word and set the standards of conduct that will govern his or her behavior for years to come.

What standards should be taught, and how should they be taught? The Bible clearly sets forth overall principles, and from these principles specific applications can be made to specific situations. However, it is vitally important that each application also be Bible-based.

Basing standards solely on Scripture immediately brings about several desirable results. First, it eliminates the establishment of myriad petty rules and regulations for the young people to have to follow; and second, it delineates a clear choice of obedience or disobedience in regard to the standards that ultimately are set forth. It also eliminates arguments over regionalism ("Where I'm from everybody does it") and background ("But my parents don't see anything wrong with it"); and it ultimately focuses attention on the heart attitudes of the young people, which is the key to their living victoriously.

Most students do not have to be convinced that certain things are wrong. Rather, they need help in overcoming their addiction to these sin habits (Romans 6).

Areas of Concern

The following areas of concern, along with pertinent passages of Scripture, represent several of the most important general principles.

Appearance

Dress standards can be guided by at least three passages: I Timothy 2:9, which emphasizes modesty, not drawing attention to the body; I John 2:15-17, which tells one where not to look for a source to imitate; and II Timothy 2:22, which, when taken in conjunction with Romans 14:13, cautions the young person about how his or her dress may affect another believer. The goal in setting dress standards is to avoid that which offends morally. It is important to note here that although the issue of appropriateness has validity in some instances (deep-sea diving outfits would not do for Sunday services), it never overrides the modesty principle. First Corinthians 11:3-16 sets forth general guidelines about hair length on men and women, but since these are very general, the emphasis should be on the heart attitude.

Morality

Standards of purity should be grounded in II Timothy 2:22 and I Thessalonians 4:1-7. Second Timothy 2:22 is the subject of much heated debate, but some unity can be attained by focusing attention on the first word, "flee," and defining it clearly as "run from," and then substituting "mother grizzly bear with cubs" for "youthful lust." It is amazing how much clarity and insight this little exercise provides as dating standards are discussed. This verse also provides a positive, active approach to dating standards, as the young people are taught to "follow after righteousness, faith, love, and peace" and "a pure heart" when they are on a date. Second Corinthians 6 teaches whom not to date and why.

Entertainment and association

Standards of entertainment and association are guided by the principles set forth in Psalm 11:5 and 101:3. These principles eliminate virtually all network television programming, most movies, and most of the popular music. The stiffest resistance will probably be met in the area of entertainment, but again the emphasis is on holiness, not on what pleases the individual. A right heart attitude in the young people will result in an obedient response to the principles in these passages. They will then choose and approve things that are excellent (Philippians 1:9-11).

Music, especially Christian rock, will likely cause intense disagreement, and it is an area only vaguely dealt with in Scripture. However, Exodus 32:17-19 indicates that clamorous music with a noticeable beat accompanied the orgiastic, pagan worship of the golden calf. It was mistaken for war from a distance. Psalm 33:3 and 40:3 indicate a difference between the old, worldly and the new, godly songs. Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 emphasize the importance of the Psalms, the old and respected hymns, and the melody (as opposed to harmony and beat). Christians have a tendency to do with music what the institutional Catholic Church did with statues and holidays; we take our idols ("but I like it") and Christianize them. The result is not that the idol is made more holy but rather that the Christian practices slowly become more pagan.

Physical care

Care of God's temple is covered in general by I Corinthians 3:16-17. This passage provides a starting point for teaching on gluttony, substance abuse, and harmful habits. The teacher has to keep in mind that God and the students expect him to be the example in these areas. When a body-abuser preaches or teaches on this passage, audience receptivity understandably dwindles.

Focus and goal

In all likelihood, every teacher has something in his teenage years of which he may not be especially proud. But it is important that a forgiven failure in the past should in no way hamstring the clear presentation of biblical standards, even when the standard condemns past failures for all to see. The teacher does not confess his past to the youth or base his teaching of standards on what he or someone else did or said but on what God sets forth in His Word. He instills in young people a restless desire to know and honor God, to say not "I have a right to," but rather, "How can I bring honor and glory to Jesus Christ?" Then the students will set high standards for themselves out of a desire to please God and not self, and they will do so when no one else is there to hold their hands. Heart and life transformation is the goal of biblical standards and the evidence of applying God's Word to everyday life and behavior (Romans 12:1-2).

Excerpts for this article have been taken from chapter 16 of the book Forming a New Generation: A Practical Guide for Youth Leaders by Walter, Trudy, and Gilbert Fremont, Bob Jones University Press, 1990; 272 pages, $10.95. This is an ideal book for all teachers in the 5th- through 12th-grade levels.

Reprinted from Balance, a publication of the School of Education, Bob Jones University. Used with permission of Bob Jones University. Please write BJU Press, for permission to reproduce this article.