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How Does Learning Deepen Joy? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Well as Thursday's episode ended. Last week, Pastor John, you had just
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  begun to talk to us about the joy of learning. Will never understand your
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  model for lifelong learning or for education if we leave the affections and the emotions
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  out of the equation. I mean, it just won't make sense. And
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  this explains why the words joy and feeling, terms of emotion and affection are
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  terms that we see all over your older book titled Think, the Life of
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  the Mind and the Love of God. In that book and Think, you
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  mentioned those two terms joy and feeling one hundred and ten times, closely linking
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  proper thinking with proper feeling. That book Think is twelve and a half years
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  old now, so I was eager to see how often you use those terms
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  of joy and feeling in this new book, and they dominate even more.
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  The words joy and feeling appear three hundred and fifty seven times in new new
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  book, Foundations for Lifelong Learning Education in Serious Joy. Those two terms joy
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  and feeling are all over this new book. To the point that you make
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  this claim explicitly. Quote some people think that emotions are marginal in the task
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  of education. We regard them as essential. End quote. Unpack this.
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  What essential role does joy and feeling play in Bible learning and in all of
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  our learning. This is so important, so so important for understanding the nature
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  of true education. When I try to help people understand what we are doing
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  at Bethlehem College and Seminary or in my life, I regularly mention these six
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  habits of mind and heart that we're trying to build into the lives of our
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  students, or that I'm trying to build into my own life, both college
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  students and seminary students and everybody else who will listen. We don't think education
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  is mainly the imparting of information, or mainly the training and a technical skill,
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  But mainly it's the formation of a mature disciple of Christ who can go
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  on learning for a lifetime of wisdom and wonder in whatever vocation God calls them.
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  So when I'm trying to help folks understand what we do, I mention
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  these six habits observation, understanding, evaluation, feeling, alarm bells go off,
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  application, expression, and the order is really important makes a huge difference
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  because these habits are governed by a Christ exalting, God sent heard, Bible
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  saturated worldview. So First we observe accurately we're honest people. Then we understand
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  truly what we've under what we've observed. Then we evaluate fairly on the basis
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  of accurate observation and true understanding. Then we feel appropriately. Then in all
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  the ways of wisdom, we apply what we have observed and understood and evaluated
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  and felt. And then we give expression with our mouth and in writing in
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  compelling ways that glorify God and bring blessing to people. And what I find
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  is that it's the fourth habit of mind and heart that puzzles people, causes
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  them to have a question mark on their face. And it's the one that
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  you're asking about feeling, name joy or feeling or whatever. Appropriate emotions should
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  arise as one is observing and understanding and evaluating. So we observe, we
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  understand, we evaluate, and then I say, we feel we feel appropriately,
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  And people wonder, really, really, one of your six aims of
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  a college education or a seminary education is feeling? And the answer is a
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  resounding and unashamed yes. I mean, when all is said and done in
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  education, this may be the one habit of mind that distinguishes true education from
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  artificial intelligence. At one level. Computers observe, understand, evaluate, apply,
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  express, but no computer will ever love or hate, or admire or
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  hope or rejoice or sympathize. No matter what emotional words the computer speaks out,
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  it doesn't matter what they say, it's not going to happen. These
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  are distinctively human acts of the God created image of God's soul, and they
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  are all important. In the Bible. The number one commandment in the Bible
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  is not know the Lord your God, but love the Lord your God with
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  all your heart, all of it, all your heart. And Paul said,
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  let those who do not have love for the Lord be anathema. He
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  said that the whole Old Testament was written that we might have hope and emotion,
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  hope over and over. We are commanded to rejoice in the Lord,
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  to serve the Lord with gladness. We are commanded to weep with those who
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  weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. We're commanded to be tender hearted.
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  Tender hearted. That's not a thought, it's a feeling, and to
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  feel compassion. These are not optional, They're not peripheral in the Bible.
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  They are essential to being a whole human being. An educated human being to
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  being a Christian. Nobody is saved by thinking true thoughts about God or even
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  believing true things about God. The devil believes more true things about God than
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  we do, because he knows more than we know about God. But he
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  hates them all. He hates these things about God that he knows. He
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  hates them. That's a feeling. He hates them. That's the main issue
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  in life. It's the issue. It's not a peripheral issue. It's not
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  what he thinks. That's the problem. He feels all the wrong things.
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  That's what makes him the devil. And shall we neglect in education the very
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  thing that sets us apart from the demons, the very thing that fulfills the
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  Great Commandment? Shall we neglect it? The very thing that shows we're not
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  mere walking computers. We are humans created in the image of God. So
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  yes, yes, yes, yes, we seek to build into our own
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  lives and the lives of our students and our APJ listeners. Right now,
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  the habits of observing, accurately, understanding, truly, evaluating fairly, And
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  I wish I could scream it from the housetops. Feeling appropriately and then applying
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  wisely and expressing compellingly. And when we say feeling appropriately, we mean there
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  are healthy, mature and virtuous emotions in response to different realities, and there
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  are unhealthy, immature and evil emotions in responding to different realities. It's evil
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  evil to rejoice over the spreading of a lie. It's a sign of mental
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  unhealth not to feel empathy for a fellow Christian languishing in prison for his faith.
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  It's a sign of emotional immaturity to giggle at a slip up in a
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  public communication. This is the real stuff of education. Knowledge is good,
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  knowledge is necessary. Love is better. A critical mind is a gift.
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  A well formed soul with deep and virtuous emotions is a greater gift. C.
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  S. Lewis we love. Lewis wrote about education in the Abolition of
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  Man. Alan Jacobs, in his biography of Lewis, sums up Lewis's point
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  in the Abolition of Man like this quote. Lewis passionately believed that education is
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  not about providing information so much as cultivating habits of the heart, producing men
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  with chests. As he put it in his book The Abolition of Man.
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  That is so here's his explanation of men with chests people who not only think
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  as they should, but respond as they should instinctively and emotionally to the challenges
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  and blessings the world offers them, to which I say exactly exactly. Education
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  aims at right thinking about the world and right emotional responses to the world.
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  Now, of course, once we say that and believe that, we are
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  launched into the massive question of what makes a feeling virtuous. This is why
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  secular colleges and universities cannot state the aims of their education the way we do.
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  They cannot say that their aim is to build into their students' lives the
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  habit of forming virtuous feelings, because there's no consensus in the universities about what
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  makes a feeling virtuous. Say a feeling about sex outside marriage, a feeling
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  about trying to change your sex, a feeling about a killing unborn children,
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  a feeling about and economic strategies, feelings about Jesus Christ and the way of
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  salvation. They have no way that they can agree on what is a virtuous
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  feeling in response to those massive realities. Which is a tragedy when you think
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  about it, that our kids are being educated in institutions that cannot state their
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  goals that way. The fact that in this new book, Foundations of Lifelong
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  Learning, I include an entire chapter on the lifelong educational goal of appropriate feelings
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  virtuous feelings that only makes sense. The existence of that chapter only makes sense
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  because I believe in radically Christian Bible saturated christ exalting education. This podcast,
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  that book, Bethleem College and seminary, all of this, all my life
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  aims at cultivate the mental and emotional habit of experiencing virtuous feelings. A virtuous
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  feeling, in response to an accurately observed, rightly understood, truly evaluated object
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  is a glorious thing. A virtuous feeling is a glorious thing. A virtuous
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  feeling is an authentic overflow of the good treasure of the heart of faith.
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  A virtuous feeling is shaped and intensified and limited by the fruit of the Holy
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  Spirit. A virtuous feeling is an expression of love to God and people,
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  even when it is hatred of evil. A virtuous feeling is a christ exalting
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  feeling. We are not well educated people until we can respond to reality in
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  healthy, mature, virtuous, appropriate ways as we feel appropriately. That will
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  include abhorrence of what is evil, Romans twelve nine. It will include sympathy
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  for the suffering Romans twelve fifteen. It will include fear of any hint of
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  unbelief rising in my heart Romans eleven twenty. It will include overflowing joy in
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  response to the Gospel of the Grace of God Tewod Corinthians eight, verse two.
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  That's why the subtitle of the new book is education in serious serious joy.
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  Joy will be the dominant feeling for the Christian in this life, but
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  in a world like ours, it will be serious, even sorrowful joy.
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  Yeah, education exists for virtuous feeling. Christ Exalting education, This podcast,
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  the new book, Bethlehem College, and seminary, all of this, all
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  My life aims at cultivating the mental and emotional habit of experiencing virtuous feeling,
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  a virtuous feeling in response to an accurately observed, rightly understood, truly evaluated
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  object. That is a mouthful, but that's a game changer as well when
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  it comes to considering schools and academic options for education for yourself or for your
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  for your young adult Thank you, pastor John, and thanks for joining us
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  today. If you want to ask Pastor John. Type out your question as
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  briefly as possible, please and email it to me at ask Pastor John at
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  desiring Good dot org. Well, our episode up next on Thursday, lands
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  on a national holiday for us here in the States Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is Thursday,
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  but Thanksgiving is for all of us, all the time. And we
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  return with a fitting question from a listener on Romans one twenty one, and
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  how are God word Thanksgiving or lack of Thanksgiving shapes the entire trajectory of our
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  lives. Paul makes this claim in Romans one. So how is the story
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  of your life told by your Thanksgiving? We'll find out Thursday. We'll see then