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The topic of homeschool has been of major interest lately, as more and more of you have been reaching out to me about it. Especially as we see those lines getting blurred and conflict arising between secular values and Christian values in the world right now, I think that it’s more important than ever to take a look at homeschool with eyes and hearts that are seeking wisdom. So, whether you’re already a homeschool family, or if you’re just on the front end of it, and you’re considering what it might look like for your family, I think that you’re really going to enjoy today’s conversation with my guest, David Nekrutman.
David is the founder of Biblicalexcavations.com, and the author of “Your Sabbath Invitation”, which is a critical thinking course for high school students. He has passionately served the calling of Jewish-Christian relations for over 20 years. His op-ed articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, and Charisma magazine, and he has appeared on GOD TV and CBN.
He’s joining me today to talk about cultivating a biblical lifestyle of learning in your home and homeschool, and to share about some homeschool content that fuses together critical thinking and scripture. What a joy to get to dive into this together today!
As I got to dig in and learn more about David, I quickly learned that he has passionately investigated the scriptures, and has taught others to do the same from a Hebraic perspective. And when I say Hebraic, I have no doubt that the ears of Christian moms are perking up all over the place right now. And they’re trying to discern exactly what does that mean. So I’d like to start right there. Let’s talk about what it means to look at things from a Hebraic perspective. And how is that different from or the same as Christianity? And how do those two mesh together?
The Art of Question
David begins by talking about the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis, which is about 2,000 years of biblical history. He mentions that in those 11 chapters, we have great stories…flaming swords that come out from the Garden of Eden, we have the first murder, but we also have stories that relate to genealogy. And this is where David, as a young kid, used to tune out. Why do we have two chapters dedicated to all these descendants? And then we spend two and a half chapters on the flood story. And he says that if you want to understand Hebraic thought, it’s the art of the question. Why are these stories in our Bible for 2,000 years of history? And that’s the way David would start approaching the Bible. We have these texts that are sacred. But we’re not supposed to only memorize it, chapter and verse, we’re supposed to engage with it.
So if we start with the first chapter of Genesis, the unfolding of creation, you will see there are patterns that develop in the first chapter of Genesis for the first six days of creation, but when we get to the seventh day, Genesis 2:1-3, none of those patterns appear. It was evening, it was morning, insert the day… first day, second day, third day. But when you get to the seventh day, you don’t have the pattern.
So this is an opportunity to develop your questioning skills. And that’s the first approach that David would do in a Hebraic context, using the actual text and delving into it, and seeing what questions we can ask to then excavate revelational golden nuggets.
And this should be very familiar to Christian audiences because when Jesus was a young child, at the age of 12, He suddenly ran away from His parents, ended up in the temple in Jerusalem, where David is speaking to us today, and He’s having a conversation with the elders and the sages at the temple at 12 years old. Well, how those conversations were taking place is through question and answer. And not only that, people were in wonderment of this 12-year-old prodigy. And so David says if you truly want to excavate properly, you need to ask a great question.
So, the first step to anything is developing the art of the question. And the way you do that is by asking the question, why? And not only that, he would say to ask, what patterns and what redundancies are in the verses? And that’s how you develop your art of questioning skills.
As a certified life coach, this just makes me think of this concept that we like to use called ask curious questions or ask thought-provoking questions. And I was thinking as David was sharing, that as we’re reading through the Bible, I know I find myself doing this without even really knowing it, but just jotting those curious questions over in the margins, things to really think about and ponder on and chew on later.
So that’s very similar to what David is talking about but he says the first thing is to use the text. So in his sample of Genesis 1, it was evening, it was morning, and then insert the day. But when you go to the seventh day, you don’t have it was evening, it was morning.
So why doesn’t it have that pattern, and why do the other days have this pattern? Is the seventh day different than the other six days? Are there other patterns that appear in the first chapter of Genesis that don’t appear in the second chapter of Genesis 1-3? And as David mentioned, you’ll see that you won’t read “God saw, God said,” and you’ll probably come up with seven other patterns that don’t exist on the seventh day, but do exist on the first day. So those real concrete examples that David is talking about shows us that entering into Hebraic mindset means you’re entering a world of curious questions, but curious questions on the text.
The Importance of Critical Thinking for our Youth
So I just had to ask David how all of this came together to lead him down the path to create Biblical Excavations. And he says that because of his years of teaching Christian groups that come to visit Israel, going around the world to talk about the importance of the relationship between Jews and Christians in churches, and doing Hebraic Bible sessions to Christians all over the world, what he found over the years is that our public school education in the United States is introducing unbiblical values. And more and more Christian families are deciding to pull their kids out from public school and homeschool their children. Once you do that, then the question is, what type of Bible curriculum will be introduced to the child as they grow up? And what David has found over the last few years is most Bible curriculums are from a devotional perspective, an emphasis on memorizing chapters and verses and the feelings of a person towards the scripture. But he says that he’s never really found a full fledge critical thinking, fused with Hebraic understanding curriculum. And so God put a download in his heart and working with Christian mothers and Christian grandmothers, developed a team to put this first-ever curriculum together. He wants Christians to be Christ-centered and he wants them to understand how Jesus was taught as a child and how He taught the masses in the crowds as well. And it’s all through Hebraic lens. So the hope of the curriculum that comes out from Biblical Excavations will speak to the techniques that excavate scripture Hebraicly.
I love that. And so critical thinking and what I would call a lifestyle of learning, obviously, are such an important part of this. But why are those two things so important for our youth today?
David says that most youth are introduced to content that’s presented on a silver platter, as opposed to working through the content. PowerPoint presentations are obviously the rave and that’s how the youth are processing the information. It’s all given in what David says is a silver platter approach. But it’s all content and it’s basically asking the student to memorize the content. And from David’s perspective, the only way that you develop your critical thinking skills is to dig into the passage. A secular version of this is open-ended questions that you have in your critical thinking secular subjects, where you’re actually introducing critical thinking. But David says you have to actually fuse it with biblical understanding because you want to have the thinking under the sovereignty of God.
Excavating the Scripture
How do we excavate properly? David shares a great example: “I’m coming from where the Christian would come from, why does Jesus actually teach a third of His teachings through parables? And the answer is very clear, because a parable in a story format, is a way to process the information for the listener to make a choice, to obey, or not to obey. Every parable that Jesus is speaking to the crowds or to His disciples, is about moving the person into action. So sometimes we can hear something but what moves us to actually say, ‘yes, and I’m going to actually do it’? I think the parables are your ancient Nike slogan, ‘Just do it,’ because the parables are designed as a Jewish technique approach to get you to the point of saying yes, but actually doing the Yes. And that’s the hard part. Because most people don’t want to do that. They are willing to listen, but not actually do.”
I completely agree and I think stories are so powerful and moving. David actually incorporates storytelling and parables into his curriculum. He mentions that the first curriculum is, “Your Sabbath Invitation.” So if we actually examine the Scriptures of Genesis 1 and 2:1-3 and Exodus 16, and Psalm 92, the curriculum that they’re currently working on is the parables of Jesus. So they’re bringing the parables back to its 1st-century listeners, so you can hear what they heard.
Digging into the Curriculum
So with this curriculum, who specifically is it for, and what is covered inside of it?
David says he’s so excited about it because the book is inspired by the second to the last verse in the book of Isaiah, where it says, “From new moon to new moon, from sabbath to sabbath, all will worship me,’ says the eternal God.” So in a redemptive messianic moment, there’s a vision of all humanity, celebrating the Sabbath, which is quite profound, because if you go to the first chapter of Isaiah, the prophet is rebuking the nation for their outward ritual checklist, but the lack of inward godliness behind it, that they’re not really following God with their heart. And one of the reprimands is that they’re not keeping Sabbath with their heart; they’re keeping the ritual aspect of it, but inside their heart, it’s not there.
So the Prophet begins rebuking a nation for their improper motivation behind the Sabbath. But he envisions at the end, that everyone is going to say, “well, how does that happen?” How does the Prophet actually see this? How does he get to this point, and furthermore, most of the time, David says when he’s thinking end of days, he thinks of the end of days in an Armageddon scenario, doom and gloom. And Isaiah is giving us more of a positive. And in today’s approach, Sabbath is not doom and gloom and sad; it’s pretty happy. It’s actually a remembrance of what was of creation, and it’s part of furthering redemption. So for David, that’s the inspiration of the book. How can we get more people to adopt a sabbath lifestyle?
He’s not asking Christians to take on an Orthodox Jewish practice of Sabbath, but an affirmation of what this day is truly about, which has a redemptive component on it. And in chapter 66 is where this prophecy is taking place. It’s in the same chapter that declares, “Can a nation be born in the day.” And guess what? David is talking to us from a nation that was born in a day. In one day, Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister of Israel, declared the State of Israel. So here we are, he’s speaking to us from a fulfillment of biblical prophecy in chapter 66, which is positive. So we can begin the infulfillment of this and partnering with God and redemption of a messianic Sabbath.
I love that. And David has really geared this course to high school students but I honestly feel like there’s something for everyone, even for moms, the parents. Having a heart for Sabbath I think it’s important for all of us. But the reason behind gearing it towards high school students, David says, is based upon Genesis 18:19. God brings us into His world, saying why He picked Abraham, that Abraham will teach about God’s righteousness and His mercy to the next generation. David says that the greatest title you can have, biblically speaking, is an educator. God knew that Abraham would teach covenant to the next generation. Well, our responsibility as parents is to be those educators for our children. How do we expect our children to keep covenant, to keep those values, if we don’t bring it at home? And David says that Sabbath is one of those keys to celebrate with our children. So if the children are exposed at a very early age to a Sabbath lifestyle, and again, Jesus kept the Sabbath, Jesus spoke in the synagogue, went to the synagogue on the Sabbath. Look at Luke 4… Paul went to the synagogue and Antioch in the book of Acts; the Sabbath is a big deal. And if we even go further, a lot of Jesus’ miracles of healing took place on the Sabbath. So if Sabbath was important to Jesus and the disciples, then the Sabbath lifestyle is important for the family, to celebrate covenant, to gather to celebrate God, together. That means you start at home with the children to be educated and reared in this perspective.
One of my favorite words is wisdom. And I think walking in biblical wisdom and seeking biblical wisdom really lays a foundation for our life as we follow Jesus. And I see that through what David is doing here. I personally am excited to dig in and learn more about David’s curriculum as we continue on our homeschool journey. I am absolutely fascinated by what he shared today, a program that encourages a blend of critical thinking and really digging into Scripture. So be sure to go check out Biblical Excavations to see how it might be helpful for your family, too.
Connect with David!
