I may be a glutton for punishment, but I love the Israeli wilderness. It’s one of my favorite places to take people during study tours in the Holy Land. It’s barren, hot, and rocky. It’s what I imagine being on Mars must feel like. Needless to say, it’s certainly not a walk in the park. However, there’s an unseen beauty in the wilderness.

I think of the wilderness as one of God’s favorite classrooms to teach His People. It’s a place He takes them to learn who He is, who they are, and how they should live.

Education--learning--is not necessarily the pathway to truth.

Paul told Timothy that the men of today would be “always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (II Timothy 3:17). In his letter to the Romans, Paul says that men, in an attempt to prove that they are wise, will suppress the truth and, claiming to be wise, become fools--their minds and hearts darkened (Romans 1:21-22). Even the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Jesus' day, searched the Scriptures, but Jesus told them that they had no idea what the truth was. He stood right in front of them and they didn't comprehend; they had blind minds and blind hearts (Matthew 23:16-17, for example).

Epistemology is a big word that simply describes the currency with which schools operate. A school’s and culture’s epistemology is its theory of knowledge; namely, what knowledge is and how it is acquired. And the truth is, our culture and our schools have been experiencing a significant epistemological crisis that is having tremendous consequences in our schools, our culture, and even our churches.