Lesson Planning
- "I'm teaching [topic/passage] to [grade level] this week. Give me a simple lesson plan with a clear takeaway and one class discussion question designed to lead the students into a deeper understanding."
- "Turn [topic] into a short in-class activity, not just a lecture, preferably with items I may already have in the classroom or home."
Answering Student Questions
- "One of my third-grade students asked about [hard question] in class. Give me a short, age-appropriate, honest answer that's real but doesn't overwhelm them."
Talking to Parents
- "Give me a 3-paragraph note that I can send home explaining what we covered this week in [subject/topic], in plain language."
Age-Appropriate Depth
- "How would I explain [doctrine/topic] differently to a 3rd grader versus a high schooler? Give me both versions."
Faith Integration in Every Subject
- "I'm teaching [subject — science, history, literature, etc.] this week on [topic]. Help me find a genuine, non-forced way a Christian worldview actually shapes how we think about this, not just a tacked-on Bible verse."
- "A student asked how [subject/topic] fits with what the Bible says. Give me a thoughtful, honest answer — not a dodge, not a false either/or."
Actual Answers Provided By Selah
"Turn Jesus' miracles, specifically healing the demoniac, into a short in-class illustration, not just a lecture, preferably with items I may already have in the classroom or home. I don't know, maybe something with cuts and Band-Aids."
This is a practical teaching request, not a theological exploration session — so I'll set the Selah framework aside and give you something directly useful.
Here's an illustration that works well and uses almost nothing:
"The One Who Has Authority"
What you need: A few Band-Aids, a marker, a volunteer
Setup: Before class, write a word on each Band-Aid — something like FEAR, SHAME, ALONE, BROKEN, UNCLEAN. Keep them hidden or in your pocket.
The illustration:
Ask your volunteer to hold out their arm. As you read or retell the Gerasene demoniac story (Mark 5:1–20 works well — he's living in the tombs, cutting himself, no one can restrain him, the townspeople are afraid of him), stick the Band-Aids on the volunteer's arm one by one as you name what the man's life looks like:
"He's living among the dead — nobody wants him near them." (UNCLEAN)
"He's in so much pain he's hurting himself." (BROKEN)
"He's completely alone." (ALONE)
Then pause. Ask the class: what would it take to fix this? What would you need?
Let them answer — they'll probably say things like therapy, medication, a place to live, people who care.
Then: "Jesus gets out of the boat. He doesn't avoid the man. He walks straight toward him and speaks."
Remove the Band-Aids one at a time.
"The demons recognize who Jesus is before anyone else does." Pause on that.
The turn: ask — "What's the most interesting thing in this story to you? Is it that Jesus healed him? Or is it that the townspeople, when they see the man 'clothed and in his right mind,' are afraid — and ask Jesus to leave?"
That question usually opens something up. The miracle is real, but the response to the miracle is where the story gets complicated.
Why Band-Aids work here: they're associated with small fixes — minor cuts, surface-level help. The contrast with what Jesus actually does (expelling a legion) makes the point without you having to make it explicitly. You can also note: these aren't really the right tool for what was wrong with him — which is the point.
Variations:
- For older students or adults, you can add a Band-Aid labeled LEGION and let it stay on the longest — make the point that some things require more than a bandage
- For younger kids, simplify to just one or two labels and focus on the Jesus walked toward him when everyone else ran away element — that's the most accessible truth in the story
What age group and setting are you working with? I can sharpen this for the room.
"I'm teaching history this week on the Napoleonic Wars. Help me find a genuine, non-forced way a Christian worldview actually shapes how we think about this, not just a tacked-on Bible verse."
That's a genuinely interesting pedagogical challenge — and the Napoleonic Wars are rich territory for it, because the period forces questions that are inherently theological even when no one in the room knows it.
Here's one angle that I think does real work rather than decoration:
Napoleon is one of history's clearest case studies in the question of what happens when a human being — or a political order — refuses the limits of creatureliness. The ambition isn't just large; it's totalizing. He reorganizes law, religion, borders, dynasties, even the calendar. The Concordat of 1801 reorders the relationship between church and state on his terms. He crowns himself. The arc of the Empire — from Austerlitz to Moscow to Waterloo — has the shape of a classical hubris narrative, but the Christian account of that arc is more precise than the Greek one: it's not that the gods punish overreach, it's that reality itself is structured such that creatures who live as though they are uncreated eventually collide with the grain of the universe.
Reinhold Niebuhr's account of sin — specifically his distinction between sensuality and pride as the two root forms of sin — fits Napoleon almost surgically. The deeper sin, for Niebuhr, is not the obvious vices but the will to transcend creaturely limits: to make oneself the center, the source of order, the author of history. That's not a forced reading of Napoleon; that's what the man himself claimed.
The pedagogical move: you don't have to name this as "Christian worldview" up front. You can ask students why the Empire collapsed — not tactically, but structurally. What does Moscow represent? What does the resistance in Spain and Prussia represent? What happens to systems built entirely around one person's will? The answers they give will surface the underlying anthropology. Then, if the context permits, you can name that the Christian tradition has a very specific vocabulary for what they just described.
What's the setting — public school, Christian school, university? That shapes how far you can push the explicit framing.