COMMON SENSE. The phrase has come to mean the practice of right judgment in practical matters. But the phrase assumes two basic ideas. “Sense” is wisdom, a deep grounding in discernment; some might say a person is quite perceptive or understanding. The individual then applies the accumulated insights from life to particular concerns. “Common” takes for granted that there is an assumed thinking for all people, places, times, and cultures. A universal ideal exists which is then applied in some local reality.
When we say a person has “common sense” we generally mean they are taking the best of what they have studied about humanity and human relations, then using it to make a decision. Hebraic-Christian thinking suggests that “common sense” is Wisdom embedded in world for the benefit of all humanity (Proverbs 8:12-36). We make sense of what is common from One who has our best interests at heart.
Flipping an idea on its head or turning a concept upside down is often my approach to opposing claims. “What if?” is a fair question of any position. When the Jews approached Jesus about the murder of their countrymen by the Romans in Luke 13, Jesus did not take the bait, an opportunity to agree or disagree. He chose a third approach. His response shatters the original concern. Instead of being concerned about the sin of the Romans or the sin of those who were killed, Jesus shines a light on the sin of those who brought the charge. The Son of Man’s intention seems clear: each of us must consider our own eternal state.
Proverbial statements and questions in my classes over the years have followed Jesus’ process. Instead of pointing fingers at others I ask us all to look in the mirror. What is true of me? What should I change? How am I culpable for my actions?
Enigmatic, thoughtful statements leave space for people to ponder. Declarative, assertive statements suggest dogmatic positions. Far from a belief that “we can know nothing for sure” is the understanding that everything is known – just not by us.
“If I can’t show you how it applies, it won’t be on the test.” Over the decades of teaching, my intention is practicality. Teaching should be useful. I am a pragmatic person; I like to see how ideas work in real life. However, the origin of ideas – to me – makes the most sense being rooted in Eternal Truth.
Short and sweet. I am a big believer in Proverbial wisdom; crisp, condensed sayings that capture attention with straightforward instruction. Here are 169 mantras heard in my classrooms over four decades of teaching. I would never expect universal agreement; but I hope each gives you pause. They still do for me.
- My views of authority and humanity impact everything else
- There are no moral vacuums
- Every tick of the clock brings us one second closer to death
-
Justice is impossible if it’s left up to just us
- Gratitude is the basis for ethics
- Complexity is a marker of design
-
Everyone bows the knee to something
- The private affects the public
- Choice is consequence
- Ideas change people, people change a culture
- Just because the road is well traveled does not mean it’s the right path.
- Gratitude and discipline are the twin pillars of life.
-
Everything is theological
- When evaluating another point of view, ask, “What am I *not* hearing?”
- Whoever controls the definition, controls the conversation.
- Every audience asks the same questions: “So What?” “Who cares?” “Why am I listening to you?”
- Communication of any subject should be what Emily Dickenson said: “Tell It Slant.”
- Narrative in this world comes from Another World.
- “Common sense” has an uncommon source.
-
Everyone everywhere seeks answers to the same questions.
- If we don’t have a philosophy of life, one will be provided for us.
- Everyone has doctrine.
- Movies are beliefs wrapped in stories.
- Think, or thinking will be done for you.
- Just like nature, culture abhors a vacuum. Vacuums fill by those who fill them first.
-
Our theology drives our sociology.
- The monster in the mirror is scarier than the monster under the bed.
- “Courage” is knowing what to fear.
- “Good” must exist for us to know what “evil” is.
- Saying something is “wrong” assumes you know the standard for “right.”
- Social conscience begins by looking in the mirror.
-
Where we spend our time and money shows our commitments.
- Mystery cannot exist without certainty
- Life has limitations
- To make a difference, we have to be different
- Life is not made from straight lines
- “That’s boring!” says more about the speaker than the subject.
-
“Who says?” is the first question to answer in life.
- “The pursuit of happiness” can become the pursuit of emptiness.
- Is “choice” a servant or a master?
- Time plus chance cannot deliver purpose.
- The phrase “social justice” prompts two questions: “What is your social?” and “What is your basis for justice?”
- Doing good is the best response to what is bad.
-
There can be no peace without justice and no justice without a righteousness
- “Materialism” is not what we have, but what has us.
- If human rights come from government, government can take human rights away
- Everyone is a leader somewhere, most importantly, in one’s own life.
- If all we see is “wrong,” we will never appreciate anything that is right.
- “Progressive” thinkers should acknowledge when progress has been made.
- “Conservative” thinkers should acknowledge progress must continue to be made.
-
If you blame God for the “bad” do you thank Him for the “good”?
- Evolution by impersonal forces gives no basis for planetary responsibility
- God does not wear a watch
-
“Legacy” is not so much what you leave behind but who you leave behind.
- The graveyard schools the schoolyard
- Just because someone knows more than you, doesn’t make them right.
- My environment may accentuate my behavior but is not the root cause of it.
- Life is not a crap shoot
-
Where you’ve come from, and where you’re going to, helps you know how to live now.
- Every day everyone puts their trust in something or someone.
- Experience is a teacher but not necessarily the best one
- Trying to make sense of the world takes more than our senses
- If we come from the ground, up, we are nothing more than dirt.
- Permanent truth helps us make personal decisions
-
The more difficult question to answer is not “Why do bad things happen to good people?” but “Why do bad people do good things?”
- With apologies to Billy Joel, we *did* start the fire
- Internal change depends on an external change agent.
- What we do now counts later
- Our reason for living is a question of how we got here.
- Unity is the basis for community.
-
What do you want to be known for?
- What must I know, be, and do because of what I’ve learned?
- The finite cannot define the infinite
- “Ownership” is my one-word definition of student-centered education.
-
You can’t have the Christian fruit without the Christian root.
- If we don’t remember who we are, it won’t matter what we do.
- We live in the tension between ideal and real
- “Tension” – not “balance” – best explains how we live in a world of contrasts
-
Thinking begins with views of origins and ends
- History begins in Eternity
- Assertion is not argument
- God’s longsuffering and justice are the bookends of history
-
The Creator created creatures who creatively create from creation.
- What is written on pen with paper was first written on the human heart
- Mathematical patterns are a result of design
- Humans do not create truth, they discover it
- Production from and protection of creation is human responsibility.
-
The three rules of interpretation: 1. Context 2. Context 3. Context
- Speaking badly of others tells us most about the speaker
- Encourage in writing, criticize in person
- “What did it mean for them, then?” precedes “What does it mean for us, now?”
-
Using the word “should” means you are dedicated to a system of ethics
- Inclusivity depends on exclusivity
- “Racism” is a matter of the human heart
- Don’t believe me. Go study for yourselves.
- Ethics never change; they only await our application
- Give people space and grace. We do not know what unseen horrors they may face
-
My disagreement with you matters little if I don’t care for you
- The whole of Christian responsibility can be summarized in one word: Others.
- Begin sentences with “I need to” instead of “I wish they would”
-
If you question a document’s historicity, then you begin to question its authenticity and ultimately, its authority
- Historical truth depends on documentation; scientific truth depends on experimentation.
- Revelation rules reason
- Reality is not what we make it but what is
- The natural world depends on the supernatural world
- The source of discord in all relationships comes from either refused or abused authority.
- All knowledge should be evaluated by the S. P. U. D. test: Is it sensible, practical, universal, and dependable?
-
All truth originates from, is united by, and is, God’s Truth
- Instruction is for transformation, not information
- Christianity’s view of salvation is the difference between two five-letter words: based on GRACE, all other religions & worldviews depend on WORKS.
- Teaching of any kind depends on both content and communication. The first without the second is lifeless. The second without the first is foundationless.
- There is a God-shaped-hole in each person
- Something is not true because it works, it works because it’s true.
-
There is no defense against love
- Love is the best apologetic
- Expectations: we tend to lower them for ourselves but want everyone else to meet ours.
- The difference between “fascism” and “communism” is spelling.
- If we speak about what is good, the bad will be harder to hear.
-
Jesus removed social boundaries simply by being with all social classes.
- If you only learn to follow an authority’s words without thought, you will allow anyone with the loudest voice or the most letters behind her name to sway your thinking.
-
The greatest theological phrase: “But God.”
- When citizens reject God, the state becomes God.
- No one ever teaches because they think they’re wrong.
- Jesus does not see human status; He sees human need.
- The teacher who teaches best, teaches least
- If we never think we could be wrong, we already are.
-
Autonomy is its own tyranny.
- “Labels” maintain manufactured design; helpful in finding ketchup, death to inquiry.
- Beware the echo chamber: hearing only those with whom we agree.
- Truth exists because Truth is the Source of all that exists
- What does life look like if everything runs the way you think it should be run? Can everyone else, live with your “should”?
-
If we think a “perfect world” is possible, then we must ask, “What does your ‘perfect world’ look like?” and “How will you get there?”
- If we think human knowledge will be our salvation, then we must ask, “Which human?” and “Whose knowledge?”
- “Humanly, speaking” suggests, from our earthly vantage point, we can only know so much.
-
In sociology we call it “the human condition.” In theology we just call it “sin.”
- Persuasion begins with attraction. Inviting others to a viewpoint is an allure, not a lure.
- Biblical revelation explains creational revelation. Our job is to look and listen.
- When people question my beliefs about eternal judgment, I tell them, “Take it up with Jesus. He said it first.”
-
If God exists, everything is Sacred, nothing is “secular.”
- I do not tell others my belief is “better” than theirs; I do point out, however, that my Hebraic-Christian belief is distinctive from theirs.
- You can’t have the sociology of Jesus without the theology of Jesus. The first depends on the second.
142. Study The Book, know The Book, memorize The Book.
143.We see best by what we hear first.
144. Everyone is biased. We all begin with assumptions
145. The importance of watching movies is the importance of being human.
146. The story we live comes from stories we read, becoming the story we tell.
147. Attack ideas, not people. [Antonin Scalia]
148. As soon as you ask a question you have biased your research.
149. Rather than saying “There’s a problem” say, “I’m going to find a solution.”
150. A person can live 40 days without food, 3 days without water, 5 minutes without air, but not one second without hope.
151. The most important “T” word is not “truth,” it is “transcendence.”
152. “Providential good fortune” is a Christian way to say, “I hope the best for you.”
153. Christianity is not for wimps.
154. The Bible is studied in this order: observation, interpretation, correlation, application.
155. Interpretation – “What did it mean for them, then?” – must precede application – “What does it mean for us, now?”
156. Equality” means everyone should have the same outcomes; “equity” means everyone should have the same opportunities.
157. All other religions say, “This is what you must do.” Christ says, “This is what has been done for you.”
158. A culture which creates its own definitions acknowledges no authority but itself.
159. If you disrespect authorities, don’t be upset when others disrespect your authority.
160. There are two rules of life: #1 There is a God. #2 You are not Him.
161. Education can be reduced to one simple rule: put the cookies on the bottom shelf.
162. Doubt is its own certainty.
163. Encouragement costs nothing.
164. My unseen job in teaching is to inspire my students
165. Vocation IS ministry
166. Lament does not seek to explain pain but gives voice to human anguish, rage and despair.
167. “All” means all and that’s all “all” means.
168. For the Christian, “good works” are possible because of the “good news.”
169. Do good, do good, do good (Titus 3:1, 8, 14)
Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).
Picture Credit: Josh Collingwood, SnappyGoat
Remembrance coincides with restoration. “Tear downs,” the phrase given to eradicating the original house for something brand new, is not the optimum outcome. Crucial to most every HGTV show is a recombination of the past with the present. 
My mom is the pictorial archivist of our family; gifts given are often photo albums. Sometimes mom writes notes about who someone is in the grainy black and white mid-twentieth century photo. For me, now in my sixties, mom reminds me of folks I never met or was too young to know. In her own way, mom is a memoirist, similar to McClay who says in words not pictures
beautiful brick façade, accented by a front porch that overlooked the neighborhood street. In my mind’s eye I can see that street, the sidewalks, and all the other houses with architecturally beautiful porches. Now when I see refurbished homes with that same architecture, 
Over Spring Break I read Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz. 
Churchill’s words are imperative in times like these when freedoms are being eroded. 
An atheist and a Christian finding common ground in an open dialogue. I believe in the importance of free speech and open dialogue. 
I will continue to speak out for freedom and freedom of speech. If free speech is lost, America freedoms are lost.
“In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom.” – Phillis Wheatley
