The Bible is a book that is always current, because its messages and explanations never get out of date. In it, we can discover forms of communication between God and man and biblical characters that call for identification. We share our doubts and fears, aw well as hopes and faith with them. "Biblical pedagogy" introduces us to the search for the fundamental messages of biblical narratives, religious and human dimensions, opens new perspectives and dimensions and teaches us to sincerely believe, and thereby also live, work and love. The salvific dimension of the Bible is manifested in the fact that every story, no matter how complicated, unfolds well and encouragingly. The Bible is the fruit of divine-human inspiration. And the more the Bible is used in education, the more dynamic and positive human development is.
Situations of crisis in which biblical characters find themselves serve as material from which Höfer draws parallels for the therapeutic resolution of individual or family crisis situations. God comes to man as an educator and as a therapist, who is the first to use experiential learning methods and sends challenges to man to place him in the "here and now" situation. God's pedagogy begins in God's loving initiative and, as a fruit of grace, continues with man's response to it. God always comes to meet us and invites us. God's pedagogy is a kind of God's strategy, how God approaches man again and again from Abraham onwards and calls him to be his collaborator. Through experience, through experiential learning, he banishes doubts and fears.
In Israeli society, each gender had a specific role from birth onwards, which they played throughout their lives. Based to this role, the upbringing of children took place. They did not go to school and were raised at home. Boys were raised by men, to be masters, physically strong and technically skilled to support their family. The girls were raised by women to be housewives, helping in the kitchen, cleaning, and raising younger brothers and sisters. The girls knew their role from the "first steps" and were preparing to one day become wives and mothers. To become guardians of their hearth, children, and family. This will also fulfill them in the society of that time and give them public validity. The family was the foundation of the chosen people in Israelite society and from it the nation drew its strength. For it to be permanent, it was consecrated with a religious ceremony and various laws determined the degrees of kinship, which still allowed a union to be held. Monogamy was common, but we know of cases where, due to an infertile relationship with a wife who did not produce descendants, a male got children from another wife, a concubine or even a girl. Sometimes the father, to the loss of the son born to him by his wife, left property to the son he had with a concubine. Fortunately, these are rather exceptions that confirm the rule that a son born in matrimony had the priority of inheritance. Meeting Abraham's and Sarah's family opens the questions of relationships, upbringing, and life in a family without children, with an illegitimate child, but also offers a look at life of a family with an only child. Despite the dramatic moments, and perhaps because of them, Sarah and Abraham represent a "vibrant and enduring love story" in the Bible. Their bond was unbreakable, their lives forever intertwined.
At the same time, we cannot ignore Sara’s mission and educational challenges. With her actions and with human impatience, she has repeatedly "outstripped" God's plan. With her personality and characteristics, Sara confirms that she is the image of an Israelite woman as we meet them in the Old Testament. She also clearly had a special place in God's pedagogy, because the verse from 1 Moses 21:12 echoes as a special advice, where God tells Abraham to listen to Sarah, whatever she tells him. It turns out that the advice is practical, and Abraham followed it. And although the father has a leading position in the family, he must consider the position of the main female actor in the family, even when this threatens his freedom to protect and raise his descendants. Sara, however, was the first to realize through forced and pretended motherhood that faith and trust are necessary for fertility, as she was only able to realize her mission - to be a wife and mother - at an advanced age. Facing otherness was a challenge for her. But when Abraham "puts away" Sarah, he also puts his descendants at a distance. When both of them finally come to terms with parenthood, God decides on applying a proven experiential teaching method and tells Abraham, using pain, that despite everything, Isaac is not his, he is God's child and thus has the right to an independent life, to his own visions. This is how Abraham clears his conscience and solves fundamental dilemmas through communication. All three attitudes - being a wife, spiritual and biological mother, that we meet with Sara, are combined with the dimension of motherhood in teaching professions.
In the empirical work, we use a qualitative content analysis of data from semi-structured interviews and survey results at the pilot level or unrepresentative surveys. Research is an attempt to understand the experiences of the participants in the educational process. On one side of educators, on the other side of the educated, and in the surveys, participants of spiritual and educational programs who know the biblical background of the relationships to which the survey questions referred.
The biblical wife Sara, who is always at the service of relationships, is ready to change her face for them. It is important to emphasize that such an action requires a hint and an incentive. This is also why Sarah becomes fertile only when her husband Abraham opens to her in marriage. Changing the face is a process of integration, when we learn to accept and love ourselves, our family in a way that "they are ours" even with their sinful and dark dimensions of life. After a period of softening and change, God always rewards and gives us the possibility of new beginnings.
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