What subject area, other than the Bible, provides a bird’s eye view of God’s unfolding redemptive plan for humanity? What subject displays God’s sovereignty in all things, despite the choices man makes to work alongside God or go against God? Study in this same subject area allows students to discover how human’s image-bearing attributes contribute to culture forming. It’s Social Studies! Let’s explore biblical integration in social studies and real-life classroom examples to help shape your biblical thinking as you prepare your lessons.
Social Studies=Comprehensive View of God, Man, & Their Relationships
As defined by the National Council for the Social Studies, this discipline is “the study of individuals, communities, systems, and their interactions across time and place that prepares students for local, national, and global civic life.” Social Studies is a subject matter that allows students to gain a comprehensive view of God, man, and the relationship between God and Man. It provides an avenue to “witness the universal Truth of the gospel in the circumstances of humanity” (Classicalchristian.org) when taught from a biblical perspective.
Biblical Perspectives in Social Studies
This subject area encompasses the subcategories of history, government, economics, civics, sociology, geography, and anthropology. What do all of these aspects of social studies look like from a biblical perspective? Let’s look at just a few.
History
History is a branch of knowledge that records and explains past events. From a biblical perspective, history is linear and began when God created space and time (Genesis 1:1-3). It ends on earth with the final Day of Judgement (Acts 17:31) and the beginning of the eternal way of life. The ultimate purpose of history is the redemption and restoration of mankind and the original created order. (Acts 26-28, Ephesians 1:2-14).
Throughout history, we see God’s sovereignty (Job 12:23, Zechariah 14), whether man chooses disobedience and sinfulness (Acts 5:38-39, Malachi 1:4) or to act in harmony with God’s direction (Matthew 28:18-20). So, as you work through US History, European History, and Ancient and Modern World History, be alert for how these biblical ideas are revealed.
Government
Government is defined as the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and performs functions, which is usually classified according to the distribution of power within it (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The biblical view of government holds to the truths that God controls the rise and fall of governments and their leaders (Proverbs 8:15-16; Daniel 2:20-21). The health and stability of a nation is dependent upon its response to God’s will and law (Deuteronomy 28), and one of the roles of government is to restrain evil (Romans 13:1-7).
Classroom Examples of Biblical Integration in Social Studies
Here’s how one high school teacher transformed his unit to be Christ-centered. The topic he was assigned to teach as part of his regular curriculum in his US History course was the presidential policies made during the Progressive Era of the early 1900s in the US. This teacher wanted his students to be able to evaluate the strength and ethics of the presidential policies against a biblical standard. Specifically, the teacher wanted students to understand that the biblical basis for reducing poverty is because God has a heart for the poor (Job 34:17-19, Proverbs 3:27-28). This teacher also wanted the students to understand that the commandment to love our neighbor was the basis for ensuring safe working conditions and the protection of children (Matthew 22:37-39).
Here is how this US History teacher proceeded. Keeping in mind the biblical truths mentioned above, he posed the following essential question to his students: How can we determine if government policies for poverty and labor practices align with biblical principles? The students were provided with scriptures that established the role of government and how to treat others, especially the poor, children, and workers. Upon researching the scriptures, students developed a set of criteria they could use to evaluate government programs of the Progressive Era. This exercise guided students to understand what God’s word had to say related to the issues of the times and evaluate the rightness of the policies established by the leaders.
In a different example, one middle school teacher did something similar while focusing on the assigned ancient world history unit on Mesopotamia. Part of the curriculum required students to examine the laws of Babylon, namely Hammurabi’s Code. As the teacher prepared for the unit, he noticed that Hammurabi’s Code, while intended to establish order, was based on specific behavior infractions and a prescribed punishment. These punishments sometimes varied based on the wealth and status of the offender.
As the teacher thought about the Ten Commandments established by Yahweh, he realized then that those commandments were designed to establish order and had the added components of maintaining a right relationship with God. The teacher wanted his students to see the underlying cultural values of Babylon as displayed in Hammurabi’s Code compared to the biblical value of a right relationship with God and others as the underlying principle. The underlying value of a right relationship with God and others is included in the Ten Commandments.
This teacher’s essential question to his students was: How do the laws of a civilization reveal the most important values in the culture? To answer that question, students needed to learn and analyze Hammurabi’s Code. They had to discern the cultural values revealed by that set of laws and compare them with the values revealed in the Ten Commandments.
Discover Biblical Truth in Your Content First
Notice how, in the examples presented, the teachers first discover the biblical ideas that emerge from the curricular content. The teachers do not create an isolated Christ-centered lesson that is disconnected from the assigned curriculum materials. Rather, they first explore their assigned content to see what biblical ideas are revealed and then document those ideas. Next, the teachers decide on the big question that can be asked to guide the students in discovering those same biblical ideas.
Biblical Integration in Social Studies Emphasizes the Goodness of God’s Eternal Plan
Social studies is more than learning dates, knowing the facts about specific battles, and describing cultures around the world. Social studies provides insights into how God’s established order provides healthy guidelines for how we should live. We can see how people movements from one place to another by force or voluntary will, on the surface, look like escapes from tyranny or ventures to new lands. Yet these events were mechanisms for the spread of the Gospel. Social studies is a subject matter that allows teachers to emphasize the goodness of God’s eternal plan for Christians to compassionately, respectfully, wisely, and winsomely influence the world for God.
Transformed PD’s Biblical Integration Series
The mission of Transformed PD is to nurture the thinking and expertise of Christian school educators through relational teaching. We offer biblical professional development services and train educators on best practices for biblical integration in the classroom setting. Be sure to visit our other posts in this series on biblical integration within each subject: Biblical Integration in Language Arts, Biblical Integration in Math, and Biblical Integration in Science. Many educators also find our post, Transformed PD’s Guide to Biblical Integration, very helpful.
Contact us to learn more about partnering with your school. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay up to date with all that Transformed PD is doing and learn more about biblical integration in social studies and other subjects!
