Doing Math to the Glory of God

00:00:00.000 | Today's question is from an eight-year-old. Joshua comes to us via his mom, an avid listener

00:00:07.000 | to the podcast. Here's Joshua's question.

00:00:12.240 | Dear Pastor John, my mom likes to listen to your podcast when she folds the laundry. Thank

00:00:17.280 | you for filling her mind tank.

00:00:20.680 | I have a question. Did you like to study when you were eight? I don't like math and I get

00:00:26.560 | angry when I do it. I don't know how not to, and I don't know how to trust God. Why do

00:00:32.800 | I trust God to do math? Mom tells me to do it for Him, but I don't like it and I don't

00:00:38.720 | want to. The harder I try, the harder it gets, but I know it makes her happy.

00:00:45.720 | Pastor John, what would you say to Joshua?

00:00:47.840 | I want to talk directly to Joshua, so Mom, go get Joshua. Hello, Joshua. This is Pastor

00:00:55.720 | John. Thank you so much for sending your question about math and how much you don't like it.

00:01:02.320 | I promise you that when I was eight years old, I did not like math either. In fact,

00:01:09.320 | when I was in the third grade, I failed math in the first half of the school year. In those

00:01:19.120 | days, teacher gave grades this way, "Unsatisfactory, satisfactory, very good, and excellent," instead

00:01:26.120 | of A, B, C, D. And I got the lowest grade possible, unsatisfactory, on my report card.

00:01:34.680 | So I not only did not like it, I wasn't any good at it. And like you, I found it to be

00:01:43.800 | very hard. But also, Joshua, like you, I had a mom, and she was a good mom, and she helped

00:01:50.800 | me keep on trying until in the third grade, I was able just to pass the math course. So

00:02:00.880 | I'm going to try to encourage you, Joshua, not to give up, but to do the best you can,

00:02:11.740 | no matter how hard it is. And I have four encouragements to keep you going.

00:02:18.740 | Number one, God made the world to be full of math. Now, you know, Joshua, that numbers

00:02:26.000 | are like words. You may not have thought about it. The word "dog" stands for a real animal,

00:02:38.280 | and we call that real animal by the word "dog." But a real dog is not a word, right? It's

00:02:44.960 | a real animal. So the word "dog" is just a name. It's just a name for something that's

00:02:51.960 | real. So words help us talk to each other about what's real. Without words, all we could

00:03:00.680 | do is point. So words are really useful, even though they're just names. They're not real

00:03:08.160 | things, but they name real things. Now, that's the way it is with numbers, too, right? Numbers

00:03:13.760 | are like words. They stand for real things or amounts of real things. For example, if

00:03:20.760 | you have two banana trees in your backyard, which we did when I was growing up, and on

00:03:26.880 | one banana tree, there are four bananas, and on the other banana tree, there are four bananas.

00:03:35.260 | And the next day at school, somebody asks you, "Joshua, how many bananas are growing

00:03:41.220 | on the trees in your backyard?" Well, you could say four on one tree and four on the

00:03:48.020 | other tree. Or you might say eight bananas, because four plus four is eight bananas. That's

00:03:59.580 | math. But those numbers represent real bananas. They're not just numbers. They stand for real

00:04:05.560 | things that you can eat and talk about. So God made a world of bananas and dogs and thousands

00:04:12.560 | and thousands of other real things that you can count. You can put numbers and names on

00:04:20.900 | them. That's the kind of world God made. So when we study math, we are trying to understand

00:04:28.040 | the way God made the world. This is God's world, and He loves it when His people, including

00:04:35.040 | eight-year-olds, study His world and understand it and use it for His glory.

00:04:43.060 | Which brings us now to the second encouragement. God made math very useful in this world. He

00:04:53.020 | made it to help us. Joshua, let me give you two stories, two illustrations. Suppose at

00:05:00.020 | the gas station where your parents fill up the gas tank of the car, you notice that they

00:05:06.480 | have a special of three chocolate candy bars for one dollar. And you ask your mom, "Can

00:05:13.480 | I have a dollar, please, to get those candy bars?" And she says, "Sure. And here's two

00:05:21.520 | dollars. Get some for your friend." So you hand the man behind the cash register your

00:05:26.880 | two dollars and ask for the candy bars. And suppose he hands you five candy bars and takes

00:05:33.880 | your two dollars. What are you going to say to him? If you studied math in the third grade

00:05:41.120 | hard enough, like I tried to do, and you learned your multiplication tables, you would know

00:05:49.720 | that if you get three candy bars for one dollar, you should get six candy bars for two dollars

00:05:56.720 | because you learned in the third grade that two times three equals six, not five. And

00:06:05.000 | if you didn't learn that, you'd walk out with five candy bars instead of six candy bars

00:06:12.520 | because you didn't know your math. In other words, math is very useful for being happy.

00:06:19.720 | I'm just happy in this world because six candy bars makes me happier than five candy bars.

00:06:26.720 | And the older you get, Joshua, the more important those numbers become.

00:06:32.200 | Or here's a more serious story. You are squirrel hunting in the woods with your rifle, and

00:06:39.200 | suddenly four vicious wolves appear in front of you. And they show their teeth. And you

00:06:48.440 | know you can't fight off four vicious wolves and save your life. You might be able to fight

00:06:55.440 | off one wolf, but not four. So you quietly check your gun, and you notice that you have

00:07:02.440 | only three bullets left in your gun. So you do the math that you learned in third grade.

00:07:13.440 | If I kill one wolf with each of my three bullets, then only one wolf will be left to fight because

00:07:20.440 | four take away three equals one. And my life depends on this math. So you aim carefully,

00:07:32.440 | and you kill three wolves with each of your three bullets. And you know that you can't

00:07:39.440 | kill three wolves. And when the fourth attacks, you're able to use your rifle and smash his

00:07:46.440 | head in. Way to go. I promise you, Joshua, math will not only get you candy bars that

00:07:54.440 | you should have. Math can save your life. It really can.

00:08:01.440 | Here's a third encouragement. God made your mom and dad with lots of wisdom about what

00:08:08.440 | you need for your future life, wisdom that you don't yet have, because you're only eight.

00:08:15.440 | One of the reasons God gives kids parents is so that kids can learn about life from

00:08:24.440 | their parents and avoid hundreds of mistakes. It sounds to me like you have good parents,

00:08:33.440 | Joshua. So did I. And they would not let me quit when I felt like quitting because they

00:08:40.440 | knew what would be good for me. And I didn't know yet what would be good for me as I grew

00:08:48.440 | up. I wanted to play outside with my trucks in the dirt with my friend, Sonny. That's

00:08:55.440 | all I wanted to do. I didn't want to study. I didn't even want to go to school. I didn't

00:09:01.440 | like school in the third grade. But I am so thankful to God that he gave me a mom and

00:09:08.440 | a dad who knew what was best for me because I didn't know what was best for me myself.

00:09:14.440 | The Bible says, and you know it, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord." And I am so

00:09:22.440 | glad it said that, and I'm so glad that I did it.

00:09:27.440 | Which brings me now, Joshua, to the last encouragement. God made you to show how good and how great

00:09:36.440 | he is by trusting him to help you. And God made me, too. And guess what? He changed me.

00:09:45.440 | He changed me so that in the 10th grade, I loved geometry. That's a kind of math. Finally,

00:09:54.440 | there was a kind of math I really liked. It was like a detective story. You found the

00:10:00.440 | clues, and you put the clues together and discovered the solution to the problem. It

00:10:06.440 | was like finding out who the bad guy was and putting him in jail. But Joshua, to be honest,

00:10:13.440 | apart from geometry, I was mainly afraid of math. And when I finished my final required

00:10:23.440 | basic math class in college, I felt like I had run out of a dark tunnel into broad daylight

00:10:31.440 | for the rest of my life. Never, never, never have to take another course in math. Hooray!

00:10:37.440 | I mean, it felt like a liberation, coming out of jail. So here's the point, Joshua.

00:10:42.440 | Even though you don't like math today, you might like it someday because you grow and

00:10:49.440 | you change. Your brain changes. Or you might not grow to like math, and you'll be so glad

00:10:57.440 | when you don't have to study math anymore. And that's okay. God made you the way you

00:11:03.440 | are. You don't have to grow up to be a mathematician. But some math is good for everybody. I promise

00:11:12.440 | you. So my final encouragement is when your mom and dad say that you need to finish your

00:11:20.440 | math assignment, you should say, "Yes, ma'am," or "Yes, sir," and then whisper a prayer

00:11:29.440 | to Jesus. "Jesus, please help me. I don't want to do this. I don't like to do this.

00:11:39.440 | But I am going to do it because my mom says to and Pastor John says it's good for me.

00:11:46.440 | So I trust you to help me." And Joshua, he will. And your trust in him will show how

00:11:55.440 | great he is.

00:11:56.440 | Amen. Joshua, thank you for your question. We really appreciate you sending it in to

00:12:01.440 | us. And mom of Joshua, thanks for passing it along. If your child has a hard question,

00:12:06.440 | send it to us. Send us that question or search our growing archive of answers or subscribe

00:12:11.440 | to the podcast. Do all that at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:12:17.440 | Well, how do we argue like Calvinists? Theological controversy is to be expected. Paul tells us

00:12:24.440 | how. And we are going to look closer at 2 Timothy 2:24-26 next time as we learn to argue

00:12:32.440 | like good Calvinists. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday.

00:12:36.440 | [END]

00:12:38.440 | 1

00:12:39.440 | 1

00:12:40.440 | 1

00:12:41.440 | 1

00:12:42.440 | 1

00:12:42.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Doing Math to the Glory of God

Chapters