What does it mean to be well-educated? It’s a question often discussed by educators (who spend lots of time), politicians (who spend lots of money), and parents (who spend lots of energy) to come to the best answer. It’s also a question that has answers in the Bible. As we stand on the threshold of a new school year, it’s a good time to be reminded of insights gained about education from the Scripture.
· The Objectives of Education: While education has many practical outcomes (such as the familiar “reading, writing, and arithmetic”), it should go so much further. It should pursue godly wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity as a natural extension that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1). Education should prioritize God’s truth, ethics, and values. To be well-educated should mean to have a biblical view of reality, thinking, and living (Romans 12:1-2). Any educational framework that excludes God and biblical priorities can only produce educated fools (Proverbs 1:7).
· The Opportunities of Education: Many believe that education only happens at school and church. However, the Bible calls parents to use everyday events as learning occasions. The Bible says parents are to display and teach God’s word when sitting in the house or taking a walk, when lying down and when getting up. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). Parents should realize that the most important learning happens at home, where they are the role-models who use every situation to teach godly principles and biblical truth (Proverbs 22:6).
· The Oversight of Education: The American system has lured many into thinking that it’s the school or the government that makes the decisions about a child’s education. This is not the Bible’s perspective. Rather, it’s the parents who bear the ultimate responsibility to make, or approve, educational decisions. Issues such as the age to start a child’s formal education, the structure of a child’s education (homeschool, private, or public), and the curriculum in a child’s courses and extra-curricular activities are, in the end, decisions for the parents. This is because the Bible recognizes the family and the responsibilities of the parents (see Eph. 6:1-4).
Christian parents should prioritize what God prioritizes. Obviously, education has real-world aspects, but to only pursue education for its practical or financial benefits is to grossly miss the mark. In the end, such a system can only produce individuals who may know how to make a living, but have no foundation for how to live a life that honors God, the church, and the family, much less prepares them for eternity. That’s why parents must be active in overseeing the development of each child, which must include biblical principles and attitudes.
Biblically-minded parents are warned not follow the belief system of secular education, which has at its core atheism, evolution, humanism, secularism, and socialism, all of which are abominations to biblical truth. Rather, it is imperative that Christian parents follow biblical priorities and seek the way of Christ as the only means of salvation and the Bible as the cornerstone of an education that is both practically and spiritually valuable (Col. 2:6-8).
Proverbs 1
1 The proverbs of Solomon…
2 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding.
3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity.
4 To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation, the words of the wise, and their hidden sayings.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise [godly] wisdom and instruction.
Romans 12
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Deuteronomy 6
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sit in thine house, and when thou walk by the way, and when thou lie down, and when thou rise up.
9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
Proverbs 22
6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Ephesians 6
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
2 Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;
3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Colossians 2
6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.Dr. Harlie Miller, Associate Pastor
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