Can
a Child be “Salt & Light”
Commentary by Buddy Hanson
The
question of educating our children is arguably one of the most important
questions facing the 21st Century Church. Unfortunately, a huge
chunk of the Church has completely missed the mark on this issue and our
culture is paying the consequences. In June, two major conservative
denominations discussed the vital issue of “exiting” their children from public
(government) schools, and in both instances the reasons cited in opposition
were pragmatic and self-serving, rather than biblical. There is a reason for
this: There are no biblical reasons for sending your child to a public
school. This is why this issue is so critical. It cuts directly to the heart of
our profession of faith. Talk is cheap. Anyone can go on and on about how much
they love Jesus, but Jesus tells us to walk our talk. “If you love Me you will
keep My commandments.” (John 5:3;
2:31) Jesus adds, “You will know them
by their fruits.” (Matt. 7:16)
This means that the only acceptable answer to how we should educate our children can only be found in Scripture. How could it be otherwise? May we never forget who we are and from what we have been mercifully and miraculously rescued. The Lord tells us, “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” (Gen. 8:21) Jeremiah adds, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9) Again, Jesus: “Those things which proceed from the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.” (Matt. 15:18)
Long
story short: Before our conversion we could only depend on our own knowledge
and wisdom, but since our “new birth” and the aid of the Holy Spirit, we can
correctly understand God’s revealed wisdom. Why, then, would we want to address
any issue in our own faulty and imperfect wisdom, when we have access to God’s
perfect wisdom? Do we not understand that in thinking our own thoughts, we are
imitating what Eve did by living as though she was God? As Christians, our calling is to re-think God’s
thoughts. This is why David writes, “In Your light, we see light.”(Ps. 36:9)
What Is Education?
Every Christian agrees that God’s
Word is ‘truth.’ This means that anything, whether it be a business or
legislative decision, or a decision about raising our 
children
or something concerning our spouse…anything that does not conform to
biblical principles is “false.” Therefore, if the education your child is
receiving is not based upon biblical principles it is a “false” education.
If your child is receiving a Christian education he knows who he is (a creature of God), what his purpose is (to bring about God’s will on earth as it is in heaven), and how he is supposed to do it (by incorporating the biblical principles he knows into his daily lifestyle). He will also be systematically taught how to defend the faith “in season and out.”
Public (government) schools are not only ‘false,’ but they were established to be just that. John Dewey, the alleged ‘Father of Modern Education’, was bold enough to admit in his book My Pedagogic Creed: [Teachers are] “…the prophets of the true god and the usherer of the true kingdom of god.”
Humanist
author John J. Dunphy in an article entitled A New Religion for a New Age in the January/February 1983 issue of The Humanist Magazine states: “The battle for mankind’s future must be
waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive
their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of
humanity…utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in
whatever subject they teach. These teachers will be ministers of another sort,
utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever
subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool, day care
center or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena
of conflict between the old and the new – the rotting corpse of Christianity,
together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism.”
Why
do non-Christians place so much emphasis on the public schools? Read what the former
Dean of Harvard University’s School of Education, Dr. William Pierce, had to
say in an address to some 2000 teachers in Denver, CO: “Every child in America
who enters school at the age of five is mentally ill, because he comes to
school with allegiance toward our elected officials, toward our founding
fathers, toward our institutions, toward the preservation of this form of
government…All of that proves the children are sick, because the truly well
individual is the one who has rejected all of those things and is what I would
call the true international child of the future.”
Public
schools have become tools to turn our children against us and against our
beliefs, and in doing so they have become the state’s churches! Since
everyone is created in God’s image, everyone is religious. This need will
either be met by teaching our children the true religion and true education, (Deut. 6:6-9) or by having them
instructed in the false religion and false education of the public schools.
Jesus tells us, “Everyone will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:40) Do we want our
children being “like” their non-Christian public school teachers, or “like”
Christ?
What
Does God Say?
Having
seen what man’s word states about educating our children, read what God’s Word
says: “Do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training
and admonition of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4) “Do not learn the way of the Gentiles.” (Jer. 10:2) “Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good
and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Rom.
12:2) “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship
has
righteousness with lawlessness. And
what communion has light with darkness?” (2
Cor. 6:14) “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have
rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; because
you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” (Hos. 4:6)
Any
curriculum that does not have the law of God as its centerpiece is not true
education. God’s Word is the
foundation of how we should live and govern ourselves. It is our final
authority over our conduct and beliefs.
Are You Living As Though You Are
A Catholic?
The
thirteenth century Catholic biblical scholar Thomas Aquinas popularized the
false dichotomy between “real life” and “religion.” According to this bit of
mythology, there is a separation between “sacred” and “secular” areas of our
life. The truth, however, is that God created a universe, not a diverse.
There is not one square inch of His creation that is secular,
everything is sacred. To confine “Christian education” to Sunday School,
youth groups and small group studies, is to live according to Catholic
theology, not according to Protestant theology. It is to live according to “Thus
says man,” instead of “Thus says the Lord.”
But
Our Children Are “Salt and Light”
Is
it possible for our children to “fulfill the Great Commission” by going to
public schools? Absolutely not! In the first place we have seen that the public
schools were established to destroy Christianity. Any student who attempts to “evangelize”
or “disciple” other students or teachers will be admonished if not expelled and
the same is true for teachers and administrators. When Peter and John were
commanded not to teach in the name of Jesus, we all know what they said (Acts 4:18-21). Jesus has defined how to
be “salt and light” and that is by “teaching them to observe all things that I
have commanded you.” (Matt. 28:20)
This means the entire Old Testament
(since there was no New Testament at
that time). How far do you think your child would get in teaching the explicit Word of God in a public school?
Real
missionaries get intense training before going to the field. How intensely have
you trained your children in God’s Word?
And, how successful can you expect them to be when they are exposed to 30 hours
of non-Christian worldview principles each week in comparison to perhaps the
three hours a week they spend in Sunday School, youth group and worship
services? With upwards of 70 percent of high school graduates who have grown up
in the Church stopping their church attendance once they go to college, we don’t
have to guess about the answer. For those who say, “We can’t afford to send our
children to Christian schools,” I can only ask, “What price do you place on
your child’s soul?” My second response would be, “What items are included in
your church’s budget that are more important than providing assistance to needy
families with their child’s education?”
Isn’t
it time we quit fooling ourselves with our pragmatic rationalizations for
sending our children to public schools? We certainly aren’t fooling our Lord,
Savior and King, Jesus Christ.
Brothers
and sisters, we are the most fortunate people on the face of the Earth. Only
we, by God’s grace, have had the veil lifted from our sinful eyes (2 Cor. 3:12, 4:4) so that we can correctly
understand God’s will for our lives. Jesus has delivered us from hell and
intercedes for us 24 hours a day, everyday. In return we are commanded to “Walk
in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD our God with all our heart
and with all our soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His
statutes that He has commanded us.” (Deut.
10:12)
It would be thought that after all we have
undeservedly received, we wouldn’t need to be commanded to give ourselves
completely to serving Him, but He who knows our hearts better than we do, has
commanded us, and He means it. May we all consider these somber words from King
Solomon: “Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out My hand
and no one regarded, because you disdained all My counsel, and would have none
of My rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity.” (Prov. 1:24-26)
Christianity is not an “add-on” to our
lifestyle, it is a complete transformation of it and the only way we can expect
to hear those sought after words, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21) is to make certain that our
life’s decisions conform to the biblical principles that we profess to believe.
I would urge fathers to re-read Deuteronomy
6:6-9 and the verses under “What Does God Say?” in this article and ask
yourself if you died today would Jesus greet you with “Well done, good and
faithful servant,” or would He say, “Why did you place your pragmatism above My
commands?”
From the day we become a Christian to the
day we die we continue to grow in God’s grace and knowledge as He reveals more
of His truths to us. Our lives are marked by continual repentance and Jesus is
ready to forgive us as we move on to more consistent obedience. No one is
perfect and there is nothing wrong with recognizing a sinful behavior and
asking God’s forgiveness and His power to enable us to avoid that sin in the
future. The sin is being too proud to admit our mistakes.
Sadly, many pastors refuse to address this
issue because they are afraid they will lose members. In other words, they fear
their congregation more than they fear God. I pray this is not the case with
your church. But, if it is, then prayerfully and humbly approach your church
officers and explain this issue. If they refuse to listen to you your only option
is to “shake off the dust from your feet” and find another church. (Matt. 10:14)
In every area of our lifestyle we should strive
to “abstain from every form of evil,” (1 Thess. 5:22) as we let our service to Christ “be without hypocrisy.”
(Rom. 12:9) The topic of educating
our children is the perfect place to check our progress in holiness and extend
this attitude to every other topic we encounter.
