Education The Catalyst for reformation

Two problems in the time that we have left, and let me just go ahead and admit that we have much less time than we need, but it'll be okay. And you don't understand the point talking about education and this catalyst for reform. Two problems when it comes to education, even Christian education, because sometimes you can be involved in Christian education but not be involved in this reformation that is needed and that comes about as a byproduct of a proper understanding of this education. One is the what without the why, and the other would be the wrong why. So we're gonna do this Christian education thing, but we don't know why, or we know why, but it's the wrong why. It's the wrong reason. First of the what without the why. Proverbs twenty twenty five. It is a snare to say rashly it is holy, and to reflect only after making viole. It is a snare to say rashly it is holy, and to reflect only after making vowels. In other words, you have to reflect on things before you make such declarations. And a lot of people, when it comes to the education of their children, they just make it. We're gonna do this because it's holy. You know why, Well, no, but this is holy, this is right, and we're going to homeschool because we need a homeschool and we're gonna but you don't know why. Okay, it is a snare to say rashly it is holy and to reflect only after making vows Proverbs two one through five, My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. Yes, if you call for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Seek it, search for it. Okay. So when we're going to educate our children, we need to seek it. We need to search for it. An example of this sort of playing out is I always have fun with the idea that when I do homeschool conferences, and I do maybe you know, two or three a year in different parts of the country, I always tell people up front there's questions that I don't answer, and one of them is what curriculum do you recommend? I'm just not going there. Number one, because there's far too many out there for me to be on top of them, all of them all, Amen, far too many out there. Secondly, there's no perfect curriculum. So whatever curriculum you get and you use, we've been doing this for a long time. You're always going to runt into things where you go, yeah, I don't like that, and you move past it and you go to whatever else you know, and you you know, or you tell your children, hey, this says this, but yeah, not so much. We don't like that. Right, But if I am recommending the curriculum, now, all of a sudden, people sit down and they go really vote, Bakoam would recommend the curriculum with this in it, and you know that's true. Next thing, you know, you got the blog world going crazy. You know Whatdye Bakam was, you know, secretly denying the faith because he right, all this sort of stuff. Ain't nobody got time for that, all right? And then the third reason is, man, we use different curriculums different times, for different reasons, sometime for different kids, right, flexibility. Whatever we start with, you probably won't finish with. I've met very few people home school and then they finished with the curriculum and they started with very few stuff were like we started here, and then we felt like, you know, we needed to add you know, we we were and most of them are like we started. We were a Becca, we started, we were Bob Jones, we were whatever. You know. Then after a few years we were like, yeah, we like this, but maybe we need to do some of this for Bible. We like this, but maybe we need to ask some Saxon math and wasa like this, but maybe we need to ask them. That's so common, right. We just had stuff and we go this might be strong here, this might be weak there. This kid flourishes with that, but this kid might need it tweaked with that. Dah dah dah. So I don't ask that question. But the other reason is what that's a bad question. And I know there are people who say there are no bad questions. Those people are liars. There are bad questions. That's just like which catechism, which catechism should we use? That's a bad question. I can't answer that question for you. Because catechisms are designed to teach and support confessions of faith. The only way to know what catechism you should use is for me to know what confession you hold. Too. So if you tell me you are a Westminster confession person, I'm going to point you to the Westminster Catechism. If you tell me that you're a sixteen eighty nine London confession person, I'm going to point you to Spurgeon's Catechism or Catechism for Boys and Girls. If you tell me that you know you're a you know RCAA person, I'm probably gonna point you to you know, Belgian, I mean Heidelberg. You know. Again, which confession are you trying to undergird? Right? And then when it comes to curriculums, what's your philosophy of education? You may be a traditionalist or you may be a classicist. If you believe in classical Christian education, you're not going to use the same curriculum as a traditionalist because you have to use a curriculum that supports your philosophy of education. And usually when I say that to people, they go huh. As we say in Texas, look at me like a calf staring at a new gate. Wait, we have to have a philosophy of education. Yeah, I just thought we needed a curriculum. Oh yeah, you that helps, But it helps to have a philosophy of education so that you know which curriculum would be appropriate and you don't just bang your head against the wall. And so that would be an example of the what without the why, because if you don't know why you're doing this, any curriculum will do or none will do the wrong why we just want to hire test scores. We just want to hire test scores, which want to hire a GPA. We want to escape the evils school campus. That's the wrong why. By the way, you can get all of that in home education. We know that home educated students have higher test scores than both public and private school students. We know that, but that's not a good enough reason to do it. We know that they have higher college GPA. Homeschool students who go to college actually have a higher GPA in college than students who come from public schools or private schools, which is why colleges are now recruiting homeschool students. They went from not accepting homeschool students right because oh, you are homeschool, you don't have a diploma, you don't have done, you don't have dada DA. Now they're recruiting homeschool students because they're model students. Oftentimes in universities, and I'm talking about places like HAVED, they recruit homeschool students at HAVED, escaping the evils of the government school campus. We're going to bring our kids home so that we can get them away from the evil things on the government school campus. Small problem. What's going to get them away from the evil in you? Amen? Somebody want to bring them here so that they're not exposed to all the sin out there. Help you, because there's some sin in here as well. Right, so these are the wrong? Wise? What are the right? Wise? We're convinced by scripture we understand our role and responsibility as parents. We desire to advance the Kingdom of God, and we desire to bless the kingdom of man. This is why, this is how education becomes a catalyst for reformation. Okay, Otherwise, we can be committed. We can be committed to Christian education in the way that that hides us, in a way that keeps us away from being salt and light, that keeps us away from being a blessing. Right, we can do it in that way, or we can do it in a way that makes us a part of this reformation process that allows us to have impact beyond ourselves and our generation one. We're convinced by scripture home education is not just preferable, it's biblical. Secondly, though not everyone can or must homeschool, Christians are obligated to give their children a Christian education. Can I read that one again? Though not everyone can or must homeschool, Christians are obligated to give their children a Christian education. I don't care how many times I say that, which is every time I talk about this topic. I don't care how many times I write that, which I believe is in two of my published works and a number of art articles. There are people who say, and will not stop saying, Well, you know, Vodi Bacan believes that everybody has to homeschool. No, I don't. I believe the obligation that Christians have is to give their children a Christian education. I believe that there are a number of ways that that can happen, depending on your circumstances and your needs. For example, if we say everybody has to homeschool, how do we define that? Does that mean you can participate in a co op or you can't? Right, Because for some people, homeschooling wouldn't include co ops for other people, it may include co ops. For some people, they don't even send their kid out to go get piano lessons because that would be another person teaching my child. Right. So first we got to like, who's going to define what homeschooling is right? And there are a number of ways that you can de liver solid Christian education to your children. You can do homeschooling wrong. I got one amen over here. You can do homeschooling wrong right. You can do a lot of things wrong. So there are a lot of ways that you can deliver it. I believe the optimal optimal way for us to do that is through education at home. There for government education, which is anti Christian by federal mandate, is not a viable option. So must be convinced my scripture. Secondly, we must view education as discipleship. We must view education as discipleship. And I believe this is the lynch pin in the whole argument, because I believe this is the problem that people have. I alluded to this earlier, But this idea that there's discipleship over here and there's education over here, and that you can have education and education is just just information about reading and about writing, and so on and so forth. It's separate from discipleship. Can't do that, Pseudo Army six six and seven. These words I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise Luke six point forty. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. Whomever is educating our children is discipling our children. Okay, whomever is educating our children is discipling our children. So this means whatever you decide that education looks like, you better make sure that if you're partnering with anyone, it's someone whom you would like to be a discipler of your children. And I'm saying there are people like that out there, Amen, there are people like that. After if there's no one that you can think of that you would like to be a partner with you in the discipleship of your children, no one whom you can think of who would possibly be qualified to be a partner with you in the discipleship of your children. I'd say you probably need to check yourself for the sin of pride and arrogance. Amen. If you believe that you're the only person who could possibly ever fit that bill, and you believe that there's nobody, there's not a person in your church, for example, who has you know, musical skills or scientific skills, or mathematics skills, and as a godly person. I mean we live in Houston, you know, we know rocket scientists and astronauts who know and love God. You know what kind of fool I would be if I said, well, no, I will not let my children take a class in rocketry from a man who flew the space station? Do you an arrogant fool? A godly man who knows and loves Christ, who's an astronaut, he didn't just know how to make a rocket fly them. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, yep, my kid can take that class. Amen. See, we hamstring ourselves when we get to this, you know kind of you know, wooden approach to things, and we've got to get away from that. We got to get out of that because there are people in our churches who have much that they can teach. I saw some people you know over there earlier in knitting or crocheting or whatever. And you know, you've got people who cook, and you've got people who you know do whatever, and you got people who you know do woodwork. And my family and I we just went to actually a fellow elder in one of the churches that we planted who has a woodworking shop in his home. And me and my kids, you know, we go over to the woodworking shop and it's woodworking class and Daddy is not the teacher. Amen, Hallelujah, praised the Lord. Because I want my children to leave with all their fingers right. How arrogant would I have to be to not take advantage of those gifts in the body that God has given that can enrich the education and discipleship with my children. That's different than just blindly sending my children off to someone who I don't know and have never met. You ever thought about that? Think about that? Think about this first day of school? First day of school? Now, how many people? How many people? Somebody shows up, somebody shows up at your door and they have a you know, mister goodrich uniform all and they walk up to the door and they're like your car is perfectly fine, and they say, hey, won't you just leave your car with me for the day. You never met them, you've never met them, Do you give them your car? I mean they trained by mister Goodrich, right, Why wouldn't you give them your car for the day and let them take it away from you for the day. You wouldn't do it right. First day of school, people walk up to the school and a person that they've never met before says, give me not your car, but your child, and go away from me while I have your child. And we go okay, And then we write blogs to encourage one another. It's okay. There are tears, but it's a good no. You're Ryan because your soul knows that's wrong. Amen. We wouldn't give our car to someone about whom we have that little knowledge, and we give them our kid. Lord help us. We must protect our children from what godly influences Psalm one. Wanting to blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law. He meditates during school hours, during non school hours. Not there right, He meditates on his law day and night, day and night. And notice he doesn't walk in the council of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. What do you think people are who are giving children a godless education? They're everything described there Psalm fourteen one. The fool says in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds. There is none who does good except in certain really good school districts. The school system teaches in the context that is non theistic. It's really atheistic, but it's non theistic basically based on the assumption that there is no God. They are fools. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise. But the companion of fools will turn the school around. No, the companion of fools will suffer harm. Matthew eighteen seven. Woll to the world for temptation to sin, for it is necessary that temptation come. But woe to the one by whom the temptation comes. What does that have to do with anything. There are people who actually say, well, you know you need to send your kid to the school. Why well, because they're gonna encounter ungodliness and sin there and that way when they go out into the world, it won't be new to them. Oh so, basically, I need to be the one who tempts them to this sin. I need to be the one who puts them in front of them to this temptation. When the Bible says, woe to the one by whom the temptation comes. Yeah, that dog won't hunt. We must avoid on biblical teaching when we can do. Not be conformed to this world. Do not be pressed into its mold. By the way, there is no more conforming exercise in the world than education. But be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the word of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect, said Corinthians ten to five. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. Look at that argument opinion knowledge thought? Interesting, how many times have you read that verse? He didn't catch those four words Colossians two eight. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For Timothy six twenty twenty one, Oh, Timothy, guard the deposit and trusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradiction of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you. We must teach the law. We must teach the law. And this is not happening in our schools. They're not teaching the law of God. I love this verse and people bringing up all the time kids need to go to school, why so they can be sought and a light churing down there to that schools they can be sought and alight. Really, let's read that first of all. Before we read it, let me help you a little bit hermaeutically. When it comes to hermautics and reading and understanding the Bible. There are a number of things that you need to understand, but there's a couple of them that are just essential. One of them is this the difference between indicatives and imperatives. Okay, indicatives like it sounds it indicates what something is, right and indicative. This is a microphone. That's indicative, and imperative tells you something to do. Speak into the microphone. That's an imperative, indicative, imperative, and indicative tells you what something is, and imperative tells you what to do. An indicative tells you what it is, and imperative tells you what to do. We got that. Let's read. You are the salt of the earth. Is that indicative or imperative? That's indicative? You haven't told to be anything. You're told what you are. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost this taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. Sounds like a warning for the salt to stay salty. You are the light of the world. Indicative or imperative. That's indicative. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Folks, we've got two indicatives here. We've got no imperatives. We've got no imperatives so far, so we haven't told to be salt, we haven't told to be light, and we haven't been told to go anywhere. So somebody's telling me that my children need to go to the school so that they can be salt and light. They're violating this passage, not supporting it. Here's the other thing, to whom is this speaking believers? Which means that before my children are believers, they are not salt and they are not light. So they certainly don't need to go to the school and be what they're not. Amen. But wait, there's more. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the in the house. How about that in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. Has education or discipleship been mentioned at all? No, So turning an indicative into an imperative, misusing the metaphor and ripping it out of context because it doesn't speak of education or discipleship. This is what people are doing when they say go to the school to be salt and light. But wait, there's more. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. That paragraph comes right after the salt and Light paragraph, and it does mention teaching, and it does mention discipleship, and yet warns that we do not subject ourselves to the teaching and discipleship that is divorced from the Law of God. So irony of ironies. When people tell me that my children need to go to the school to be salt and light, they are abusing and misinterpreting the first passage and ignoring the second one, which actually condemns them instead of supporting them. Funny when you read the Bible right Matthew twenty two thirty four to thirty six. When the Pharisees heard they had silenced the sadducees. They gathered together in one of them. A lawyer asked him a question to test him, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law. It's an interesting question. Three schools with thought basically asked her what the great commandment was. There were those teachers rabbis who would argue that the first commandment was the greatest, no other gods before me, okay, the great monotheism commandment. Others who argue that the fifth commandment was actually the greatest because it was a bridge between the two tables of the law. The first table of the law is the first four commandments. Those are vertical commandments that have to do with our duty to God. The second table of the law horizontal commandments. They have to do with our duty to our fellow man. The argument is that the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother is a bridge between the first table and the second table, and therefore it is the greatest command And others would argue that the tenth commandment was the greatest commandment because that's the commandment not to covet and all other sin is basically born out of your coveting. So when they're asking Jesus this question. The debate is probably is he going to say one or five or ten? Jesus says, we're not under the law, we're under grace. He said to them, you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. Interestingly enough, that's a summary of the first table of the law. So here's what just happened. Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? The answer, I'm gonna have to say one through four. But wait, there's more. He says, Oh, hold on, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. By the way, that's the summary of the second table of the law. Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? I'm gonna have to say one through four, followed closely by five through ten. We must be gospel centered. We must teach the law, but we must be gospel centered. Okay, it's important that we teach the law, but that we never teach the law as an end in itself, because the law is not an end in itself. The law has a purpose. It's a schoolmaster. It points us to our need for a savior. Okay, the first proclamation of this gospel message, I will put enmity between you and the woman, in between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, you shall bruise his heal. Here's the promise of a deliverer who will come. This is the good news Romans one, sixteen and seventeen. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith. For faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. The law does not make you righteous. The law cannot make you righteous. It's the Gospel that makes you righteous. I am astonished, Paul and Galatians. I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ, and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, But there are some who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ. But even if we are an angel from heaven, Joseph Smith should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. Must be gospel centered. Our education of our children has to be rooted and grounded in the Gospel. It has to be. It has to be. It has to be by the way. If it's not rooted and grounded in the Gospel, it's rooted and grounded in law. It may not be the law of God, but it's still law. It's law, and law condemns, it does not save. It is the Gospel that saves. We must be good stewards. Jesus says, bring me a Narius in Mark twelve, let me look at it. The question was about whether or not I should pay taxes. They brought one, and he said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this? And they said to him Caesar's. Jesus said to them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Okay, what does that have to do with the education of our children. I don't know. Bring me a child whose image is on the child Gods, then you must never render him to Caesar. Amen, somebody, I'm gonna move ahead. Let's say good time. We just have a couple of minutes later. Your role and responsibility as parents. When you understand your role and responsibilities, parents will say more about this in a later session. Thirdly, the advance of the king of God. This is where the reformation happens. Okay, the advancement of the Kingdom of God. We do this because of our desire to advance the Kingdom of God. And fourthly, because of our desire to be a blessing to the Kingdom of Man. That's why we do this. It's kingdom advancement. That's that's the that's the reformation part. That's this radical reformation that happens when we change the way we view education. This is not about hiding from the world. This is about advancing the Kingdom. This is about equipping men and women with gospel truth so that the Kingdom might be advanced both in and through them, and finally, so that we could be a blessing to the Kingdom of Man. We don't want to run away from the Kingdom of Man. We want to be a blessing to the Kingdom of Man. See oftentimes we think that we want the kingdom Man to be a blessing to us. What do you want to do? I want to go and I want to be a doctor. I want to go and I want to be a lawyer. Why so that I can be well respected in the Kingdom of Man and I can be wealthy and I can have stuff. Flip the script. What do you want to do? What do you want to be? I want to be a doctor? Why? Because men are made in the image of God. And I want to bring hope, help and healing to people made in the image of God because they're made in the image of God. I want to be a blessing to the Kingdom of Man because of what I know about man, because of what my worldview teaches me about man. Do you see the difference. Do you see the difference? When we want to homeschool, why should we run away from people? It kills me, I mean people all the time we ask me the question. Yea, almost just having such a hard time. We just can't find a church. We're a home school family and we're committed to a lot of the things that you talk about, teach, and we just we just can't find a church. Okay, Well where do you live? Okay? Well, from here, you would go about fifty miles away from people, and then you would take a left and you would go twenty five miles further away from people. Okay, so let me see if I understand your dilemma. You move fifty plus twenty five. I did go to government school seventy five miles away from people, and you're wondering why you can't find a group of people to associate with a church. Is that, from my understanding your question correctly? Well, I mean when you put it like that, yeah, that's how it needs to be put. Here's a newsflash. If you run away from people, you're not going to find a church because the church is made up of Amen. You can't have it both ways. You can't have it both ways. And this is what we want to do. We want to get our children as far away from the mean, evil world and people as we can possibly get. Listen, folks, listen, the new Jerusalem is a city. It's not the country. I love the country I do. I love the country, and I could be real happy out in the country away from people. I'm not much of a people person. I'm an introvert, big time, big, big, big time. I'm an introvert. It's like dreaming for me to be in big crowds of people. You know, it's horrible because like I love theme parks, I do. I love rides and roller coasters. I just I'm a roller coaster person. Get roll acroaster, I'll ride it like five, six, seven, twelve times in a row. But theme parks have lots of people, so I go when other people don't go, so I can peel away from people. But you know what I love more than I like isolation preaching the Gospel to people. And so I live in the fourth largest city in the world administrative people because that's why we're here. To impact people with the gospel. That's why we're here. And what about we're supposed to protect our children. Yes, but there's a couple of ways that you protect your children. One way is to protect your children by basically saying the world out there is mean and it's going to hurt my children, and I want to keep my children away from anything that's going to hurt them. You're protecting and sheltering your children. Another way is to say, here's my bunker. Currently, I am building ICBMs, that's intercontinental ballistic missiles, and I'm merely sheltering them because launch time hasn't come yet. But everything that I'm doing, I'm doing with a view towards the silo opening up and the world having to look out, because here they come, not to hide from you, but to bless you, because we have the Gospel and they need it. How dare we run away from them? Did I just say you have to live in a high rise and you can't live on some acreage. No, I didn't say that. No idea and say that. But you know the difference between Hey, I like a little space and I don't want to be around people. There's a difference between those two. We want to expand the Kingdom of God through the proclamation of the Gospel, and we want to be a blessing to the kingdom of Man because we have the Gospel and they need it. Because we understand humanity and they don't. We understand that they're made in the image of God and therefore have inherent dignity, worth and value. They don't understand that, and we need to model that for them and to love people because they're made in the image of God. Do so it makes sense to you. This is the reformation, and this is how education becomes this catalyst for reformation, because now it's not just about my kids getting a job. It's not just about my kids becoming informed. It's not just about my kids having an alternative view and understanding of the way the world works. It is about my children being equipped as citizens of the kingdom so that the Kingdom in them and through them might expand, and that the world, by them might be impacted and blessed. This is the reformation that education brings. Okay, I've gone over about five minutes. Apologize for that, but we needed to do this. Let's pray, Lord, thank you for this time that you've given us. Grant by your grace that we might be good stewards of it. Grant that these things that we've heard might impact the way we live, and Grant that the way that we live might impact those with whom we come in contact. This is our prayer, and we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.