About 'Education'

We are not really anti-education per se, to the contrary we are actually quite pro-education; but the question that this assertion opens up and lays out on the table for discussion and review is, "What precisely is meant by the term 'education' "?

Is education really the mere acquisition of a multitude of 'facts', so-called? If it is, then the student or person with the greatest collection of facts stored in their mind is obviously the best educated. What then is the meaning or the purpose in the accumulation of all these facts? Is a person's value as a person determined by the size or amount or perceived quality of the facts accumulated? Is the accumulation of facts the chief end of our lives, or the chief inheritance bequeathed upon our children? And how many of these facts will prove to actually be truth?

We contend that the primary purpose and responsibility of parents is not to accomplish in their child the best education as it is generally conceived of, but to transplant to their child an accurate (that is a biblical) world view – which necessarily includes an accurate view of God and ultimate metaphysical (that is spiritual) reality, with the chief end in view of leading them to embracing the Creator God of the Bible, and giving their entire life over to the control (lordship) of His Son, the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Anything that is not immediately conducive of this end is to be viewed with suspicion, and anything that is positively contrary should be viewed with alarm and avoided.

This, for one example, is why we do not participate in our culture's indulgent perpetuation of the Santa Claus lie: actively and purposefully deceiving your child about a matter of ultimate reality is directly contradictory to transplanting into the child of an accurate view of ultimate reality – particularly about a major focal point of the formation of world view in the child's mind. (Those who are inclined to doubt the importance of Santa as a major focal point of the child's mindset should keep an eye and ear out during the next Christmas season for every appearance of the Jolly Old Elf in every conversation, and setting, and medium available to the child. The mere fact that we have to remind ourselves that Jesus is supposed to be the reason for the season speaks volumes. Clearly the real focus of Christmas is the arrival of Santa on Christmas Eve.)

Unfortunately, most of 'education' at best is not immediately conducive to transplanting an accurate, biblical world view; and much of education – particularly at the college level – is actively hostile to this idea. It may be (may be) that this so-called education is successful in producing a higher overall lifetime of financial prosperity than would otherwise be, but it is unlikely that Jesus will be waiting at the moment of our death to ask for a cash advance or the professional expertise that He has been missing up to now. Each of us will be judged according to the godliness or ungodliness of the things that we have done, the words that we have spoken, and the thoughts that we have thought, and not according to the titles before our name, the degrees listed afterward, or the vastness (or meagerness) of our accumulations of wealth.

In other words, there is certainly immense practical value in a child learning his 'twy-stymes', and nothing particularly wrong with knowing where a place called Brazil is, but what is he going to do with it? Is he going to use his twy-stymes to safeguard the integrity of his own family, or to shade the truth in a way that works out to his own advantage and someone else's detriment? Will he use his knowledge of where a place called Brazil is merely to advance the already bloated acquisitions of a vast corporation that has no concern about the people who fall under their sway and shadow, or to relieve the ignorance and suffering of brothers and sisters in a spiritually dark place?