Discerning Truth: Biblical Principles of Education

Biblical Science Institute

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Hi folks, Jason Lyle here with the Biblical Science Institute and our webcast Discerning Truth and today we want to discern truth in regards to education, particularly the education of children.

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Now I've written a four part article series on this topic but there are some things you can say that you can't write and vice versa.

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I wanted to give a little bit more of a personal perspective on this, some of my experiences as I travel around the country speaking on the topics of creation and the defense of the

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Christian faith. As Americans we just assume that children when they reach five or six years of age they go off to be educated in a public school for about twelve to thirteen years.

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That's the way we've done it for the past century. And as Christians we need to occasionally stop and ask ourselves, but is that what we're supposed to do?

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Is it biblical? It's always a good question to stop and ask concerning anything that we've been doing for a long time.

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What does the Bible have to say about the education of children? And the answer is quite a lot actually, quite a lot.

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If you look up verses about instruction, learning, knowledge, wisdom with regard to children you'll find overwhelmingly that the scriptures teach that parents are to teach their own children.

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And although the Bible does allow some delegation, in my view at least, clearly parents are responsible that their children receive a biblical education.

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Let me read just a few of these. Proverbs 1 .8, Hear my

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Father's teaching. So you're supposed to listen to your father and your mother.

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They are your instructors. Proverbs 6 .20, My son observe the commandment of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.

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Those of you who have studied Hebrew poetry you know that that's synonymous parallelism. And so your father should teach you, your mother should teach you, your education comes from your parents.

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Proverbs 4 .3 -4, When I was a son to my father, tender and the only son in the sight of my mother, then he taught me and said to me,

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Let your heart hold fast my words, keep my commandments, and live. In Deuteronomy 6 .6

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-7, Moses says of God's statutes, These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.

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You shall teach them diligently to your sons, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

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That of course presupposes that the children are at home, right, that they're around you.

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You can't talk about God's law continually with your kids if they're not around. And that really is the message of that verse.

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When you rise up, when you lie down, when you walk about the house, all the time you should be talking about God's law and how good

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God's laws are. Joshua 4 .21 -22, He said to the son of Israel, When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying,

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What are these stones? Then you shall inform your children, saying, Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.

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When your children ask their fathers, now why would they be asking their fathers? Why aren't they asking their teachers?

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Because their teachers are their fathers, their parents. Yeah. Some people say,

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Well, that's Old Testament. Israel was a theocracy and so on. New Testament, Ephesians 6 .4,

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Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord. Now you'll notice what it does not say. It does not say send them to a government institution and let them instruct and discipline them.

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No, you instruct them. You discipline them, you fathers. So the

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Bible overwhelmingly teaches that parents are responsible for the education of their children.

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And so the question then becomes can we delegate some of that? If I knew someone who was really good at teaching math, he just had a great understanding of math and just a way of communicating it that was very clear, wouldn't

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I want that person to teach my children? Well, my position on ethics is that what is not forbidden by scripture is allowed.

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Whether or not it's wise is another issue. If something's not forbidden either by decree or by principle, then it is allowed.

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And I can't find any commandment or principle that forbids parents from delegating some teaching to others.

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Providing that teaching is in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, providing that you're training up the child in the way he should go,

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Proverbs 22 .6, the child must be trained up in the way he should go, regardless of who's doing the teaching, even if the parents decide to delegate.

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So can you delegate some teaching to a godly teacher who teaches from a biblical curriculum?

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I believe you can. There's precedent for that. And it's always best to find an example of something in scripture that God finds acceptable.

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And I believe we do have an example of that, of delegation to a godly teacher, and that's found in the book of 1

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Samuel. Samuel's mother, Hannah, she was originally having difficulty conceiving a child, and she prayed to the

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Lord and asked him if he would grant her a son. She would dedicate her firstborn son to the ministry, basically.

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God granted her request, and she honored her word. And she gave her first son,

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Samuel, to be trained by Eli. And he was trained in the priesthood, and he became a very faithful and godly priest.

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So there seems to be no sin there. That seems to have been something that was perfectly acceptable in the sight of God.

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Now, can you delegate education to a secular teacher who teaches from a secular curriculum?

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And the answer there is clearly no, because the child is supposed to be trained up in the way he should go. He's supposed to be brought up in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord. And so education should be from a biblical perspective, not a secular one.

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Secular humanism is basically an alternative to Christianity. It is a religion that teaches that man, not

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God, but man is the ultimate authority. Secularism rejects the

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Bible. It specifically rejects Christian ethics. It rejects biblical history and the biblical

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God. It's an atheistic perspective. Now, if you want to pretend that there's a

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God because it makes you feel good, well, secular humanists might say, that's okay. You know, if you want to go to church and feel happy for a little while, if that does it for you.

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But don't base your thinking on this imaginary God. That's the view that secularists take.

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It is an atheistic religion, even though maybe not all secular humanists are strictly atheists, but they nonetheless live their lives as if God doesn't exist, as if he's pretend or as if he only is in charge of some kind of hypothetical afterlife.

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Now, that perspective is about as opposite to the Bible as you can get. Training students in secular humanism is the opposite of training them in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord, the very thing the Bible commands us to do. So to allow students to be trained in secular humanism would violate passages like Ephesians 6 .4,

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Proverbs 22 .6. You would be disobeying commandments of God. Now, some people object to this because it's just what we've done for centuries.

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And some people say, oh, but our public school has Christian teachers in it. And I got news for you though.

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Legally, Christian teachers in a public school, they have to follow the government -determined curriculum.

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And that curriculum is secular. It's not from a Christian perspective. Okay, so as much as Christian teachers in public schools might like to train up their students in a biblical mindset, they're not legally allowed to do that.

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At best, they can answer questions honestly. That's currently legal.

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If a student asks, do you believe this Darwinian stuff? A teacher is allowed to say, no, I do not.

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And if they ask why, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you why I don't believe in neo -Darwinian evolution.

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But that's not the same as thoroughly training students in a biblical perspective.

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At best, a Christian teacher in a public school can perhaps reduce some of the damage.

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And I don't deny that. They can. But they're still required to teach an anti -biblical curriculum.

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And then they can hope that their students ask questions. Perhaps they can present the curriculum a little more tentatively than the person they're replacing.

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So thank you for those of you who are Christian teachers in public schools. I think you're doing a good thing. But you need to recognize your role as damage control and not as being part of a good

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God -honoring system, because it's not. If you're a public school teacher, you are a missionary in a very pagan system.

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And we need missionaries in pagan systems, so that's not a bad thing. And some people might say, oh, but those verses about bringing up your children and the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord, that's just in religious matters. That doesn't apply to things like math and grammar. You know, those aren't religious matters.

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Well, I've got news for you. All matters are religious matters. See, most people think that topics like mathematics, grammar, and history are neutral with respect to religion.

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But they can't be, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited in Christ, according to Colossians 2 .3.

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You mean even knowledge of mathematics is in Christ? Yes. Knowledge of grammar is in Christ?

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Yes. Who do you think invented language? God did. See, if you disagree and you say, no, no, no, mathematics, that has nothing to do with God.

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It's neutral. I can pretty well guarantee you, you were brought up in a public school, because that is a secular belief, and you've bought it hook, line, and sinker.

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See, the Bible says that all knowledge is deposited in Christ, and that necessarily includes the truth of math and grammar and anything like that.

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Are they part of all knowledge? Yeah, they're part of all knowledge, therefore they're deposited in Christ. Therefore, you have to start with God to properly understand those topics.

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Now, I grant people can learn the mechanics of math apart from the

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Christian worldview, but they'll never make sense of it, because mathematics is the way God thinks about numbers, you see.

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All matters are religious, because Christ is sovereign over everything. He said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, and that means authority in education, that means authority in how you teach math, language, grammar, history, whatever.

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Why is it that most people think that topics like mathematics and grammar are neutral with respect to God?

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I want to suggest it's because most people were brought up in a public school that teaches all things from a secular perspective that pretends to be neutral.

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They've been taught implicitly that such subjects have nothing to do with God. God isn't even mentioned in mathematics classes, am

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I right? If I were to ask a Christian student in a public school, what does math have to do with God?

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How would most of them answer that? Well, nothing, right? I mean, in school we learn about reading, writing, arithmetic, what does that have to do with God?

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And see, that indicates that they are already thinking like secularists. And by the way, if you're thinking, well, wait a minute, those subjects really don't have much to do with God, that's the right answer.

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You are thinking as a secularist. And you probably went to a public school where you've been trained to think as a secularist, because that's what they do.

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The curriculum in government schools is secular. It's that way by design. Biblically, everything belongs to God.

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Mathematics, just as one example, mathematics is the way that God thinks about quantities.

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Yes, math is about the way God thinks. It is an aspect of theology.

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It has everything to do with God, and makes no sense apart from the biblical God. Now, I've written articles on this,

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I've written a book on this topic, on fractals, and that just takes one aspect of mathematics that's very beautiful and intriguing, and shows that it, that demonstrates the existence of the biblical

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God, because no other worldview can account for mathematical truth, and why mathematical truths don't change with time, and why the physical universe obeys them, and so on.

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Just to give a very brief summary, the reason that laws of mathematics are so orderly and logical is because they reflect

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God's thinking. God's logical and orderly, so of course they'd be that way. The reason that we human beings can discover laws of mathematics is because we're made in God's image, and God has revealed some of his thoughts to us in various ways.

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Why do laws of math not change over time? Because they reflect God's thinking, and God does not change with time.

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He's beyond time. So of course math won't change with time. Why is it that laws of math work universally, everywhere in the universe?

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I mean, we all assume that. We assume that two plus two still equals four, even on the moon. But most people haven't been to the moon, only a very few.

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And nobody's been to the Andromeda galaxy, so how do you know that two plus two equals four there? See, a secularist, even though they all believe that, they could never actually know that on their own experience, because they haven't experienced the universe.

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They've only experienced a very small fraction of the earth. And yet we all assume math works out in space the way it works here.

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See, in a biblical worldview I can answer that. I can say, because God is omnipresent and sovereign over his entire creation.

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And so of course truth will be the same everywhere, because it has the same God everywhere.

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Why are natural laws, physical laws, mathematical in nature? Right, like E equals

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MC squared? That's kind of convenient. Why is that? You see, a secularist can't really answer that, but a

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Christian can, because the mind of God is responsible for mathematics. And God's mind is also what upholds the physical universe.

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So of course the way God upholds nature will be mathematical, because that's the way he thinks. See, I can answer that.

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By the way, the Nobel Prize winning physicist Eugene Wigner could not come up with a reason on the secular worldview for why nature should obey mathematical laws.

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Everybody knows that laws of nature are mathematical, but from a secular worldview you can't even explain why.

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That makes no sense. In a chance universe, why would there be laws of nature at all? And why would they be mathematical in nature?

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It's as if they were designed by a mind to be understood by other minds. How about that? See, mathematics really makes no sense apart from the

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Christian worldview. And it's a shame, because many students in public schools learn to hate math, because they're not presented it from a proper biblical perspective.

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They're not taught that when you learn math, you're learning to think like God. That's awesome.

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And there's beauty in math, because God has a sense of beauty, and he's put that in math.

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That's what the Fractals book is all about. It shows you some of this beauty that God built into numbers.

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Just astonishing. And you can't make sense of that in a secular worldview. I wonder if students would have a better appreciation of math if they recognized that it's learning to think in a way that's consistent with God's character.

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That's awesome. And of course, unbelievers can do math.

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That's not my argument. But that's because God has revealed himself to them, too. But they suppress that truth in unrighteousness.

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They learn the mechanics of math, but they don't really understand what it's about, because they reject the

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God whose mind is the basis for all mathematical truths. That's just one example.

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Mathematics. But the same principles apply to history, art, music, literature, grammar, science.

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Most Christians don't think about these topics from a proper biblical perspective, because we've been secularized.

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We've been trained in a government school to think that God is irrelevant to all those areas of knowledge.

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When the Bible teaches that God, in fact, is the foundation for knowledge, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, according to Proverbs 1 .7.

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See, we've been trained to think in an anti -biblical way that limits God to religious or spiritual matters.

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But no, God is sovereign over all. See, the secular position is that there are two domains of thought.

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There's this relatively small religious domain, and that's what you do on Sundays, what you believe about God.

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And then there's the much larger non -religious domain, which is all about what's practical, what you do on your day -to -day, in your day -to -day life.

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So the religious domain would include beliefs about God, ethics, morality perhaps, and what you do on Sundays to feel spiritually or emotionally fulfilled.

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That's that religious domain. And then the non -religious domain would be everything else. Science, mathematics, history, government, finances, practical matters, how you live your life, how you spend six and a half days out of seven.

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And if you want to spend a little time in church on Sunday, that's okay, if it makes you feel good. Don't take it seriously, but if it makes you feel good, that's okay.

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That's the secular view. But the idea that there is a religious domain and then a non -religious, neutral domain that has nothing to do with God, that is an anti -biblical, secular concept.

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It is opposite what the Bible teaches, because Jesus is Lord of all. But see, most

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Christians don't think rightly about that issue, because most of us, myself included, were brought up by a secular curriculum that implicitly taught us that God is irrelevant to mathematics, that God's irrelevant to history and science, that God's irrelevant to grammar and so on.

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We've been secularized. We need to recognize that. When it comes to God, there is no neutral ground.

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In Matthew chapter 12 verse 30, Jesus said, he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

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Jesus did not say he who is not with me is neutral. He said, if you're not with me, you're against me.

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And that has to be the case, because God is sovereign over everything, and therefore he deserves our allegiance, not our indifference.

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To be indifferent to God, to ignore him, is blasphemy, and that's not neutral.

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That's anti -God. Unbelievers, those who have rejected

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Christ's offers of mercy and salvation, at least to the present, like to think that they are neutral toward God.

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They like to think, it's not that I'm against God, I don't hate God or anything, it's just that God isn't particularly relevant to anything in my life.

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That's what a lot of people think. But you see, God is our creator, and every breath we take is his gift to us.

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It's not something we deserve. We deserve death. God therefore deserves our full allegiance, our love, our gratitude, not our indifference.

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Indifference to God is rebellion against God. Pretending to be neutral toward God is actually treason against him.

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Therefore, an education that ignores God in every subject is training students to ignore

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God in every subject, and that is treason. Let me say that again. An education that ignores

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God in every subject is training students to ignore God in every subject, and that is treason.

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It is rebellion against God. It's not neutral. It's teaching students that knowledge can be obtained apart from God, that God has nothing to do with knowledge.

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And in reality, the Bible says that God is the beginning, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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He's the foundation in every subject. It's the exact opposite of what students are taught in government schools.

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Let's just be honest about it. And by the way, some people have said, well, no, God was mentioned in my history class or in my art class in public school.

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No, a belief in God was mentioned. Secular curricula will admit that some people in history have believed in God, and others haven't, and people's beliefs have affected history.

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There's no denying that. Secularists will admit that. Differences in religious perspectives have resulted in wars and have resulted in different nations.

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Beliefs about God have influenced art, and every atheist accepts that. That's not a uniquely

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Christian perspective. That's something that everybody recognizes. Yeah, some people believe that there's this

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God, and that has affected the way history has worked. But are students taught in public schools that God is sovereign over history, that the reason history has happened in the way that it has is because God has used human decisions to accomplish his purpose?

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Are they taught that in history we see God's justice and his mercy as he rules the nations, which he does?

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Are students taught that the reason America has been so blessed, not just financially, but in terms of the freedoms we enjoy, is because it is based on biblical principles and God has rewarded us accordingly?

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Or are they taught, no, the reason America's so great is because we're a democracy, which we're actually a constitutional republic.

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But in any case, folks, there have been democracies in the world before.

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The ancient Greeks had democracy. Democracy just enforces the will of the majority. If the majority of people are evil, then a democracy of those people will be evil.

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A constitutional republic is based on the biblical principle that we have human rights, we have individual rights that are given to us by God and may not be infringed upon by the state.

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That's a biblical principle. Are students in public schools taught that art is beautiful and that beauty is objective because it reflects, in some way,

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God's nature? No. They might be taught that beliefs in God have influenced art, but they're not taught that God is truly sovereign over beauty.

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Now, older Christians who are listening to this might remember a time when public education wasn't as secular.

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That's true. There was a time when you might start the day with prayer. You might even read from the

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Bible. But folks, those days are gone, okay? The secularists have been very successful in pushing public education to become increasingly anti -Christian, gradually, and they've been very successful.

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A lot of times when things change very gradually, we don't notice it.

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The secularization of our society, it's been gradual, and it starts in the schools.

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He who controls the schools controls the world, as has been said. See, there's this myth that public education should be neutral with respect to religion.

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And by the way, even a lot of Christians have bought into that myth. They go, yeah, it's public. It should be neutral.

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But see, the thing is, education cannot be neutral by its nature. Even deciding what subjects to teach requires a value choice.

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It requires you to have a worldview that says this is important and this is not as important, right?

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See, according to Scripture, education should be biblical. We looked at the verses.

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Biblically, the goal of education is to produce graduates who love Jesus, who understand the

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Scriptures, and who think rightly to the glory of God. That's the way education should be.

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Now some people say, nah, education should be learning the mechanics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, right?

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Well, a good education should certainly include those things, because those are aspects of right thinking.

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You need to be able to read the Bible. That's a good thing. But those mechanical things should be taught from a biblical perspective to the glory of God.

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If not, then we're being disobedient to God. But the myth is that education should be neutral.

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It should neither affirm nor deny religion. But that's impossible, because the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge. See, if you teach any subject, any subject, without reference to its foundation in the biblical

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God, you are teaching students that God is not the beginning of knowledge. And that's not neutral, it's anti -biblical, right?

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Neutrality with respect to God is impossible. God deserves our allegiance.

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So to attempt to be neutral with respect to God, ironically, is not neutral. It's disobedience, it's treason.

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Education, by its very nature, will be taught from a particular worldview. That is inescapable.

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It's inescapable, because even in choosing what subjects are important, you have to make a value judgment, and that will come from your worldview.

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And whatever that worldview is, it'll either be for Christ or against Christ, because according to Matthew 1230, those are your two options.

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Is public education for Christ? If not, it's against Christ, by his own words.

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You disagree with that, you're calling Jesus a liar. Now we as a nation have decided that our public education will be anti -Christ.

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It will be from a secular humanistic worldview that puts man as the ultimate standard, not

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God. And some people are thinking, but wait, we can't use education to impose a religious view on students.

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Again, we've been taught that pluralistic perspective that is not biblical. Every education imposes a religious view on students.

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When you educate, you're training students how to think, and that'll either be from a pro -Christ perspective or an anti -Christ perspective.

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There's no middle ground. Matthew 1230. What secular humanists have done, and it's ingenious, it's wicked, but it's brilliant, is to convince people that their religion is not a religion, that it's neutral.

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Our perspective as secular humanists, we're non -religious, we're neutral. We neither affirm nor deny

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God. We teach all subjects without even referencing God. But that's not neutral, that's anti -biblical.

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Because biblically, God tells us we're to think in terms of him as being foundational to knowledge, that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited in Christ.

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We're to approach education biblically. So the Bible says you can't do that, because God is the foundation of knowledge.

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And when you say, no, God is not the foundation of knowledge, we can teach all subjects properly without reference to God, you're saying the

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Bible is wrong. You're saying that God is not the beginning of knowledge. That's not a neutral perspective, that is an anti -biblical perspective.

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Secular humanism is a religious position in the sense that it is a position on origins, right?

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They have their origin story, big bang, evolution. They have a position on the nature of man as the most evolved animal.

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They have a position on ethics, whatever benefits the majority usually. They have a position on epistemology, usually empiricism or something along those lines.

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It fits all of the definitions of a religion, it really does. It's one that ignores

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God, but it's nonetheless, it's a belief about the way the universe is and the way things should be.

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But secularists pretend that their religion is not a religion. And since, hey, you can't teach religion in government schools, that wouldn't be fair.

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Therefore, you cannot present the Christian perspective because that's a religion. So instead, you need to teach our religion because our religion is not a religion.

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Isn't that clever? It's self -refuting and contradictory, but most people don't see it.

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Most people have not been taught logic in public schools. They're not taught how to think, they're taught what to think.

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And that strategy has been very effective. We've seen our nation move in a more secular direction, and I believe it begins in the schools.

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It was very deliberate, by the way. People like John Dewey, who was a secular humanist, he wanted to make

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America secular. That was his goal. And he pushed public schools to teach from a secular humanistic perspective.

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He felt that the key was to get children away from their parents, because their parents might teach them things like Christianity.

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We don't want that. And then train the students to think in a way that is consistent with whatever the state says.

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They're really teaching them what to think, not how to think. You might notice that logic is not taught in most government schools.

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There was a time when it was. That was a required subject. But right reasoning, we don't need to be teaching students that.

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We don't want them thinking that, you know, analyzing some of the things the state says. We just want them to be slaves to the government.

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You don't want people who think really well, or even read all that well. They might read books that give them ideas contrary to the state.

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And boy, we are now seeing the fruit of that. We really are. See, a lot of people think that students in public schools in the

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United States of America are taught a value -free set of facts. But that is not the case.

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Students are being trained to think as secular humanists. And it's very obvious. Even if they have some

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Christian teachers, and bless you, praise God for you if you're a Christian teacher in a public school, I think you can help reduce some of that damage.

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But the damage is still being done. The curriculum is the real teacher, right? Because one of John Dewey's goals was to reduce teachers to mere facilitators.

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The curriculum is what forms the student's worldview. And that curriculum is controlled by the secularists.

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And the result is, we now have a lot of students that graduate as secular humanists. And of course, they end up rejecting

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God. And by the way, that rejection is usually not immediate. Somebody says, well, hey, my son or daughter just graduated from their public school, and they're still professing

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Christ. Wait five or ten years. Because we usually find that it's when these students are in their 20s, after they've graduated, that the reality of their secular worldview kicks in.

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And they start thinking to themselves, wait a minute, why am I going to church? I don't believe that stuff. When they're still at home, they want to please their parents, so they go to church.

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But they've been trained to think as secularists. And we find that the vast majority of Christian students in public schools walk away from the church when they're in their 20s.

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The statistics are alarming. And if you go to the articles that I wrote, I put in the footnotes the references where you can check on the research studies that have been done on this topic.

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See, in Luke chapter 6 verse 40, Jesus said, a pupil is not above his teacher, but everyone, after he's been fully trained, will be like his teacher.

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Students become like their teacher. If you want your children to become like you, you teach them.

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You be their teacher. If you have someone else teach them, they will become like what that other person teaches, whatever the curriculum is that that person teaches.

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The main teacher in a public school, in terms of the information that is presented, is not the person standing up in front of the classroom.

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The main teacher is the curriculum. That's what determines the information that the student is being presented and from what perspective.

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And that curriculum is secular, currently, in the United States public schools. If you send your children to be taught at a public school, they will become like their secular curriculum.

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Children have multiple teachers in their life. They've got their parents, they've got their friends, schoolmates, they've got their school teachers and the curriculum, whatever that curriculum is, pastors, youth pastor, television, movies, books.

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The teacher that has the most influence is the one that spends the most time actively teaching.

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And for most children in America, that is the public school curriculum.

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That's what they get most of their education from. That's the main source. And some people say, yeah, but, you know, we take them to church on Sunday and we talk about the

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Bible. Those are good things. But that is a tiny fraction of the time the child spends being trained to think as a secularist.

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It's just a small fraction. Now Jesus said that a pupil, after he's been fully trained, will be like his teacher.

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So if 90 % of a child's education is from a secular perspective, wouldn't we expect that there's a 90 % chance that he will become a secularist?

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And by the way, the statistics confirm this. If you send your child to a government school where he will receive 14 ,000 hours of secular teaching, even if you take him to church and do everything else right, there's a 90 % chance he will graduate with a secular worldview.

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And in the articles I wrote, I put the footnotes to the research studies that demonstrate that, Jesus was right.

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People, students, do become like their teacher. And yet Christian parents think that it won't happen to their kids.

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Well, we take our kids to church. So did the 90 % who walked away from the faith.

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You think an hour and a half, two hours perhaps, on a Sunday will counter the 14 ,000 hours of secular indoctrination?

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And so we say, well every evening when Timmy comes home, you know, we take an hour and talk about subjects from a biblical perspective.

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That's good. But do you think that will counter the eight hours of education from a secular perspective?

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One of the things I did not put in the article, I think it's because I'm trained to write from a scientific perspective, so I tend not to put personal information in articles.

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But I wanted to mention my own experiences in this subject, because as I travel the nation speaking on defending the faith,

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I get to meet, and it's a wonderful privilege, I get to meet with all kinds of Christians from different backgrounds.

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And I hear lots of stories of Christian parents whose children, they're now adults, and they want nothing to do with Christ.

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They want nothing to do with the church. And it's heartbreaking. It really is. And in almost all cases,

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I can tell you, the children were brought up in a secular school. And the amazing thing is, the parents are always surprised, because they just didn't think it would happen to their kids.

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I mean, you know, we took him to church every Sunday. Yeah. We got him plugged into youth group.

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Okay, but you also sent him to be indoctrinated with 14 ,000 hours of secular education.

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That has an effect. It does. And some people watching this might think, well, it's too late for me, because my sons and daughters, they're all adults now.

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They're already grown up. And I didn't know any better. I sent them to a public school. Look, most people didn't know better.

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Back in my time when I was going through school, almost nobody homeschooled. It just wasn't done.

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Most Christians hadn't realized that that maybe isn't the best option. And frankly, the system wasn't quite as secular back then either.

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It wasn't quite as bad as it is today. So I'm not trying to bring any feelings of condemnation on anyone.

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And I wish that I could somehow present this in a way that would not make anyone feel bad about the past.

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There's nothing you can do about the past, okay? And God can use even sin to glorify himself as he did with Joseph and Joseph's brothers and so on.

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So I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad, but we need to break the cycle of sin. And I don't know how to do that without talking about it.

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So I just want you to understand my heart here. I'm just laying all my cards on the table. This is what I'm seeing. I'm mainly trying to reach parents who currently have young children and are considering what to do in terms of their education.

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Whatever you do, please let it not be in a government school. That's just a bad idea.

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Jesus said that a pupil, when fully trained, will be like his teacher. Jesus was not lying.

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He was not mistaken. If you send your children to be trained up by a secular public school system, even if you do everything else right, you take them to church, teach them the gospel, spend an hour every evening trying to counter the eight hours of indoctrination they learn in school.

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If 90 % of their education is secular, there's a 90 % chance they will come out as a secularist.

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That's a biblical principle. What you sow is what you reap. You sow into a secular system, you will reap secular adults.

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That's just what happens. Granted, there are exceptions, but they are rare. They're not common.

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You know, 1 in 10 will squeak through. You can imagine Christian parents sending their children to be educated in a

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Muslim school for 12 years, where they're taught Islam. What do you think would happen? Well, they'd probably graduate as Muslims.

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We wouldn't want that. That's a false religion. But you know, they would also learn good things like math and science and history.

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Yeah, but from a Muslim perspective. We don't want that. Okay, how about sending your children to a

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Buddhist school then, where they'll be taught Buddhism? Well, they would probably graduate as Buddhists, and we don't want that.

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That's a false religion too. Okay, we'll send them to a Hindu school, where they'll be trained in the ways of Hinduism.

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Well, that's no good either because they'd probably graduate as Hindus. Okay, what do you think will happen if you send them to a secular school?

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Well, they'll probably graduate as Christians. You see the problem there? It goes back to this myth of neutrality.

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People think that public schools are neutral, but they can't be. They're not, and they can't be.

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They are teaching students that knowledge can be obtained apart from God, that God is irrelevant to every subject, and that's what secularism teaches.

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That is secularism, and the students come out believing that. That's the opposite of what the Bible teaches.

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And frankly, the reason that most Christians don't catch on to this is because we've been trained to think like secularists.

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We don't actually believe that God really is relevant to all aspects of education. That's a problem.

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The school that ignores the reality of God in every subject teaches its students to ignore

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God in every subject. That is not neutral. It's secularism. It's rebellion against God, and we tend to not recognize these things.

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We don't recognize the disease because we have it. We've been infected with it from our youth, and it's normal, you see.

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Now sometimes Christians will object to these principles as I've laid them out, and I've tried to answer most of the objections in the articles that I wrote, but I do want to zoom in on one, and that's the counterexample.

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Because one reason that people give for why it's okay for them to send their students into a secular system is because they can cite a counterexample, either a

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Christian homeschooled student who ended up walking away from the faith, or a public schooled student who maintained faith in Christ.

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And by the way, either of those can happen. I've already said that, that Christian students who attend public school, 1 in 10 will make it through with some semblance of a

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Christian worldview. Yeah, okay. So to point out counterexamples is the sweeping generalization fallacy.

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It's an error in reasoning. I don't deny that there are counterexamples, but they're not the norm.

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The general pattern is, as Jesus put it, the pupil becomes like his teacher. Okay? And by the way, most counterexamples that people give are not really counterexamples.

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There's one example where a person said, well, you know, I know these Christian parents, and after their son was in public school for,

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I don't know how long, five to six years, they pulled him out and tried to homeschool him. But they found out he was just, he was so poorly behaved, they couldn't handle him.

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So they had to put him back in the public school system. So for them, public school was the better option, you see.

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Is that really a counterexample? Because let me get this straight. He was trained in a public school for years, and was so poorly educated and disciplined, poorly disciplined, that he could not behave himself when they pulled him out.

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And so, rather than trying to continue to homeschool him, they put him back into the same system that trained him to act like a barbarian.

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Is that a counterexample? I think that's a pretty good example. Right? And it makes sense, right?

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Because if you think about it, when you're in a government school, you're surrounded by students who are equally uneducated, and most of them are not

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Christians, and so most of them act like barbarians because that's what kids do. It's just, that's just something they haven't learned maturity yet, of course.

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And you become like who you hang out with. That's a biblical principle as well. So it makes sense.

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It makes sense. What about those who do squeak through the system?

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Because there are some. I'm an example of that. But that doesn't mean that no damage was done.

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I went through public school, kindergarten through 12th grade, right?

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And then some people look at me and they say, well, see, you're okay. I want you to understand, I'm not okay.

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Right? And the fact that you think I'm okay means you're not okay either. No, I am damaged in a number of ways, and I'm not going to talk about all of them.

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Some of them are kind of embarrassing. But, you know, certain times when I react poorly to a situation, I can think back to, well, yeah, that's how

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I was trained in a secular school, to react to that. It's not a biblical way of responding. I'm not going to go through all those, but I will tell you that my thinking when

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I graduated from high school was not biblical. I was a Christian, and I believe genuinely,

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I had faith in Christ, but my thinking was secular. It really was, with the exception of the fact that I had faith in Christ.

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Certainly the way I thought about science and nature was secular. Not that I had bought into all aspects of evolution or things like that, but when

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I thought about laws of nature, that's just the way the universe is, I didn't think of laws of nature as the way

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God upholds his creation, which is what they are. Laws of nature are demonstrations of God's power, and the reason they're mathematical is because God thinks mathematically, and so on.

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One of the reasons I like to, you've probably heard me say that before if you've listened to any of my lectures or if you've read any of my books, that was revolutionary to me, but it wasn't until I was much older that I realized that.

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My thinking in high school was basically secular, and, you know, I had faith in Christ, it was basically a little

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Christian cherry on top of a secular sundae, and so that's, I've basically spent the last 30 years of my life trying to unlearn secularism and train my mind to be obedient to Christ.

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Because secularism is false, it's damaging, it's not neutral, it's anti -Christ. It really is.

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And of course the Lord can heal damage, and he has healed some of that damage with me, but there are other areas where I'll probably have to live with it until glory.

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There's some things that God chooses not to heal, and that's fine, until the eternal state of course.

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And by the way, I'm not bitter at all. In my generation, nobody knew any better, so I'm not blaming anybody or anything like that.

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On the contrary, I'm grateful that the Lord saw fit to save me anyway. I'm very grateful to be in that 10 % bin, although not really because I didn't have a biblical worldview, but at least

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I squeaked through and maintained some semblance of faith in Christ. I'm grateful for that.

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And the Lord has helped my thinking to become more biblical in the decades since that.

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But here's the thing, and this is what I want to emphasize. As I travel and meet many wonderful Christian homeschool families, and their kids at 18 years old, they've just graduated, and they already have the theological knowledge, sanctification, and maturity that I have now.

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They get to start their adult life with a level of sanctification that took me three decades to work out.

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What an advantage, and it blesses my heart to see that. It gives me hope for the future, actually.

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It really does. Because I think, how is the Lord going to be—I mean, if they're already where I'm at in 30 years, how's the

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Lord going to be using them powerfully? I mean, it's exciting to think about. I've seen the outcome with my own eyes of those who follow the biblical command to train up your children, your own children, in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord, and those who give their children to Caesar to be trained as secular humanists. The difference is not subtle.

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It's obvious. It's like night and day. It really is. You put me in a room with Christian children, some of whom are public schooled and some are

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Christian homeschooled, I can tell you the difference. I can pick out which ones are homeschooled. It's obvious.

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The homeschooled are much smarter for their grade level. The statistics prove that.

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They do 15 to 30 percentile points better than public schooled students. It's a huge advantage in terms of just their education.

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They're better at grammar. They're better at math. They've read a lot more books. They're far more familiar with the

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Bible. They understand theology better. And here's the interesting thing. They're far more comfortable socially.

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I think that's interesting. They're the ones that are not afraid to come up and ask me questions and talk about black holes or whatever.

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And I love that. That's great. And to me that's funny because one of the arguments against homeschooling is well how will they be socialized?

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And I found that in general, and again there are exceptions, but in general homeschooled students are far more well adjusted socially than public schooled students.

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Because the socialization that public school students get is they're surrounded by people who are as immature as they are, and most of them are not

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Christians anyway, and so they act very wickedly. That's the kind of socialization that students get in public schools.

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It is. I remember that. And Jesus speaks to that principle. Can the blind lead the blind?

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Will they not both fall into a pit? That's the kind of socialization you get in public schools. Homeschooled you're around, you are around your siblings, but your parents are there, they're more mature, you get to interact with other people at church in a positive

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Christian environment. That's genuine socialization where you have people of multiple ages at different walks of life.

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That's the way to do it. The other thing I've noticed too is that with homeschooled children they are far, far more mature.

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They act older than they are. Their behavior, their attitudes are more adult.

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I mean, not completely, they're still children, but if you think about it, it makes sense because they're spending more of their time with adults, and hopefully with Christian adults who are training them to be mature in Christ.

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It's just, it's a wonderful thing to see. It's so beautiful to see children who have been brought up in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord. It's just, it blesses my heart to see that. Christian homeschooling gives students such an advantage, and not just spiritually, but educationally and practically.

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You know, colleges and employers preferentially select homeschooled students. They do because they know that they're smarter and they're better behaved.

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Most homeschooled students are Christians, not all, and so they can be trusted, and so you're far more likely to get employment or get into a good college.

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People think the reverse, but that's not true. That's not been my experience, and if you think about it, you know, public school, public schools can't even tell the difference between a boy and a girl, right?

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I mean, that's just absurd, and some public school graduates can barely read, or if they do, it's at a very low grade level, and employers know that.

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Colleges know that, and so they tend to, they like homeschooled students, so it's a very practical advantage as well, so, but I think that,

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I mean, the main reason to do it is because it's what the Bible teaches, and I do agree that there are other options. Christian schools are a perfectly acceptable option, a very, very good option in many cases, if it's a genuinely

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Christian school. That's the thing you have to watch out for, but folks, if you could see what

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I see in my travels, there would not be any debate on this issue, really, and that's why

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I wanted to share this with you. I've seen the outcome of training children in a godly environment versus giving them to a secular institution, and it's a world of difference.

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Jesus is right. Pupils become like their teachers, so if you're a parent with young children, please don't give them to Caesar.

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Either homeschool them or find a good Christian school with a biblical curriculum. One other follow -up, too, and I didn't put this in the articles.

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I may do an article on this at some point, but what about college, then, because the follow -up question is, you know, should

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I send my students to college? Is that an option, and if so, are we limited to Christian colleges?

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And I had a very positive experience in college, both my undergraduate and graduate school.

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I enjoyed it very much. For somebody like me who loves to learn, it was such a positive experience, and so I'm very pro -college in general, but I do think there are things we have to think about.

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The first point I want to bring up is that the two key texts that I've been citing,

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Proverbs 22 .6 and Ephesians 6 .4, are in regard to the education of children, right?

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Ephesians 6 .4, fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord. Proverbs 22 .6, train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he's older, he will not depart from it.

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Both passages are in regard to the education of children, and that's significant, because eventually children become adults, and if you've done your job and brought them up in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord, trained them up in the way they should go, they won't depart from it, right?

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I mean, it's not a promise, it's a proverb, it's what generally happens. If you've done your job well, they will have that Christian worldview cemented, and after that, they can learn from all kinds of different people, regardless of that person's perspective, because they understand discernment, right?

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Adult Christians with solid theology and good discernment can take a college class anywhere, whether from a

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Christian school or secular, and because they are discerning, they can learn the true things that are being taught, and will reject the false things that are being taught.

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That is an aspect of spiritual maturity. Hebrews 5 .14, but solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

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I can go into any school and learn a subject, and whatever the professor's view on origins is,

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I can still learn the good stuff from them while rejecting the nonsense. But then again, I'm well trained in apologetics and logic and things like that.

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I have read, I don't know how, well you can see on the shelf back there, a lot of science textbooks, and most of those are from a secular perspective.

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But I'm an adult Christian, and I'm trained in apologetics and logic, so I'm not going to be swayed away from the

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Bible when I read anti -biblical books, or listen to anti -biblical professors, because I can spot the logical fallacies in their arguments.

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I can see how their worldview has caused them to misunderstand the data, right?

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I'm aware that unbelievers are spiritually blind, and so they can't see what's right in front of them. I get that.

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I can understand their anti -biblical arguments without being fooled by their anti -biblical arguments.

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Now, little children can't do that very well, and that's why you don't send them off to a secular institution.

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But so far as I can tell, there's no biblical principle against a faithful adult Christian learning from non -Christian sources as long as he's discerning.

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Indeed, a mature Christian might take some classes in Islam taught by Muslims for the purpose of better understanding that position so as to refute it, and so as to help

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Muslims come out of that false religion by reasoning with them. That's appropriate. We're not to learn the ways of the pagans in the sense of imitating them, but we certainly can learn about them for the purpose of refuting them.

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So a mature adult Christian can learn in any setting, Christian or secular. So then the question then that parents need to ask themselves when they're considering whether to send a child off to college is, is my child a mature adult

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Christian? If so, then pretty much any college is an option because they've already become like their teacher, right?

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They've grown up, they've become, they've trained, and they've been trained well, and they're now solidified in that Christian worldview if they're in fact adult and if they're mature.

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They won't depart from that now, but people mature at different rates.

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I mean, the U .S. government declares people an adult if you're 18, but in terms of spiritual maturity, some people are adults before that age, some are not yet adults at that age.

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They need a few more years, but at some point children become adults and they have to live in the real world and they will be exposed to false anti -biblical claims.

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And so the question is, have you prepared them for that? That's the question you need to ask because parents often ask me that, you know, is my child ready if I send them off to a secular college?

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Will he backslide? Will he walk away from the church? And I always answer, you are far more qualified to answer that than I am because you know your own child.

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And that's the truth. It's different for different people. Some people before they're 18, they've already become an adult and they could go anywhere and learn and get good education because they've learned discernment.

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I will say this, generally if a student has been homeschooled in a biblical worldview, has been taught logic and understands logical fallacies, errors in reasoning, and has also been taught apologetics from a presuppositional perspective, generally they'll be fine.

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Because you see, if you really understand presuppositional apologetics, then you understand that there cannot be a rational, sound, or cogent argument against Christianity because rationality requires the biblical worldview as a precondition, you see.

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And if you really get that, there can't be a good argument against Christianity.

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It's not possible because argumentation presupposes the Christian worldview in order to make sense of laws of logic and their properties.

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Students who really get that, I have confidence that they can go anywhere and they can learn and they'll filter out the bad stuff.

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That's not a problem. Students who are well trained in presuppositional apologetics are not going to backslide.

01:00:04

They're not going to walk away from the faith, at least not for intellectual reasons. Now we know there's more to it than that, but it won't be for logical reasons.

01:00:11

Well, there's never a logical reason, but it won't be for any kind of pseudo -intellectual reason. But if you have any doubts, you say,

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I'm not sure that I'm not sure that my child's there. Then either delay college a few years until they're mature or put them in a good, biblically solid,

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Christ -centered Christian school. And there are some. Now, again, I have to point out, as I did with elementary education, just because a school labels itself

01:00:41

Christian doesn't mean it's teaching things from a Christian perspective. There are a lot of very bad

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Christian colleges that are compromised. They are not teaching God's word as truth.

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They're not. They're teaching you how to, well, maybe it has elements of truth to it. It's inspired by God in the sense that, you know, emotionally it has some value or something.

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But they don't truly teach the Bible is the word of God. I would never recommend that.

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I would rather a student go to a secular school than a compromised Christian school, because at least at a secular school, you know what you're going to get.

01:01:19

With a compromised Christian school, that's a wolf in sheep's clothing, because you're lulled into a false sense of security, because your professors say things that are

01:01:28

Christian sometimes, but then they train you to think about the Bible in a non -biblical way.

01:01:34

That's never a good idea. Better to be thrown into the lion's den and know that you're in the lion's den than to be surrounded by what appear to be sheep but are actually wolves.

01:01:46

And if you think about it, the people that Jesus spoke out against most harshly, it was not the wicked sinners who knew they were wicked sinners.

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It was the religious leaders who honored God with their lips, but their heart was far from them.

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It was the hypocrites who pretended to be religious, but in fact were not loving

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God with their heart. It was the Pharisees and Sadducees that Jesus spoke out against most harshly.

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Woe to these, you know, blind guides, hypocrites, and so on. Now in my view, a biblically solid

01:02:23

Christian college is always the best option, and there are some good ones. I'm adjunct faculty at Master's University.

01:02:31

That's a great school. I highly recommend it. Very good professors with solid Christian worldview. I've heard great things about Cedarville.

01:02:38

That's another option for you, and there are others. I'm not going to go down the list, but the reason I do mention other options is

01:02:45

I would suggest that a spiritually mature adult might consider a non -Christian school, perhaps due to finances or if they have a program of education that is unavailable at any good

01:02:56

Christian school. Right now, as I record this, there are no biblically solid

01:03:04

Christian schools that have an astronomy program where you can actually major in astronomy, and so students who, you know,

01:03:11

I want to be an astronomer for the Lord. Where do I go? There aren't any

01:03:16

Christian options at the moment. We're working on something at Master's, but it might be some years before that happens, if it happens.

01:03:24

So you're going to have to go to a secular school. Just make sure that that child is a mature adult at that point.

01:03:29

That's the key. The transition from child to adult is not instantaneous, obviously. It's gradual, and I would argue that the most important time to instill a

01:03:40

Christian worldview into children is when they're very young. If you can get them thinking right biblically when they're in kindergarten, oh, what a blessing that will be to them when they grow up and do not depart from that.

01:03:54

The older you get, the more locked into your worldview you get, for good or for bad. And so, especially for those young children, please make sure you give them a good biblical education, whether you do it yourself or delegate to a good

01:04:06

Christian school. It's so important, and if we want to see those children become faithful men and women of God, that's what has to be done.

01:04:15

That's what the Bible teaches. So I hope that was helpful to you. We'll see you next time. God bless.