February 10, 2022 Show with Matt Tarr on “The Current State of Education”

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.

We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 10th day of February 2022, and I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest named

Pastor Matt Tarr. He is the pastor teacher at High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania, which is a church revitalization effort in northeastern

Pennsylvania through the Grace Advanced Ministry of John MacArthur. And today we are going to be addressing the current state of education, and we'll also be introducing

High Point Classical Academy. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Matt Tarr.

Thanks, Chris. It's really good to be on the program with you. Well, tell our listeners, for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, perhaps they failed to hear your previous interviews with me, tell us about this church.

Yeah, well, High Point Baptist Church was actually started in 1892 down in the

Wyoming Valley area of northeastern Pennsylvania. It was around 2000 that it had relocated.

It was a very small little church. It was landlocked, and so they were maxing out their facility over three services in town, and so they bought a little country plot on the top of a mountain, hence the change in the name to High Point Baptist Church, and built a rather large facility.

And you go back to the original board meetings and congregational presentations and things of that nature, they built a worship center to accommodate 500 people at a time and believe that through using a lot of pragmatic methods they could grow the church through, you know, human means to, you know, really seeker -sensitive means.

Their pastors were going to Rick Warren's pastors' conferences every year and so forth.

Anyway, they could reduplicate what they were doing down in town up here. Over three services they could have 500 people in a service and 1500 people total.

Took out a really disproportionate amount of debt for their actual congregation size.

Now, they did get close to 500 for a while, but, you know, they very quickly began to compromise doctrinal integrity because if you're going to appeal to a broad number of people because your objective isn't to, well, your objective isn't discipleship and growing people in their knowledge of the truth and likeness of Jesus Christ, but rather to pack a place out, you know, you're going to try to be more broad.

So they brought in music teams that were Pentecostal and they started having health, wealth, prosperity, gospel preacher conferences.

In fact, you were at our ACBC conference last summer.

Yeah. And I didn't know this until, you know, until we hosted that conference.

You know, of course, that was the first, you know, Association of Certified Biblical Counselors conference in our state.

But the last conference our church hosted, you know, outside conference, outside of our church conference, so where we're inviting an organization in, was actually a health, wealth, prosperity, gospel preacher.

Wow. So, you know, so that's where they were at. So you might say they were

Baptist in name only, really. And, but ultimately what was beginning to happen here was exactly the model that the church in Corinth was dealing with.

And of course, as you know, that was largely what motivated me to do my doctoral thesis on the church in Corinth and the source of factions there and the relationship to Corinthian sophistry.

That sophistry was really a pragmatic, method -driven, emotional -driven use of rhetoric to sway crowds and energize masses of people.

It wasn't that sophistry was completely absent of truth. There was truth, but that wasn't the substance.

Their method of persuasion was really less persuasion because it wasn't using the word of God and appealing to hearts through the word of God, but rather manipulation, methods of manipulation, so if you can make that distinction there.

Anyway, so, but because the church had really followed in that same pragmatic -driven

Corinthian sophistry, the same thing that happened to the Corinthian church, in effect, happened here.

The church then underwent a split that would be going back to, I think it was 2012, and then all of a sudden maybe 90 people are left here holding this incredible mortgage, and it was at that time, you know, the

Lord was working and the men that were here at the time, it was a deacon -led church, and the deacons were acting as elders, and they began reading books by John MacArthur on what the church is, by John Piper on what the church is, and Mark Dever on what the church is, and so forth, and began to implement those changes.

That led them to become a grace -advanced revitalization effort, as you mentioned, when one of the deacons acting as an elder heard on the radio about this program and he thought, well, that might help us, because who's going to come here when we have this debt for a building that we thought we were taking out for 1 ,500 people, but at least it was sustainable with 500 people?

And I say sustainable. They had never passed a black budget since they were up here, and some of the older folks that were here throughout that time will tell you there were seasons that were so bad they couldn't pass an annual budget even.

It was six months. That was the best they could do at a time. Anyway, but who's going to come to a church of 90 people, maybe 100 on a really good day?

I remember our first Sunday, and I think we breached 102, and the place, we were all just filled with enthusiasm because it seemed like we had packed the place up, but you still have 100 people in a worship center for 500, so it was pretty spread out.

And we still had the chair set up from where the church had last left off, you know, around 250 before the split had happened.

But anyway, so they reached out to Grace Advance to see if this was something that they could potentially help with.

That's how I heard about this church. I grew up in the Poconos, and I was jaw -dropped about not only what happened in this flock, but by their recaptured love for the

Word of Christ and the recovery of the gospel here. And sure, there were serious financial issues when

I was candidating. They're showing me the books, and they're going, look, we have 15 months. We'll be out of our savings.

Based on our income and what we'll be paying you. We can pay you a little bit more, but then we're going to be out of money more quickly.

So what do you want to do? And I kind of thought, well, my goodness,

I mean, what the Lord had done in the hearts of these people, why wouldn't I want to come? Any church that you're going to go to is going to be, you know, you're dealing with sin, you're going to be dealing with all kinds of different issues.

And especially since my interest was especially piqued in revitalization efforts, just kind of how the

Lord had knit my heart together. Not so much interested in planting, but at least

I didn't think so. Anyway, so I'm looking at this church, and I'm thinking, well, if I'm going to go into a revitalization, it's either going to be people problems or money problems.

So it seems to me that I'll deal with the money problems any day. That's a pretty good deal.

And what's the worst that can happen? I mean, we run out of money in 15 months, and who's left at that point?

I'm not naive. I know that, you know, people will all disappoint people. There'll have been false expectations.

You know, we got a pastor, he came, and we didn't recover the finances of the church.

I knew there was a risk involved, and so people would likely leave if in 15 months we ran out of money.

So what, we're 90, 100 people and maybe 50 people at that point, and a year and a half time to start a new church in a more affordable facility.

We're clear of debt because we gave everything back to the bank. That's a really good situation to start a church plant.

This is a much better situation for many of my friends, in fact, that were in the Grace Advance Academy that were planting churches with 4 or 12 people.

So, and of course from day one when my wife and I came to High Point, we just felt as though this were our family.

And we just loved growing the Word of God together as a church. Right after we came, they amended their constitution and bylaws to become an elder -led, congregationally -ruled church.

From there, after preaching through the Gospel of Mark, we went through 1 Timothy together as a church, as we kind of looked at what the church is and what it should be, after we looked at who

Christ is and therefore who we should be in the Gospel of Mark, as Mark presents

Christ as the suffering servant. And it was after that, as we're looking at biblical eldership and how the church is governed, that we became an elder -ruled church from there.

And the Lord has continued to bless our ministry. So, you know, there are difficult seasons.

We are just coming out of an extremely difficult one for the church. And it's not over. I certainly think it's going to get much, much more difficult for the church in the days ahead.

And that's actually what has motivated myself and our elders as we analyzed the reality that we're in an out -of -season culture.

The Lord really laid on our hearts the importance that we train young hearts to live in an out -of -season culture.

So that's what ultimately led to the conception of High Point Classical Academy. So that's kind of maybe a 30 ,000 -foot view of the history of our church, you might say, and kind of, you know, to where we've gotten right now.

Now, if you could, you've mentioned Grace Advance Ministry, a ministry of Dr.

John MacArthur and Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, California. Why don't you be more detailed about this

Grace Advance Ministry? Yeah, so Grace Advance, it's really a unique model because typically in a church plant -type scenario, you know, what do you do?

Well, you send a guy to a location or have him search a location online, and you send him there maybe to analyze or scout out the area based on a perception that, you know,

I think this is where a church should be. And maybe there's good justification for that.

And you're saying there really aren't churches here. So, well, that is a great place to start a church, but who builds the church?

I don't. The Lord builds the church. So anyway, you know, so you can't just go to a region and assume that the

Lord will build the church there. And typically in that analysis, you're looking at, okay, is the community growing?

Are people moving in? Are new families moving in? Or is the area in a state of decline?

Are people leaving? Things like that. Well, Grace Advance, its beginning philosophy is that Christ builds

His church. So because of Grace Community Church's profile, its relationship with John MacArthur and his ministry at Grace to You, you know, folks who call

Grace Community all the time. In fact, I used to work there, and one of my responsibilities that I shared with a few others was called

Pastor of the Day. And folks who call Grace Community Church oftentimes have questions and things. But one of the most common questions people would ask is, can you help me find a good church?

I don't know where there's a good church in my area. I've tried. I just moved here. You know, just as a word of pastoral counsel to your listeners, before you take a new job, scout out the area for a good church.

Make sure there's a good church there before you take a new job. Oftentimes people just assume that maybe they were in a great church.

And they just assume there's always going to be a great church in every city, and that is not true. And oftentimes people find out after the fact they can't find a good church.

Same thing is true for young students entering into college. The most important consideration if you're leaving the home to go to college is, is there a good local church there for you to serve in while you're in college?

You don't stop being a Christian for four years while you're getting your undergraduate degree. And so as a believer, you must prioritize serving

Christ in His church. Anyway, so I think

I got a little bit off track there. Oh, so folks would call Grace Community Church. Is there a good church in my area?

I can't find a good church. Do you happen to know one? And we would do the best we could. Sometimes we'd have contacts we knew.

We'd look at the TMS placement map. The Master Seminary has a placement map of its graduates.

We'd look at ACBC. The ACBC's website, biblicalcounseling .com, also has a placement map where their certified counselors are, and typically those individuals are in good churches.

So we'd look at those two resources and see if there's anybody close to them. Or maybe there's somebody an hour away.

The church is in an hour away, and we'd call them and see. Maybe they know of somebody a half hour closer that we don't.

So, but what Grace began to do was start, you know, on a map, they started to put pins in regions where people were calling from.

And you began to see clusters of people. And the idea was, well, these are areas it seems that the

Lord is building His church, and there are people that are calling from that same region, looking for a biblical, sound church, but they don't have a shepherd.

And so sometimes the people would already know each other. Sometimes they wouldn't, and we would connect them together.

Grace Community then designated some of their elders to serve in this new ministry, to help oversee this new ministry called

Grace Advance. And they would begin to scout out those kind of founding members of these churches that were beginning to pop up around the

United States and around the world. And then they built a Grace Advance Academy to specifically train men uniquely to go into church plant and revitalization contexts.

There's, you know, some practical and unique elements to that that you're not necessarily taught in seminary.

You know, I was not taught in seminary how to run an elder board meeting. You know, so that's a part of the

Grace Advance Academy, just very practically speaking. Typically, though, if you're walking into an established church, you don't necessarily need to know how to run an elder board meeting.

You already have a president or a chair of the elder board, and you can kind of learn along the way.

I wasn't taught in seminary how to make sure that, you know, how to set up a church properly, register the church, so that when folks are filing their taxes at the end of the year, they actually can declare that as a tax write -off because they gave it to a charitable organization.

You don't want to find out you did that wrong. So, but there's also a lot of other practical elements and wisdom that they impart, practical wisdom that they impart in that institute in dealing with, like I said, the uniquely challenging situations because you wear a lot of hats when you're walking into a church plant scenario or a revitalization scenario.

So let me get this straight. If there is a church out there, and whatever root base of congregants are still in existence at this church that may have almost completely fallen apart, and they share in common the theology, the doctrine, and the mission of not only

Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, California, but Grace to You Ministries, they have a lot in common with what they hear and read from Dr.

MacArthur. They can contact this organization and request help to seek to bring revitalization to that church to get perhaps even a man of God or men of God sent there who desire to fill the gap there and become either temporary preachers and teachers until a permanent man is found or perhaps even immediately wanting the permanent position.

Am I getting this right? Yeah, so you can go to graceadvance .org

and find out a little bit more about it and what Grace Advance provides and also apply as a

Grace Advance church through that. And what they do is you kind of have to candidate to become a part of the

Grace Advance program, a pastor that they would recommend to a Grace Advance church, but the

Grace Advance church has to likewise do the same thing. They have to apply. They're carefully vetted by the elders at Grace Community Church to ensure the integrity of these people and that they're not just going to chew up and spit out a guy that they invested a significant amount of time and money into.

They don't provide financial support, but the money and the education and time is money of this individual.

But then the elders also act as off -site elders. They call them their counselors.

They come with, not physically, but they come with the

Grace Advance pastor. And so they'll zoom in or call in and be there on hand to help make decisions and lead the church, guide the church, until the church becomes stable or more established and is able to appoint its own elders and can be more autonomous.

Great. And by the way, I'm planning on repeating this later, but also if you want to find out more about High Point Baptist Church in Larksville, Pennsylvania, go to highpointbaptist .com,

highpointbaptist .com, and hopefully I'll remember to repeat that later on.

We're going to go to our first break right now. If anybody wants to send in a question to Pastor Matt Tarr regarding the mission and vision of High Point Baptist Church of Larksville in regard to the current state of education, in regard to their new

High Point Classical Academy or on classical Christian education in general, or if you just have a pastoral question, since our guest today is a pastor, send in your e -mail to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

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Thank you so much, Dan. It couldn't have arrived at a better time. We are now back with our guest today,

Matt Tarr, pastor -teacher at High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania, and we are discussing the current state of education, introducing

High Point Classical Academy. And when you lament,

Pastor Matt, about the current state of education, I'm assuming that this is not exclusively a charge or critique of education in the secular realm.

There are quite a number of churches that have perhaps naively or unconsciously bought into models of education that are unbiblical, that include things that are even dangerous,

I have interviewed a woman who is trying to purge even the conservative

Lutheran churches of some of their absolutely abominable sex education courses.

It's just mind -boggling that conservative Lutheran denominations would still be carrying on some of these courses.

You understand why the apostate and liberal and leftist denominations would, but when conservatives do it, it's just absolutely mind -boggling.

But anyway, pick up where I left off there. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, and when you look at the state of education in America today, it really begins with the church and it begins with the

Christian institution drifting away from transcendent truth. I've been teaching through Pilgrim's Progress and our institute on Wednesday nights in our church, and recently we just went through our analysis of Apollyon's attack against Christian, and what's interesting about that is

Christian is wounded in three areas. He's wounded in the helmet, and of course the armor that Christian is wearing comes right out of Ephesians chapter 6, the armor of God.

So what is the helmet? The helmet is the helmet of salvation, and he's wounded in his salvation.

Well, what is that? Well, he begins to doubt his salvation, and he begins to despair, and that leads him to be wounded in the hand.

He loses his sword, and of course the sword of truth, and so he's no longer able to, so he's questioning the word of God.

He's no longer to wield the sword of truth, to defend the truth, and ultimately then he's wounded in his feet, which of course in Ephesians chapter 6 talks about.

The feet are what carry the good news, the good news of the gospel, so he's rendered completely inoperative as a

Christian until he regains strength, thrusts the sword into Apollyon, and then an angel of the

Lord comes and ministers to Christians. But, you know, even when you think about the state of education in America, this goes back, this has always been the tactic of the father of lies, right from the beginning in the garden when he tempted

Eve to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and brought her to question the truth, as God really said.

So that's been his tactic, his method all along. It goes all the way back to, you know, the very first institution in American soil that was established by Puritans at Harvard.

And, you know, most of your listeners are probably at least somewhat familiar with the history at Harvard. But Harvard, their original motto was

Veritas Christo et Equisia, which means truth for Christ in the church, which is amazing for us to think about given where the school is at today.

But their first formal rules and precepts were adopted about 10 years after the school was established, which was maybe about 15 years or so after the pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

And their rules and precepts said that every student should be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies, is to know

God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.

And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer and secret to seek it of him.

Well, of course, that is really, we're going to be talking about what classical education is in a little while.

But that is the essence of classical education. It begins to identify what is the true nature of knowledge.

And that understanding was defined as the Puritans and the Reformers recognized that knowledge is meaningless if we're only training the intellect.

And that has been the public education system for a long time in America, especially since the 1920s to the 1940s after the educational reform brought by John Dewey.

But that was even, you know, the catalyst for that, you know, the groundwork for that was laid by Horace Mann a century before.

But anyway, those are the principles of education, understanding that knowledge, public education,

I'm sorry, I kind of got distracted there, public education, reformed itself as a secular humanist worldview, means of education that was oriented towards training you for career.

And because it's a godless system, it's materialistic in nature, and because it's materialistic in nature, ultimately that is the end of knowledge, materialism.

But in a Christian worldview, we understand that that's not knowledge. Knowledge is wisdom.

Knowledge is knowing God, knowing how to glorify God in heaven, you know, the Westminster Confession, the chief end of man.

So, but Harvard was initially established to pick up on your comments for the purpose of training men for ministry, and it didn't stand by that principle for very long.

Jonathan Edwards' father was trained there, and by the time Jonathan Edwards was going to school, Yale had already been established because Harvard defected from the truth.

And so now, today, its motto is simply Veritas. Not Veritas Christo et

Ecclesia, but just Veritas. Just truth. And it begs the question, what is truth?

What is true? It's playing right into postmodernism. So Yale was started, and their motto was

Lux et Veritas, light and truth, which is, of course, allegorical for doctrine and truth, or virtue, you might even say, and truth.

And, you know, the story, Yale defected likewise. By the time

Jonathan Edwards is in his 50s, Princeton is started. He's invited to be the first president of Princeton College, and then

Princeton defects from the truth, and Westminster in Philadelphia is started.

And all of that is, you know, the same thing we're seeing even in Christian education today.

And another component of Christian education that I typically, well, that is greatly concerning to me is the lack of excellence in Christian education.

That's not always the case, but it is often the case in secondary and primary education.

Schools, Christians and churches will open schools. Now, Pennsylvania, we're somewhat unique.

It's a blessing and a curse, because the way the

Department of Education and the Pennsylvania Constitution is designed, it gives tremendous freedom to churches.

So we don't have to be licensed. You know, if you open a school under a bona fide religious institution, a church, we don't have to be licensed by the state, and we don't have to be accredited by the state.

And, unfortunately, churches have often, then, in turn, taken advantage of that to provide extremely affordable education, which

I'm certainly an advocate of, but by compromising the commitment to excellence.

And so they pay their teachers very poorly. They have very low retainment. There's little discipleship and shepherding care for those teachers.

Their classrooms are haphazard. And so they kind of just make do.

And I understand, you know, churches are non -profits, and we don't have, you know, a whole lot of money to spend on education and things like that, but we should always be pursuing excellence in everything that we do.

That is consistent with the Christian worldview. So it's just a point of concern that I have.

But beyond that, you know, the state of education in America began really to be reformed by Horace Mann, as I already mentioned, who began to move

America's education system that was really developed and founded by the

Puritans for the preservation of life and liberty that our country was founded on.

Those are Christian principles, and even our secular and pagan founding fathers recognized that the essence of liberty and freedom, the ideas of liberty and freedom, could only come from a

Christian worldview. It's inconsistent with the secular humanism that we have today.

And in fact, I had a friend, he actually just messaged me during the break, he happened to be watching a

YouTube video of Alexander Solzhenitsyn from a lecture that he gave at Harvard.

You know, he's speaking to Harvard liberals, and he says, your godlessness is the same philosophical foundation as the

USSR, and it's where you're going to end up. And he commented, what's funny about this video is that they actually applaud him for it, and they don't know what to do because they see him as a hero of free speech, so they applaud him when he's actually reproving them.

And he goes on to say that it is time in the West to not so much defend human rights as human obligations.

And then he gets an overwhelming applause from them, and he kind of has a Paul Washer moment there, that most of your audience is also probably familiar with, the shocking youth message that the

Lord used to somewhat launch Paul Washer's ministry, and he's addressing a really critical issue among the youth in that message right from the very beginning, and everybody claps.

And Paul Washer just directly and compassionately reproves them, and says,

I don't know why you're clapping, I'm talking about you. And so this is the same moment that is happening here at Harvard.

They don't realize that he's actually talking about them when he says that it is time in the West to not so much defend human rights as human obligations, a civic duty to defend human rights.

But anyway, as we're looking at where society is at today, where I kind of began a little while ago, before the break, we're looking at the reality that we are raising children in an out -of -season world.

And Peter says in 2 Peter chapter 3, You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, that to be on guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and the day of eternity. Amen.

And so that is the objective of Christian education ultimately, of course. And we also understand from Paul's comments in 2

Timothy chapters 3 and 4 that men will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and themselves being deceived.

And so we have to be proactive to train our youth as a first mission field, as parents and as the church, to, in true knowledge, in the knowledge of God.

Interestingly also, to go back to Harvard for just a moment, when Emerson Hall opened their school of philosophy in 1906, the words were inscribed in stone and they're still there today.

What is man that thou art mindful of him? That wasn't what was supposed to be inscribed.

The philosophical department submitted to the president at the time, man is the measure of all things.

They're quoting from the 5th century B .C. Greek philosopher Protagoras there.

Man is the measure of all things. And so the president was, you know, bristling because of that.

And so he instead had it changed. What is man that thou art mindful of him? Of course, man is nothing and truth does not come from himself.

Truth is transcendent. Truth that comes from yourself, that's the essence of secular humanism.

It defies the existence of God and then it brings into question what is moral, what is just, what is freedom, what is liberty.

And when we talk about the state of education in Pennsylvania in particular, what some of these revolutions that were begun by Horace Mann and John Dewey established were really the precursors of what we refer to as today as social -emotional learning.

And one of the fundamental tenants of social -emotional learning, you'll hear repeatedly, is the idea that we are educating our students to be good citizens, good citizenry.

Well, from a secular humanistic worldview, tell me what is good. What is your definition of good?

Right, they would teach people that if you're not celebrating the act of homosexuality, not even tolerating it, but celebrating it, that you are doing something evil if you're not celebrating it, that you are being hateful.

That's what they view in secular society today as good. Well, it's interesting you bring that up because that was predictable.

It was predictable because John Dewey especially, he was a cultural Marxist and he found strong appeal in the socialistic system of the

USSR and wanted to create and establish progressive education in the United States.

So that was the reform that he set out to accomplish, and successfully, through the financial bankrolling of the

Rockefeller family. But social -emotional learning, yes, from the very beginning, its conception that was widely adopted, you know, it's been adopted for quite a while now in schools, it brings the question, what is the nature of good?

So we're talking, we don't know the definition of good. That comes from humanity itself.

Well, we know what happens in those societies that are socialistic, that have denied the existence of transcendent truth because they're atheistic.

And then, logically, you carry out what good is for them.

Well, you're operating under Darwinian evolutionary theory. What is morally good in Darwinian revolutionary theory?

Well, it's life. It's not life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's just life. In other words, you're just talking about survival of the species.

So, what do you do to society to make sure that you end up on top at the end? And that's why socialistic, communist societies, societies that are entirely humanistic in nature, are always going to result in mass genocide, abuse of the people.

It is the antithesis of life and liberty. And believe it or not, I was raised Roman Catholic.

I was Catholic before being born again by the mercy and grace of God. And I went to a

Catholic parochial school for eight years, grammar school, first to eighth grade.

And we were taught Darwinian evolution as fact in the science class. Yeah, and you know, what's interesting is,

I went to public education. I was in high school, you know, 10th grade biology.

And my teacher was Roman Catholic and she straight up told us, listen, this is a theory.

I don't believe this. So she kind of just hastened her way along, identified the problems with it, and then concluded the class with I'm a creationist and here's why.

I don't think that would ever happen today. But social emotional learning, you know, so it has problems at the very beginning.

You can't even get, you can't even get out of the adjective for citizenry before you have problems.

But then when you look at the adjective itself, okay, let's look at citizenry, and we're talking about good citizenry here.

What exactly does that look like? In fact, we got to pick up on what does good citizenry look like after the break, because we have to go to our midway break right now.

Just don't forget where we left off, Pastor. This is the longer than normal break, folks, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break. In the middle of the show, because the FCC requires of them to air their own public service announcements and other local things that localize

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Before the break, Pastor Tarr, you were discussing how we must critically respond to the concept of training young people to be good citizens and what exactly that means.

Right. So, one of the key components of modern public education incorporates what's referred to as SEL, or social emotional learning, that instructs the mind of a young citizen to become a good citizen.

But as we said, what defines good and what defines good citizenry? And we started the program with 2

Peter chapter 3. And we've been seeing this now being lived out before our eyes. Well, those who are defining good citizenry are the unprincipled men.

And C .S. Lewis, I'm definitely not an advocate of all things C .S.

Lewis. I appreciate it, Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, as many have, but I have deep problems with his view on substitutionary atonement and also, at times he sounds like a universalist, but he said in his work

The Abolition of Man that we make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.

We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

And so he was right about that. And what he was saying is that men generally lack any sense of virtue because they have no heart.

And I want to talk about that is the essence of what classical education is that we're trying to recover here in High Point Classical Academy is

Christian education that addresses the heart. You often hear when you learn about classical education it's education for the whole of the person rather than materialistic education.

It's education to prepare a student for a career. Well, that's very short -sighted and temporal. We need to train the whole of the person.

When the Reformers began to prioritize the nature of education, they understood the nature of education.

That's exactly what they set out to do as well as the Puritans when they established the first public education systems in America.

But getting back to something that you had commented on, Chris, when we're talking about good citizenry, it's really interesting to see how good citizenry has become defined by, for example, not only defending something like homosexual behavior, which is clearly defined in Scripture as sin, but going beyond that to celebrating it.

The end of Romans chapter 1. Excuse me. Well, that again goes back to the issue in social -emotional learning.

Social -emotional learning was something that we always had a problem with, but beyond that, it's interesting that back in about 2018, the collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning, which is considered to be a long -standing standard there for social -emotional learning education, published a paper, and they said that the potential for social -emotional learning to be utilized for racial and class oppression education has been under -realized.

And two years later, in 2020, the collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning updated the definition of social -emotional learning to, quote, emphasize the skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed to examine prejudices and biases, evaluate social norms and systemic inequities, and promote community well -being.

Enter in Loudoun County, Virginia, where we've been seeing all these parents going to their school boards, and we've been seeing it all across the country, where parents are asking the boards, why are we teaching critical race theory in our school?

Well, they're very happy to hear that question asked, because they can smugly say, we're not teaching critical race theory.

We don't have critical race theory curriculum, because they changed the meaning of words. And so they're just substituting a new word for critical race theory.

It's social -emotional learning. Critical race theory is a worldview. It isn't a curriculum. It's a way of interpreting life.

And it's extremely problematic. We don't have time to get into that, but at this point, most people are familiar, at least with the essence of what critical race theory is.

But social -emotional learning became the lens that critical race theory is being taught through.

And immediately, parents began to recognize a difference in their school systems, just as COVID broke out, schools were closed, shut down, parents were locked out of classrooms they couldn't access.

But then, they're listening and hearing what their children are being taught. They're being taught critical race theory through social -emotional learning from their computers, as their teachers are

Zooming and using Google Classrooms and things like that. They're becoming very upset, because they realize, even unbelieving parents, there's many

Christians in our school district, and many non -Christians in our school district. Both sides are upset, because even those that aren't

Christians, they still have a Romans 1, 18 -21 concept of what

God has revealed about himself in nature. So they have concepts of truth, of what is good, they have a conscience that bears witness to those things.

So they have a problem with this, but the reform for social -emotional learning, which was always inherently problematic, now became redefined to instruct students in skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed to examine prejudices and biases, evaluate social norms and systemic inequities, which goes beyond even just the amount of melanin in somebody's skin to now your gender status.

Now enter in 2022. In January, I picked up a 78 -page document, and this was the latest

ESSER grant. A friend of mine gave it to me. It's a

Pennsylvania American Rescue Plan, an ESSER state plan. Of course, these were intended for COVID mitigation.

This was published in July 2021. And now we're still grappling, right, with the question of what is good citizenry from a humanistic worldview.

Well, it is what celebrates evil. But this is on page 11, the highest priority needs for the 2021 -2022 school year, and these are for, you know,

Pennsylvania public schools, social and emotional wellness, mental health, trauma -informed instruction,

LGBTQ plus students, safety and belongingness in an inclusive, welcoming school environment, safe spaces, such as student organizations to express themselves.

What does that mean exactly? Social supports, acknowledging fear and harassment is a barrier to socializing.

Emotional supports and mental health supports counseling and mental health support staff. Relationships with trusted adults and the need for training for staff to implement trauma -informed and all -inclusive practices at school.

So what does an all -inclusive practice look like for an

LGBTQ plus student? Well, what you're seeing at, I don't remember if it's

Penn State or UPenn, you know, where men who can't even figure out whether they're a male or a female are swimming on the women's swim team.

But that's just the tip of the spear. Beyond that, you back up a little bit to page nine and you have another highest priority need for the 2021 -2022 school year and it says students need teachers who are, quote, mirrors of their gender in fields where certain genders are underrepresented, i .e.,

science, math, history. According to one stakeholder, representation matters.

Inclusive school culture on the basis of gender. Staff training and awareness to mitigate gender bias and stereotyping.

In other words, schools need to prioritize hiring teachers who reflect and normalize homosexual behavior.

Well, you know, there were reasons. Our boys were attending our local public elementary school and that was a very calculated and careful decision that my wife and I made.

We live in a very conservative school district or at least did and we weren't ignorant of the problems in public education and I realize there's quite a breadth of opinion about when

Christian parents should or shouldn't have their kids in public school. But we were never committed to the public education system.

We wanted to use it as very proactive parents as a means of instructing our children's hearts so that they know 1

Corinthians chapter 5 how to be in the world but not of the world so that they could be light in darkness and yet at the same time very discerning and careful of their hearts knowing that in their youth they're almost certainly not believers as of yet.

They're undiscerning and so we want to be protective and know what they're learning. And our fingers were always on the trigger.

We were never committed to the system ready to pull them out. Well when I read that I knew that I might want to train the hearts of my children to learn to be in the world but not of the world but at the same time there's no way

I'm going to be a lot. I will not sit by when the fire of heaven comes down on Sodom.

And so we knew at that moment that this was over. This was it.

And as parents are finding out about what schools have just adopted in large part interestingly three different surveys came out this last year.

All three of them showed something really unusual and that is the vast majority of parents are now looking for educational alternatives for their kids.

In our area there isn't really an educational alternative. There's not much being provided.

And we consider homeschooling as an option and at the same time we're also broken just from an evangelistic point of view because we know that there's quite a number of other parents both

Christians and unbelievers that are in public and they want to remove their children as well but either they're in a situation where both parents are working or single parent home or they're not believers ultimately we want to provide with them an education that recovers the true meaning of knowledge that teaches a child to glorify

God because you're instructing the heart. And that was really what the reformers captured.

Even John Knox even said that it is the duty of churches to establish schools and colleges so that youth may be trained in the knowledge and fear of God because only then will they actually be good citizens.

So I walked into my associate's office and I said,

Greg, I think we need to start a school. And he rocks back in his chair and looks at me and blinks and says,

I'm going to need some time to think about that. And I said, of course, that's fine. Well he came across then a lecture that, not a lecture, it was an interview with Dr.

Larry Arnn from Hillsdale College in which Dr. Larry Arnn said that starting a school is a tremendous act of citizenry.

Well, that's true. And not only is it an act of good citizenry, it's actually a biblical principle because as our

Lord said in Matthew chapter 28, it is the essence of discipleship. We are to make disciples of all nations.

Another word of, another way to translate Matthew case there, discipleship is pupils, learning, and that's exactly what we're doing.

We're training people in the knowledge of God. So, he comes back.

We're thinking, okay, we both worked in a Christian school environment in the past.

We know the volume of work that is required. Is this even feasible? And we, over the course of the next month, so this is all very recent, one thing happened right after the next.

An old friend of my associate, Greg Houser is his name, called him out of the blue from Omaha, Nebraska.

He's a 38 -year commercial general contractor and didn't even have

Greg's cell number anymore. He tracked him down in our church. He's like, man, you know, hey, Greg, I just wanted to track you down. I don't know, the

Lord just laid on my heart. I gotta find out what Greg is up to these days. And I googled your name and I found that you're working at High Point Baptist Church now.

That's great. And so Greg's talking about what we're doing and we're thinking about starting a school here.

but, you know, the problem comes in. Where do we put all the students and is it even possible?

You know, we're looking at an addition for our facility to accommodate a K -12. We came across this company about, you know, that we think can get the job done in just nine months, which is just incredible, especially in a, you know, post -COVID society.

And, well, it turns out that this guy is now a representative for a regional representative for these structures.

And he's right behind us. He puts wind in our sails. We can get this job done. And, you know, of course, there's a lot that has to happen between now and this fall, but all the pieces of the puzzle have moved along the way and we recognize beyond a civic duty, this is an important component of what it means to be a

Christian. Even James Monroe, you know, one of the founders of our Constitution, said the principal capacity of the free government is derived from the sound morals and intelligence of the people and the more extensive the means of education, the more confidently may we rely on the preservation of our public liberties.

And Benjamin Rush likewise said the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.

Without this, there can be no virtue. And without virtue, there can be no liberty. And liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.

So when we look at what SEL's objective, social -emotional learning's objective, how in the world can you define good citizenry from a humanistic perspective?

Even our founding fathers understood that just as a matter of principles of conscience.

And so we're evaluating all of these things and what is interesting is that, you know,

Horace Mann, I mentioned him before, but his objective was to, he actually argued, and this is a quote, our public schools are not theological seminaries, and so they should be debarred by law from inculcating the peculiar and distinctive doctrines of any one religious denomination among us, or that all that is essential to religion or salvation.

At the same time that he was saying that, another individual that we're familiar with named

Daniel Webster said in 1823, if religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country,

I don't know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be.

If God and his word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy.

If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will.

If the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.

It almost sounds like he's a prophet. So, I mean, anarchy, misrule, degradation, misery, corruption and darkness reigning without mitigation, that's the society that we've observed.

That is the fruit of a humanist philosophy. So we believe that education must inherently come from an exclusive Christian worldview.

That is actually what it means to be a good citizen. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, or no,

I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 actually, let light shine out of darkness. That is shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And so then you ask the question, okay, what is most appropriate then? What is an education philosophy that is most consistent with that, with the

Christian worldview? Well, it really, when you look at the foundational principle of what classical education is, that's exactly what it does.

In fact, as I'm looking at classical education, I'm thinking, huh, you know, that's very interesting, because when we're talking about educating the whole of a person, the objective in classical education is actually the same as my objective in preaching.

It's preaching to the whole of the person, what it means to be human.

You know, and that's an important question too, when you're talking about secular humanism and what it means to be a good citizen while inherent in citizenry means to be human, can you even tell me what it means to be human in a humanistic society?

What distinguishes you as a human? And even in classical education, that's why classical education can't be taught outside of a

Christian worldview, because if you're trying to, if you're trying to educate the whole person, you can't even define what a person is, then you're going to miss the mark every time.

But if I am preaching to the heart, if you will, or instructing or teaching in an academic environment to the heart, then we are identifying what it means actually to be a person.

You know, of course, in Scripture, the word heart is not talking about the physical organ. It's talking about the centrality of the individual's personhood, their being and personality.

It is what energizes and drives all the faculties of the human person.

In fact, Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 9, you know,

Deuteronomy chapter 4, of course, is a classic text where we see the spheres of authority, especially as it relates to instruction to children.

You know, God has created government to restrain evil. He's given the spheres of authority to the church to instruct, to teach in sound doctrine, to govern in matters of spirituality.

And He's also given the family as well, the stewardship there. And He has ordained that both the church and the family as institutions to impart true knowledge.

And Deuteronomy chapter 4 talks about that. And verse 9 says, Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen, and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life.

But make them known to your sons and your grandsons. Now, the antithesis of that is in Matthew chapter 12, verse 34, where Jesus says to the

Pharisees, you brood of vipers, how you, being evil, speak what is good.

How do you, being evil, sorry, I kind of got lost in my thoughts there. How do you, being evil, speak what is good?

For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The point is, your heart is evil, it's corrupt.

And so because your heart is evil and corrupt, it's going to be evil and corruption that comes from your heart.

The very opposite of good citizenry, the very things that Daniel Webster was concerned about, the

Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 9, says, biblical instruction corrects.

Because reformation always must begin with the heart. Of course, that's why we say, you know, in biblical counseling that we are never truly counseling unless a person is saved.

Prior to that, we're evangelizing the person. Because the heart has to be changed.

Behavior must be born out of the heart. Amen. I'm sorry, go ahead.

I just said amen. And perhaps we should take some listener questions before we go to our final break.

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, isn't one of the contrasts between classical

Christian education and government education, or as it's often called, public schools, that as the government schools are indoctrinating and brainwashing children to believe falsehoods and teaching them what they must think, classical

Christian education trains young people how to think. Yeah, that's exactly right.

And that is because when we talk about, so when we're talking about the heart, right, getting back to the essence of what a human is, the reformers were also very careful and diligent to define what it means that we are created in the

Imago Dei. That's what makes you human. Which means that we are, we exercise reason and logic.

We have a soul. And therefore, we have a responsibility as believers to teach our children to be discerning.

So yeah, I completely agree with that statement. I think it's an important component as well, a key distinction between really propaganda, in fact,

John Dewey, John Dewey had quite a bit to talk, you know, he had quite a bit to talk about that with respect to removing logic as a part of historical curriculum in the

United States. Because in these totalitarian regimes, you don't want free thinkers.

You don't want people thinking independently. You need to teach them what to think in order to have social reform.

So, since, you know, especially the 1940s, that's how come all of a sudden you have the majority of graduating seniors from high school believing that socialism is good.

It's because they haven't been taught how to think, they've been taught what to think. They've been indoctrinated. And so we have to retrain the way we educate to train the heart.

And when we speak of the heart in the biblical sense, we're addressing not the romantic epicenter as we tend to think in Western society, but heart rather in the

Hebrew sense of the word heart, which means this is the center of the person's mind and their will and their conscience.

And I think, I forget the individual's name who called in, but I think he did get back to reference the person.

Arnie in Perry County. I'm sorry, what was his name? Arnie in Perry County. Arnie in Perry County.

Yeah, so what we're ultimately doing is training students to think both vertically so that they have a right relationship with God, and horizontally so that they have a right relationship with fellow man.

And we have to go to our final break right now. If you intend to send in a question, do it immediately.

We're rapidly running out of time. Chris Arnson at gmail .com. Chris Arnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

We'll be right back with more of Pastor Matt Tarr right after these messages. We are excited to announce another new member of the

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Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lynnbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century.

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

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So our church is strategically located because we are within a 10 mile radius of 11 school districts.

11 school districts, which means that the public education system is required by Pennsylvania law to provide free public transportation to our school.

Wow, now is this a unique thing to Pennsylvania? So there are some states that have incorporated this, but yes, this is

Pennsylvania specifically. So if you are in an underperforming school district, those schools are required to provide scholarships, but it gets even better.

There's another program called EITC, and that is the

Educational Improvement Tax Scholarship.

And what this program does is it allows you to give to High Point Classical Academy. If you're interested at all, you can just email for now, our website will be up in about two weeks, but you can email school at highpointbaptist .com,

school at highpointbaptist .com, or encourage your local private Christian school to apply for this program.

And an individual or a business can declare, you know, you have your tax liability, what you have in your state taxes that you owe to the state annually.

Instead of giving the state tax you owe to the state, you can fill out this one -page form that says that you actually gave what you projected was your state tax liability to your private school of choice, and then 90 % of your state tax liability is eliminated.

So to summarize what I just said, you can reallocate up to 90 % of what you owe in your state income tax to the private school of choice.

So if you're a business owner or you are an individual, you can, without adding a single dime to your budget, without taking any money from your church, or from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, because I hope your listeners are giving to both, you can also give to Highpoint Classical Academy, or if your local private

Christian school is enrolled in this program, you can declare... I unfortunately think we lost

Pastor Matt Tarr. I hope he calls back. But in the meantime, while I'm waiting for him to call back,

I am going to give the church website so you can contact them.

It's highpointbaptist .com, highpointbaptist .com, and I hope that you reach out to them for information about their church and also about the school, the

Highpoint Classical Academy. Also, they have a phone number in Larksville, Pennsylvania.

It's 570 -371 -4404. That is 570 -371 -4404.

And always mention when you contact anybody who's been on this show, mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And I want to also let you know, and I don't have the exact date, but I believe it's sometime in June, if I'm not mistaken,

Highpoint Baptist Church is going to be having a conference with Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker.

But sorry that we dropped you. I don't know how that happened, Matt. But are you not having Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker at some point in the future do a conference at the church?

Yeah, that's right. We're trying to get that sorted out. In June, we haven't landed on a hard date yet. So more information, if you follow us on highpointbaptist .com,

you can get up -to -date information for that to register. And of course, that'll be also published on their website, too.

But we were just finishing up talking about the EITC tax program.

And like I said, make sure that you capitalize on that because that allows your private school to make the cost of education significantly more affordable for parents.

Because for instance, you're looking at our family. We have four boys. And the prospect of $5 ,000 per student, that's reasonable.

Okay, but then all of a sudden, you know, I'm looking at four boys, $20 ,000.

Well, I know there's no way that I can do that. But if it costs, you know, if $5 ,000 is like a break -even point for High Point Classical Academy, but we have enough individuals in our church and enough individuals that appreciate the school, the students who attend the school, local businesses and so forth, that contribute what they owe in their state taxes to the school instead, so they don't owe it to the state, then you can significantly reduce the cost of tuition for that school.

Well, we're out of time, brother. I want to give your website one more time, highpointbaptist .com, highpointbaptist .com.

And I hope that a lot of our listeners reach out to you to find out more about this school. And I hope that local folks begin rolling their kids there once the school is up and running.

And I want to thank you so much for doing a superb job today. I want to thank everybody who listened today. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater