Understanding the biblical design for education: What does the Bible say about education, and is the public education system still effective today?

Public education has become the norm in American society, with statistics showing that 90% of all K-12 students in America attend a public school.

But while millions of students everyday are sent to government-run schools to receive an education, the fact remains: Just because it’s the dominant option doesn’t make it the right option.

With the rapid spread of the left’s radical agenda throughout the culture, public schools have seen an increase in woke ideas unapologetically sprinkled into the curriculum and environment of the education system. It is clear that public education in this nation has undergone drastic changes in the past few years, leaving parents confused and torn when considering the well-being of their children.

Recently, I sat through a conversation with the principal of a local public school. In an effort to gain an understanding of the school’s curriculum, I expressed my concern with the trajectory of educational policy given the social agenda of groups like the LGBTQ community. To my surprise, he answered that parents must understand the limits to which they can guard their children from cultural ideas.

This principal, who had previously expressed his Christian beliefs, was nonetheless convinced that children under his authority need to be exposed to various ideologies and ideas even if they are in opposition to their parents’ values. Sadly, this same attitude of complacency with regards to defending the hearts and minds of innocent children has been adopted by too many parents across the nation.

But was this truly how it was meant to be? Is this the biblical design for education?

Looking back on the founding of Western education, one finds the Protestant Reformation at the center of educational reform. Martin Luther was a reformer who not only focused on correcting the theological trajectory of the Church but also on improving education and making it compulsory.

Luther presented the concept of tax-supported public schools to aid in making education accessible to lower-class citizens. From this great wave of Christianized education efforts also came the introduction of the graded education system and kindergarten schools, as introduced by Johann Sturm and Friedrich Froebel. The later push for the freedom to pursue a public education in the U.S. extended from this global Christian effort to educate all children, regardless of their monetary limitations and learning disabilities.

Western civilization was unified under the common faith of Christianity, and it was within this cultural environment that the idea of public education was born. But thanks to the deterioration of the education system brought about by secular reformers like John Dewey, the premise of equality has been replaced with equity, freedom with enslavement, and progress with regression.

Sadly, our public education system today has banned religious teaching in schools and has fully achieved its goal to educate children apart from the scriptural values on which the system itself was founded.

Parents are thus left with two questions to consider: What does the Bible say about education, and is the public education system still effective today?

The great misconception embraced by so many Christian parents today is that children are to be missionaries to their fellow classmates and the world around them. Evangelicals have made school the mission field.

The Apostle Paul was a mission-oriented individual, zealously following Christ’s command to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth. But Paul also had a lot to say about education, especially when it came to his protégé Timothy, whom he treated like a son. To Timothy, Paul wrote:

Paul desired for Timothy to be first equipped with the knowledge of Scripture, so that he could minister to others on the firm foundation he had developed from a young age.

While we are all instructed to go out into the world and share the Gospel, it is immature and ineffective to attempt to do so without first being equipped with the knowledge to stand firm in the truth of God’s Word. As parents, we are to immerse our children in God’s Word and teach them right from wrong, truth from falsehoods, so that they may then be fully capable of spreading the good news of Christ to those around them.

Public education was created by Christian individuals for the purpose of raising up children in the knowledge of Scripture. The public education system can only work under the unified goal of equipping the next generation of leaders with the intellectual, cultural, and biblical knowledge that promotes societal morality.

While this common goal was once achievable, our nation today is no longer united under the same Christian values and has henceforth removed the premise unto which the system itself once thrived.

By leaving our children within the current climate of public education, we acquiesce to leaving the nurturing and admonishment of our children in the hands of governmental control. Parental responsibility demands that we defend the educational freedom of our children by stepping into our God-given privilege to teach them ourselves so they are equipped to stand boldly with the truth of the Gospel in a broken and hurting world.

While it may seem difficult, impossible even, to school your children yourself, we as Christians are often called to sacrifice for what we know is right in the end. And if we are called to it, God will give us what we need to endure and succeed.

Education is a matter that we as Christians have allowed to fall by the wayside, resulting in a lack of biblical understanding and intellectual fervor in our youth.

With the growing evil of society and the departure from the biblical design of education, it is more important than ever that parents consider the past, present, and future — and stand boldly for their right to control their child’s educational needs.

Looking back on the founding of Western education, one finds the Protestant Reformation at the center of educational reform

You mean Rome did not enact The Old Deluder Act (1647)?:

Text of the Massachusetts School Law of 1642

Forasmuch as the good education of children is of singular behoof and benefit to any Common-wealth; and whereas many parents & masters are too indulgent and negligent of their duty in that kind. It is therfore ordered that the Select men of every town, in the severall precincts and quarters where they dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their brethren & neighbours, to see,

first that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to indeavour to teach by themselves or others, their children & apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue, & knowledge of the Capital Lawes: upon penaltie of twentie shillings for each neglect therin.

Also that all masters of families do once a week (at the least) catechize their children and servants in the grounds & principles of Religion, & if any be unable to do so much: that then at the least they procure such children or apprentices to learn some short orthodox catechism without book, that they may be able to answer unto the questions that shall be propounded to them out of such catechism by their parents or masters or any of the Select men when they shall call them to a tryall of what they have learned of this kind.

And further that all parents and masters do breed & bring up their children & apprentices in some honest lawful calling, labour or employment, either in husbandry, or some other trade profitable for themselves, and the Common-wealth if they will not or cannot train them up in learning to fit them for higher employments.

And if any of the Select men after admonition by them given to such masters of families shall find them still negligent of their duty in the particulars aforementioned, wherby children and servants become rude, stubborn & unruly; the said Select men with the help of two Magistrates, or the next County court for that Shire, shall take such children or apprentices from them & place them with some masters for years (boyes till they come to twenty one, and girls eighteen years of age compleat) which will more strictly look unto, and force them to submit unto government according to the rules of this order, if by fair means and former instructions they will not

Text of the Massachusetts School Law of 1642

The Old Deluder Act (1647)

From Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (1853), II: 203

It being one chief project of that old deluder, satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue [alluding to Rome], so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors.

It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns.

And it is further ordered, that when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families or householders, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university, provided that if any town neglect the performance hereof above one year that every such town shall pay 5 pounds to the next school till they shall perform this order.

CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS: Excerpts

Article II. It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship. [See Amendments, Arts. XLVI and XLVIII.]

Article III. [As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: Therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.

And the people of this commonwealth have also a right to, and do, invest their legislature with authority to enjoin upon all the subjects an attendance upon the instructions of the public teachers aforesaid, at stated times and seasons, if there be any on whose instructions they can conscientiously and conveniently attend.

Provided, notwithstanding, that the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, shall, at all times, have the exclusive right of electing their public teachers, and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance.

And all moneys paid by the subject to the support of public worship, and of the public teachers aforesaid, shall, if he require it, be uniformly applied to the support of the public teacher or teachers of his own religious sect or denomination, provided there be any on whose instructions he attends; otherwise it may be paid towards the support of the teacher or teachers of the parish or precinct in which the said moneys are raised.

Any every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law: and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.] [Art. XI of the Amendments substituted for this].

Chapter V.

THE UNIVERSITY AT CAMBRIDGE, AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE, ETC.

Section 1.

The University.

Article I. Whereas our wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six, laid the foundation of Harvard College, in which university many persons of great eminence have, by the blessing of God, been initiated in those arts and sciences, which qualified them for public employments, both in church and state: and whereas the encouragement of arts and sciences, and all good literature, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Christian religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United States of America -- it is declared, that the President and Fellows of Harvard College, in their corporate capacity, and their successors in that capacity, their officers and servants, shall have, hold, use, exercise and enjoy, all the powers, authorities, rights, liberties, privileges, immunities and franchises, which they now have or are entitled to have, hold, use, exercise and enjoy: and the same are hereby ratified and confirmed unto them, the said president and fellows of Harvard College, and to their successors, and to their officers and servants, respectively, forever.

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