This
study addresses the parents’ responsibility for their children, especially
their education. The Bible is not vague on this subject. It is very clear and
specific.
It
is my personal belief that this issue is the primary reason why the church is
ineffective in America, the country is in deep trouble and the Kingdom of God
is not being advanced as we would expect. Sadly, our public education system is
making disciples for the religion of humanism with the tax money extracted from
Christians – apparently with their full approval.
The
items covered are:
·
Children are a
blessing of God.
·
The family is a
training ground for leadership in the church.
·
Education is the
MORAL responsibility of parents.
·
The modern State has
arrogated to itself the education of all children.
·
Most Christians have
approved ‘tithing their children to the State’.
The
following narrative is from Gary North’s “Unconditional Surrender”.
(You
can backtrack this series thread from here.)
Children
Children
are a blessing of God. "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the
fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so
are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them:
they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the
gate" (Psalm 127:3-5). The enemies in the gate are opponents who
have come before the judges of the city, who in Old Testament times sat at the
gate, to bring a charge against a man. Men with large families have confidence
in themselves, and so are not afraid of such enemies. This appears to indicate
that the self-discipline involved in being the head of a large family
carries over into other human relationships. Large families
produce heads of households who are better fit to lead in the community.
One of the requirements
for holding the offices of elder or deacon in the church is for a man to be
married (I Timothy 3:2,12). He is to rule over his
household effectively (I Timothy 3:4-5, 12).
The family is a
training ground for leadership in the church. One of the obvious
failures of almost all denominations and local churches-a failure which goes
back to the early church- is the unwillingness of church authorities to write
into their denominational handbooks guide lines defining successful rule over a
family. The modern churches place great emphasis on where a man went to college
or seminary, on whether he can raise money, or on whether he can deliver a
red-hot sermon. The Bible puts little or no emphasis on any of these factors. It
puts emphasis on the leader's abilities as the head of his household.
Children
are a tool of dominion. They are to be sacrificed for in their youth. They are
to be instructed carefully and continually in the law of God. "And these words, which I command thee this day,
shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy
children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when
thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up*
(Deuteronomy 6:6-7). The time spent in training children in God's law is time
well spent, for it is a capital investment. It does produce the next generation
of godly, dominion-minded families. The Bible says, "Train
up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from
it" (Proverbs 22:6).
This leads us to an
extremely significant conclusion: education is the moral responsibility of parents.
They are the ones who must determine whether or not their
children are being taught the truth. They are responsible before God for the
rearing of their children. They are held responsible even for the content of
their children's education. This is why it is a great responsibility to bring
children into the world.
The
modern State has asserted its responsibility to educate children. This is the
means by which the modern State has arrogated to itself the position of the
established god on earth. The government schools have become the established
religion of every nation on earth. Humanism, which is the worship of man and
his works, rests on this crucial institutional foundation: the tax-supported,
State-regulated, hypothetically neutral, deeply religious humanist school
system. There can be no neutrality, yet the government schools have almost
completely stamped out Christianity and the law of God by means of the
neutrality myth. The State forces Christians to finance schools that teach a
rival religion, the religion of humanism. The State has also attempted to
regulate Christian and independently financed schools. At every point, the
State has substituted tenured bureaucrats who are virtually impossible for
parents to remove from authority, while it has removed parents from the seats
of power in setting curricula or any other standards. The modern State-which
is a messianic, supposedly man-saving institution-has used the tax-supported,
compulsory schools as the primary means of stealing children from God, by
removing them from parental control.
Christians
complain about taxation, but they have tithed their
children to the State. They have abdicated their financial responsibilities
"Let the State finance my children's educations" and in our day, they
have abandoned almost all other aspects of their instructional
responsibilities. They have turned the production of citizens over to
tax-financed, state directed schools. The priests of the religion of humanism
have been able to enlist the support of many generations of Christian parents,
who have decided that it is easier to transfer the responsibility for educating
their children to bureaucrats hired by the State.
Naturally, parents have
to delegate responsibility to someone. Few parents have the time or skills to
educate their children at home. But the fundamental principle of education is
the tutor or the apprentice director. Parents hire specialists to teach
their children along lines established by parents. The private school is simply
an extension of this principle, with several parents hiring a tutor, thereby
sharing the costs. But the parents, not the tutors, are institutionally
sovereign. Since
sovereignty must bear the costs, education should be parent-financed. Anything else is a
transfer of authority over education to an imitation family.
Children are to honor
their parents (Exodus 20:12). It is the first promise which is attached
to a commandment: "... that thy days may be long
upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee" (Exodus 20:12b). So
the parents owe their children educations, food, shelter, and care, but the
children owe their parents honor. This means financial support. There are
mutual obligations based on personal bonds. No one in the transaction is
to become an endless giver, and no one is to become a perpetual
recipient.
The
modern messianic State has intervened here, too. The State promises to uphold
men from womb to tomb. The State promises to become the new father. The
impersonal, bureaucratic State has substituted its rule for the father's rule,
and its children-perpetual children-are to remain obedient to it all the days
of their lives.
The Bible tells us that
children grow up and begin new families. "Therefore shall
a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they
shall be one flesh" (Genesis 1:24). There
should be no perpetual one-way obligations. Parents are to train their children
to be obedient, but also independent. They are to foster maturity in their
children. The State wants perpetual children, complete obedience. The State is
a sad imitation of a family. It is a pseudo-family which threatens human
freedom.
