The Church And Education According To The Bible

It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. II Timothy 2:11-15

I want the First Baptist Church to be ready to stand when the battles come in the future. The battle will come concerning the schools. We are very fortunate to live in the State of Indiana because we have had very few battles, but the battle is eventually going to come. Preachers all over this nation are going to face it.

The big battle is this: Is the school a part of the church?

The courts are going to have to decide whether or not education is worship.

A church worship service cannot be licensed by a state. The question is whether or not education is worship. I am going to explain from the Bible that education is worship.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:21-24

Jesus said of His people that they knew what they worshipped. They learned what they worshipped because they were taught what they worshipped. This woman was a heathen worshipper and did not know what she was worshipping because all pagan worship is built on ignorance. All true worship is built on knowledge. Knowledge is education. To get knowledge you must have a teacher and a student. Consequently, true worship is based on knowledge. False worship is based on ignorance. The most ignorant and primitive places in the world worship heathen, pagan gods because they know not what they worship.

Truth is education. Jesus said that we are not to worship Him ignorantly, but in spirit and in truth. Truth must be transferred. People who know the truth have been taught the truth. If you have not been taught the truth, you cannot worship God. Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life. You must be taught the truth, so real worship is based on being taught. I worship Him in truth because I was taught truth as a child. If our next generation worships God in truth, they will do so because they are taught the truth. You get error by accident, but you get truth on purpose.

You cannot worship God ignorantly. You must worship Him in truth. Truth must be conveyed. Truth must have a teacher and a pupil and a truth being conveyed from one to the other.

If Jesus is the truth and we are supposed to worship God in spirit and in truth, then mathematics, history, geography, science, and languages are all truth. If Jesus is the truth, then God's people should be in search constantly of all truth, including these things.

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

We are commanded to talk about Him when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up. That means that we are to teach our children the truth every day, not just one day a week. Our government, judges, and many state legislatures say that we worship only on Sunday morning, so they will not license Sunday morning worship. The Bible says that we must know the truth before we can worship, and we are to teach the truth to young people every day. That means that God told us not to confine teaching the truth to Sunday.

Let me give you some observations.

1. God must be worshipped in truth.

The average person goes to church on Sunday without thinking about God all week. He takes one little hour to hear a few dead songs and a sermonette by a gown-wearing preacher. That is called worship. The Bible says we are to spend every day learning who He is, what He is, and where He is.

You cannot learn about God unless you know mathematics, because God is truth. You cannot learn about God unless you know history, because history is truth and God is truth. True worship must be built on truth. Truth is teaching. Teaching is education. If we teach our children at home seven days a week, we can come to church on Sunday morning and worship the true and the living God in spirit and in truth, because we spend all week teaching them truth and Sunday worshipping in truth.

2. Truth must come before true worship.

You cannot worship God ignorantly. The Bible says that they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.

3. Truth comes by learning, which is education.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Hosea 4:6

People are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge. Children do not get the truth in the public schools. One of these days America is going to be enslaved because we do not know the truth. The Christian school movement in America is facing the fight of its life in the not too distant future. Churches like First Baptist Church of Hammond will have to lead the fight. Most denominational and inter-denominational churches will allow their schools to be licensed.

4. Education is preparation for true worship.

5. Worship not based on truth is false worship.

Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lust of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. John 8:44

Satan is the father of lies. He is also the father of ignorance?. Jesus is the truth. The Devil abides not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Truth comes through proper education. Truth is conveyed from one person who knows it to a person who does not know it. There was a day when I did not know that two plus two equal four. I learned that from a teacher, and now I know that truth. It is important to know that truth because it is mathematics and God is a God of mathematics. Christian education is better than public education because it is based on truth.

6. All worship is of God or Satan.

You either worship the true and living God or you worship the Devil. There is no other ground. If you worship the truth, you worship God. If you worship a lie, or error, you worship the Devil. That means the liberal people worship the Devil because they educate their children at the feet of error rather than truth.. If they do not believe that Jesus is God's Son, they worship the Devil. If they do not believe that Jesus is virgin born, they worship the Devil. If they do not believe the Bible is the Word of God, they worship the Devil. You either worship in truth, the Living God, or in error, the Devil.

7. Education is a part of worship.

I would like to plead this in court and take this before the Supreme Court. There is no true education without the fear of God. I am talking about science. I am talking about history that honors the father of our country. All truth is a part of God, whether it be mathematical truth, Bible truth, historical truth, language truth, or geography truth. God is the One Who made the universe, so to understand the universe we must understand God. If we do not know the truth, we cannot worship God. If we love God and want to worship God, we ought to be interested in all of His creation. The Bible says that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. We cannot know God unless we look at His heavens and consider the work of His hands. God speaks to us through the heavens, so education is worship.

8. In the Bible worship was not limited to Sundays.

Acts 5:42 says that they taught the truth daily in the temple and in every house. Our government is trying to confine it to a little one-hour period of worship. They try to tell us what worship is, yet they do not even know God. It is going to take more than thirty minutes a week to learn all the truth God has for us to learn. When we education our own children, we are preparing them for worship.

9. To say that a church should not teach math, history, etc. is to say that God has no interest in those subjects.

God does have an interest in history. God does have an interest in math. God does have an interest in language. God does have an interest in geography. He is truth, and all truth is a part of God.

10. This is the way America was at first.

The public school system was not the way America started. It was an afterthought. The educational system of the United States of America was started by the churches, and that is where it should be. Churches should educate their own. It is not the government's job to educate. The school system of America was founded by the church. That is our heritage and that is the way it should still be.

Let me give you another view.

1. We worship a teacher.

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: John 3:1, 2a

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Matthew 28:19

2. We are to teach what He taught.

Jesus, our teacher, goes back to Heaven and commissions us to teach what He taught. I am commanded by Jesus to teach what he taught. The reason I teach what He taught is so I can properly worship.

3. If He commanded me to do it, what right does the State have to give me permission?

I have already been commanded by Him to do it, so I do not need permission from the government. It is not the state's business to give us permission to worship. Nobody in the state says they will try to license our worship service, but they will try to license our school. The school is where we teach the truth necessary for worship.

Let me tell you what is going on.

1. The state is trying to limit worship to Sunday.

2. Some states are trying to limit worship to Sunday morning.

3. Some states are even to what they call sanctuary worship.

In some states they are trying to prove that Sunday school must be licensed because it is not worship.

4. Only worship will not be controlled by the government.

You cannot worship unless you know the truth, so we learn the truth in order to worship God. That makes the Christian school as much a part of worship as the Sunday morning service. It is an extension of what goes on then. It is as much a part of the church as the Sunday school.

5. Anything that is not called worship as they see worship, will be licensed.

The day will come when we will be forced to decide whether or not we are going to allow the state to tell us what to do in our schools. John Bunyan was in the Bedford jail for twelve years because the state wanted to give him a license and he would not accept it.

When we refuse to accept their license they will try to approve our teachers. They will approve only teachers who meet their educational requirements, which will be worldly, godless, humanist courses taught at state universities.

I like what Moses said to Pharaoh. Pharaoh told him not to go, but to stay and worship in the land.

Moses told him that they were leaving and going to Canaan.

Pharaoh said not to go very far away.

Moses told him that they were going all the way to Canaan.

Pharaoh told him to at least leave the children there because it might be dangerous out in the wilderness.

Moses told him that everybody was going to go.

Pharaoh suggested that they leave the cattle there.

Moses told him that not one hoof would be left!

The state is going to tell us that we have to be licensed. When we fight it, this is what they will do to try to get us to compromise. We must be determined not to allow one hoof to be placed under the control of the state!

1. Hire state approved teachers.

No, we will not do this.

2. Christian Schools can appoint an accreditation board of their own.

The idea is not who licenses or accredits you, the idea is any outside accreditation. The local church is an indigenous, autonomous, independent institution. A group of preachers have no more right to tell us how to operate our Christian schools than a group of congressmen do!

3. Send us a list of your teachers.

Even this is too much control because it is NONE of the government's business who teaches in our Sunday school or in our daily school.

The battleground of the near future will be whether or not education is a part of our worship. The Bible says education is necessary to worship. In order to worship properly on Sunday, we must teach our children the truth every day. The truth is what makes me free and the truth is what makes me worship God, for they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

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