To educate, Webster says, is to develop mentally and morally especially by instruction. It is the moral side of education that creates serious concerns for God’s people. It is one thing to teach mathematics or how to read and write or cook or plant a garden, but it is quite different to teach God’s way and will. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge (Prov. 1:7; 9:10). Any moral education which does not start with that truth as its foundation is wrong and harmful.
Last night at a detention center I noticed a sign over a classroom door which said, “Life Skills,” and listed several subjects taught in that room. The difficulty begins when the “life skills” teacher combines the mental instruction with the moral and they do not have God’s thoughts about the moral. As another has said, “Every time you say, ‘I think,’ you think wrong on every moral and spiritual subject unless your thoughts are formed by the Word of God.”
Not every person has the ability to teach basic life skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic. Yet they are an important part of daily life and need to be taught by someone. In most countries it is compulsory that a child be given such education. Who is going to teach what? This issue of The Christian addresses some of these needs and concerns with light from God’s Word.