The Who, What & How of Education, Part 2

The point: Continually refresh your conviction that the rising generation must be educated in a context where the God of the Bible is central to the entire educational enterprise, starting in the home.

Just as the alphabet is the chief part of reading and writing, and numbers are the chief part of mathematics, so the fear of God is the chief part of all knowledge, illustrating its foundational necessity.

Therefore, when we open up the book of Proverbs, we find a text that is foundational to almost every effort to set forth a biblical philosophy of education. Proverbs 1 and verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning, or you may have a marginal rendering, the chief part of knowledge, but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord is the chief part of knowledge. In other words, it is the recognition of the being of God, the rights and the claims of God, and relating to His being and to His rights and claims, as I ought, that the writer of Proverbs says is the very chief ...

9:52 - 10:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure God is central in the climate of your homes, not just introduced at family worship or on Sundays, but everywhere in the dawning consciousness of your children.

Describes the ideal home as having a 'God-soaked atmosphere' and parents as 'God-soaked' or 'saturated souls,' meaning God's presence and truth permeate every aspect of family life and consciousness.

He must not be someone introduced at family worship and reintroduced on Sunday morning. He must be central so that in the dawning of consciousness in our children, God is everywhere. In other words, the dawning of consciousness is an awakening to a God-soaked atmosphere of the home. Because...

13:30 - 13:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Be a 'God-soaked mother' and a 'God-soaked father,' so that God's name, eye, word, and presence are continually evident in your home.

Moses' early years in his parents' God-soaked home deeply influenced him, enabling him to choose affliction with God's people over Egyptian pleasures, demonstrating the lasting impact of early parental education.

And when we ask the question, well, how much do those early impressions really make a difference? Turn to your Bible and look. Look at Moses, the man of God who only had the first couple of years at the breast and in the home of his mother and father before he's plumped down into the very atmosphere of Egyptian learning and morals and religion and all of the decadence of that pagan culture. Yet so deeply pervasive was that influence that when he comes to years, he chooses rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

15:22 - 16:03 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first principle for 'how' to educate is that the God of the Bible must be central to the entire educational enterprise, not just spiritual aspects. This is grounded in Genesis…

Samuel, taken from his mother young, and Daniel and his companions, steeped in Babylonian culture, stood firm due to the deep, God-soaked influences of their early upbringing, showing the power of foundational training.

Likewise, think of young Samuel, wrenched loose from his mother's side and his father's direct influence as a little boy. Think of Daniel and his three Hebrew companions who are taken into Babylon into a society where the state takes over the education, determined to make proper Babylonians out of these guys. They give them the names associated with Babylonian gods and they steep them in Babylonian...

16:04 - 16:29 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The only alternative left to the parent is either to bias the child's soul himself for God and the truth, or to see it fatally biased by other influences against both God and truth.

R.L. Dabney's quote emphasizes that parents inevitably impress their principles on their children, making it impossible and unlawful to leave children unbiased, highlighting the inescapable nature of parental influence.

Listen to what Dabney says on this point of the profound influence of the parents long before the teacher and the pastor can exert an influence. It is made both his privilege and his duty, that is the parent, to impose the principles and the creed which he has adopted as the truth for himself upon the spirit of his child. Some men, it is known, vainly pray to the supposed obligation to leave the minds of their children independent and unbiased until they are mature enough to judge and choose for themselves. But a moment's thought shows that this is as unlawful as it is impossible.

17:16 - 18:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Before any formal schooling, fulfill your solemn obligation to see your children's education begin in a context where the God of the Bible is central, by thinking, speaking, and ordering your home as a 'God-soaked soul.'

Dabney's analogy of immersing an open vessel in the ocean and expecting it to remain empty illustrates the impossibility of a youthful soul growing up unbiased, reinforcing that children will be influenced by someone.

This young and plastic soul will take impressions from someone, if not from the appointed and heaven-ordained hand of his parent, then from some other irresponsible hand of men or an evil angel. One might as well speak of immersing an open vessel in the ocean and having it remain empty as of having a youthful soul grow up in society, as of having a youthful soul grow up in society, as of having a youthful soul grow up in society, as of having a youthful soul grow up in society, unbiased, until it is qualified to elect its own creed most wisely. The only alternative left to the parent is either...

18:32 - 19:31 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not allow secular psychology to frame how you deal with kids in the classroom; instead, develop in them a thoroughly Bible-soaked perspective concerning all reality.

Martin recounts his daughter Heidi's thankfulness for being trained to bring 'everything through a biblical grid,' even during casual activities like watching TV, illustrating the practical application of biblical authority in daily life.

It was one of the visits of my daughter Heidi a couple of years ago. And we were talking. She was visiting with us or she was talking on the phone. And she said to me, Dad, one of the things I'm so thankful is the way you worked in training me to bring everything through a biblical grid.

34:50 - 35:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Sit down with Luke 6:40 and Philippians 4:9 to examine if you embody the goal of the educational process for your children.

Martin challenges mothers to consider if they embody the sweet, submissive, responsible character they desire for their daughters, or if their short-temperedness will be replicated, illustrating the principle of the teacher becoming like the student.

You mothers, pouring yourself into your children. You want them to become the sweet, submissive, responsible, selfless, caring, understanding, listening, patient, long-suffering wife and mother that you are?

40:52 - 41:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Confess your failures and faults to your children and classroom when they come to your consciousness, asking for forgiveness and demonstrating the realism of imperfect sanctification.

Martin gives examples of parents confessing their sins (e.g., being preoccupied, sarcastic) to their children and spouse, demonstrating how to embody imperfect sanctification and teach the dynamics of forgiveness in real life.

No amount of preaching, no amount of teaching. As we'll see in another quote I'm going to give you from Dabney that's more searching, I think, than all the others. You've got to be able to say, With all my failures and faults, and that's part of my example, I confess them when they come to my consciousness and when they are displayed before my children, before my classroom. I'm not beyond saying, I sinned.

41:43 - 42:05 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin again quotes Dabney, who stresses that parental influence is more effectual than any other, and that parental hypocrisy is the 'most deadly of all means for fatally searing…

Dabney's quote highlights the parent's 'awesome responsibility' and warns that 'parental hypocrisy' is the 'most deadly of all means for fatally searing the conscience and petrifying the heart of a child,' underscoring the destructive power of inauthenticity.

These considerations prepare us to expect that the parent's influence will be more effectual for good and evil than any or all others that surround the young soul.

44:30 - 44:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The fourth principle is that the home, school, and church must form a consistent and unified influence. When these three institutions speak the same truth and manifest the same…

Martin expresses thrill at seeing former 'knobby-kneed kids' from Trinity Christian School now teaching in the same classrooms, serving in Christ's church and God's world, illustrating the blessed fruit of a unified home, school, and church influence.

But when all three speak the same thing, manifest the same reality, with the blessing of the Holy Spirit, wonderful fruits accrue to the glory of God. And I want to encourage parents and teachers and church members and Trinity today, because sitting here tonight, and I get the goosebumps. when I think about it, are the living proofs of God's blessing upon that coming together of the threefold cord of home, of school, and of church. And there sit among us tonight some who with the blessing of God on that threefold cord have developed into independent young adults, sufficiently spiritually alive...

48:47 - 50:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Be thankful for the context God has placed you in, blazing with Bible light and suffused with the love of Christ, rather than being irritated or resentful.

Martin contrasts the privileges of Trinity kids with billions of children globally who live in demon-worshipping, idolatrous, pagan homes without access to the Bible, aiming to stir gratitude and awaken them to their blessings.

Now if you don't thank God every day, you're a miserable ingrate. There are billions, using the word carefully, billions of the six billion people in the world, there are billions of children.

57:13 - 57:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Be determined to master subjects like Latin, recognizing that God might use such discipline and linguistic aptitude for future Bible translation.

Martin suggests that diligence in a Latin class could hone linguistic aptitude, which God might use for future Bible translation into a language that has never had the Word of God, illustrating how academic excellence can serve God's kingdom.

That very discipline may be the thing God will use to cause things to pop in your brain. You might show an aptitude someday to go into an area where nobody's had one verse of the Bible in their language. And that linguistic aptitude honed in your Latin class will be the very thing God will use that you'd have the privilege of translating the Bible into a language no one else had ever reduced to writing and put the word of God. But imagine living and having the privilege, of having one linguistic group that could say, because that man, that woman was diligent in his or her Latin class, in his o...

62:08 - 63:09 Read in full sermon