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Upgrade Chapter 13 - The Irreducible Rock-Bottom Essentials of Education · Passing On The Faith

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Education itself is seen to be a secular exercise for most professing Christians today.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: God has been taken out of it.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: The fear of God has no place there.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: The word of God is irrelevant to the knowledge obtained in the schools.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: This has become the primary means the enemy has used to destroy the Christian faith, one generation after another, since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment years.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Surreptitiously, the schools replaced the true faith with a godless faith, a humanist religion, and a man-centered knowledge.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to Passing on the Faith, a podcast from generations.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Every week, we bring you a powerful moment from one of our sermons, audiobooks, webinars, or conference talks.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Handpicked to help you build a strong biblical foundation for your family.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: This tweet's episode is a chapter from our audiobook upgrade entitled The Irreducible Rock Bottom Essentials, written by Kevin Swanson.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Chapter 13 The Irreducible Rock Bottom Essentials.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Where there is no vision, the people perish.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: But he that keepeth the law happy is he.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Proverbs 2918.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: By 1964, the year I was born, the U.S.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Supreme Court determined that district required Bible reading in classrooms was unconstitutional.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Arbington 1963 and Engel 1962 had already banned school sponsored prayer and daily Bible readings.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even perfunctory scripture readings and official prayers were off limits in government schools.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Here is what they did.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: The High Court banned praise and prayer, or reverence and the fear of God in the secular schools, and they expunged the word of God from the curriculum.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: If a dad and mom were vitally and desperately concerned about their children's preparations for a good future life, and they were to ask me for the bare essentials of an optimum education in a nutshell, what would I say?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: What are the irreducible and absolutely indispensable elements that must be included in every part of our children's education?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: To such a question I would respond without hesitation with this.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: One, praise, prayer, worship, and a sense of awe and reverence for God in the science class and two, the word of God integrated into every part of the curriculum.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Of all the great historic ironies ever witnessed, here may be the most devastating.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: These two vital principles were the very elements stripped from American education by the US Supreme Court in the nineteen sixties.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: What devastation would follow with the expulsion of these essentials?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: The impetus for every moral, social, spiritual, religious, epistemological, and sexual revolution that played out across this nation in the successive decades may be traced to this extremely fundamental shift in the American mind.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: After dedicating 30 years of my life to homeschool ministries in this country, I find these are the principles usually most lacking in the conferences and curriculum, the science, history, and literature classes.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: These are foreign concepts to the modern mind.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: They are hardly mentioned by academic leaders, let alone considered essential to the teaching and learning going on in most homes.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: But for all Christian families who trust God with something as important as the education of a child, these will always remain the true bare essentials.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I take it from God, the two locus classicus passages directed to the subjects of educating a child and the nature of true knowledge.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Proverbs one seven.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And these words which I commend 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, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: These being two of God's principal revelatory truth concerning education or discipleship for our children, our course from here on out should be obvious.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: We must thoroughly reject the rulings of the United States Supreme Court that banned God from education.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: We must do just the opposite of these dictates.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Most certainly we will include prayer and praise and God's revealed word in every part of the school day.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: We refuse to separate these elements out into Sunday school or a special chapel meeting in a Christian school setting.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: We will integrate the fear of God and the Word of God into every class and every learning experience every single day.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: What God said The words of Deuteronomy six through nine demand our special attention.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: The wisdom of God is a tremendous corrective to the secular liberalism, the anti-Christian sentiments, the atheistic worldviews, the humanist ideologies, and the socialist systems that have undermined the Christian faith, destroyed the character of nations, and dismantled true knowledge and real learning in the schools.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: These educational systems have, in the words of the Apostle Paul, robbed our children through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Would we trust God for this wisdom over John Dewey, Horace Mann, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and other modern educational philosophers?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: To briefly summarize the Deuteronomy 6 principle, the education of our children must be parent-led, life integrated, and scripture saturated.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: The primary teacher in a young child's life is the parent.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Learning takes place in the context of home and the real life experiences that take place as you walk by the way.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Fundamentally, all learning about ourselves and all of reality must be God centered.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: God must be the looming reality before our minds because He is the ultimate reality and source of all truth.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: The primary content of this education will be God's word, because He has commanded that these words be taught diligently unto thy children.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that the scriptures are constantly present in the paidea of a child.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is not an occasional devotion given once a day in a chapel service.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: The educational curriculum and program overflows with God's word.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: It is always accessible, written on the gates and the walls of the house.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: The children receive the word at every turn in every situation in life, while sitting, rising up, lying down, and walking along the way.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: The scriptures are integrated into the children's experiences every morning, noon, and night.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: The word is to be in their face as a frontlet, a sign, or a dangling script before their eyes.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: This speaks to a constant and intimate integration of the special revelation of Scripture with the natural revelation or insights provided by science, history, and classic literature.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Science studies God's creation.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: History reviews God's works of providence and human action under God's hand.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Literature pierces into the deep recesses of man's mind and heart, but none of this natural revelation will be interpreted rightly without peering through the eyeglasses of God's word, special revelation.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: We rightly interpret science, history, and literature as we view it through the worldview, the ethical priorities, and the definitions of reality found in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: The modern separation of sacred knowledge from secular knowledge, built upon human reason and considered as two distinct forms of knowledge, was devastating to the Christian faith in the West.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: The assumption that a darkened mind and a befouled human reason could provide a system of truth, virtue, and morality without God's special revelation contradicts the biblical view of man Romans 1 twenty one, Ephesians four seventeen and eighteen, 2 Corinthians 4 3 and 4.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Our children's science and history curriculum should include hundreds of relevant Bible verses referenced throughout.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: The student should never get the impression that the word is merely intended for some religious exercise on Sunday, but is not to be drawn into the history class on Monday.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Such a paidea introduces a religious superficiality, a thin coated hypocrisy, and a two-faced dualism into their minds and lives.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Children who fail to see the word integrated into their everyday experiences will most likely lose a sense for its relevance to life and perhaps even its relevance for the life to come.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: This intimate contact with God's Word is reiterated in Proverbs as well.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: When thou goest it shall lead thee, when thou sleepest it shall keep thee, and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Proverbs six twenty twenty three King James Version.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Education itself is seen to be a secular exercise for most professing Christians today.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: God has been taken out of it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: The fear of God has no place there.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: The word of God is irrelevant to the knowledge obtained in the schools.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: This has become the primary means the enemy has used to destroy the Christian faith one generation after another, since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment years.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Surreptitiously, the schools replace the true faith with a godless faith, a humanist religion, and a man centered knowledge.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: When addressing education conferences in this country and around the world, I have proposed that the university chemistry professor should stand on his desk and sing How Great Thou Art in Reverence and Worship to God.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Having deeply contemplated the Creator's incomprehensible and glorious genius of wisdom, power, and goodness in creation through his lectures, that teacher had better fall on his face in awe-filled worship, or he perpetuates a cosmic treachery against God, refusing to give honor where honor is due.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Such proposals are usually answered with laughter and sometimes scorn.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Either the notion is taken as incongruent and strange, or it is recognized as the ultimate heresy to the modern mind.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Worship does not belong in the chemistry classroom, or so we have been told over centuries of secularized education.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do what Jesus did.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: There is one final rule of thumb that any and all Christian parents can take away from this short introduction to discovering the best education for their children.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: We are to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ Ephesians six four.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: What is this but to follow Jesus' pidea in both content and method?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Teach them to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Teach them to observe all that Jesus commanded and use his methods, distilling it down to the simplest instruction of all we should just do what Jesus did.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus put his classroom in a boat on the Sea of Galilee.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now that does not work for a seminary.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: How does one sit at a desk in a boat that is rocking in the waves?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows that you cannot lecture from a podium in a fishing boat.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Besides, the water would have smeared the ink on the white board.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: But still, Jesus put his classroom in the context of real life.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: He chose twelve, that they should be with him.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: He loved his students, and he laid down his life for them.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: To put it in the modern form, nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Moreover, the challenges of real life in the storms on the lake would test their faith, which is the preeminent concern of the teacher.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: He taught them at meals, on the road, while fishing, and during long periods of ministering to others.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, parents must trust God concerning this method.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: We must trust that the creator of the universe understood something about learning, the hearts and minds of children, and the most effective form of discipleship to leave us with this pattern.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is how Jesus changed the world and introduced the kingdom of heaven on earth.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yet this pattern is far removed from the educational approach employed by the modern humanist methods of learning.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Herein is an urgent call to renew our minds once more, to repent, to submit to a paradigm shift, and to refuse conformance to the world.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that we have finally reached a breaking point in the world's failed system of education, whereby they inculcate a false knowledge not based on the fear of God.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Christian parents around the world have come to realize this.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: They have given up trusting the world to provide a right and successful approach to raising and educating their children.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: They are ready to trust God's word on this one.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the simplest device we can leave these parents with today is this do what Jesus did and trust him for the results.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a production of the Generations Media Network.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, go to generations.orgslash media.