This week’s famous quote of Luther’s deals with schools and education, and is as follows: I am much afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labour in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of youth.  I advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount.  Every institution in which means are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must be corrupt.

Henry David Thoreau said this: We should treat our minds…as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention…  Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

Education is important, at least it is to God, for He has commanded that we teach our children diligently (Deut. 6:7).  What and how we teach our children is also quite important.  Since the Triune God is the “good teacher” (Truth incarnate) the primary objective of all education ought to be teaching truth and fact in all subject matters.  Sadly, such is no longer the case.  When our schools (State, Public, Private, Church, Charter, even Home) fail to teach fact and objective truth, they cease to be true institutions of education, and have become institutions of indoctrination and re-education camps (of a government gone rogue), poisoning the hearts, minds and souls of our children, turning them against God, Country and Family (Parents), grooming them to be soldiers in Satan’s service.

Maybe its time to review a lesson from our country’s early approach to education.  The New England Primer was the first primer designed for the American colonies.  It was so successful that it remained in print well into the 19^th century and was even used until the 20^th century.  The “theology” of the Primer was intended mostly to inspire students to submit to the authority of God and their parents.  The Primer’s alphabet, for instance, was taught with the use of Scripture.  Examples (mine) of how this was done are: “A” – All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).  “B” –Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31).  You get the idea.

I’m not suggesting that the Bible be taught in every educational institution and classroom; not that that would be a bad thing.  What I’m saying is that the non-negotiable in all education ought to be teaching facts and objective truth, the author of which is God.  When such is no longer the case, institutions become, in the words of Luther, “corrupt” and “the very gates of hell” putting our children at great risk.

Because no educational institution is immune to such error, it behooves parents to keep vigilant watch over their children’s education.  Now, more than ever, we need to be like the Beroeans (Acts 17:11), searching the Scriptures daily to see if what we’re being taught is so (i.e. truth), testing the spirits to see whether they are of God… the spirit of truth [God] and the spirit of error [Satan] (1 John 4:1-6).

By God’s divine design, parents are to be the primary teacher/principal/superintendent of their children’s education.  By God’s grace and Word alone, we keep our children’s classroom from becoming “the very gates of hell.”