kingdomeducationministries

There is a passage of Scripture that has been on my mind for the past several weeks.  It is found in James’ letter to the Christians who had been scattered due to persecution.  It reads,

But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James 1:4-8 (NKJV)

As you can see by my emphasis, the part of this passage that has been most disturbing to me is the last part of verse 8.  James is stating that a double-minded person is unstable in all of life!  I am deeply concerned about the double-mindedness that has taken a vast number of Christians captive.

The dictionary defines double-mindedness as wavering in mind, vacillating.  It also explains that a double-minded person is marked by hypocrisy.  However, the real danger of being double-minded is not simply due to one not being decisive.  The true mark of a double-minded person is the compartmentalizing of one’s life.

One of the most common realities found in the lives of a vast majority of Christians is that they have divided life into two compartments — the sacred and the secular.  By doing this they attempt to live their lives according to two different worldviews.  The late Dr. Albert Greene referred to this type of thinking as dualism.  Dualistic thinking will always lead to dualistic living.

The most common way of illustrating dualism is to explain how many people will live their lives on Sunday much differently than they live their lives Monday through Saturday.  This is a result of thinking that some areas of life are spiritual in nature.  These include things such as attending church, reading the Bible and spending time in prayer.  At the same time, other areas of life are considered to be secular or religiously neutral in nature.  Such things as politics, business, education, and recreation fall into this category.

The end result is that a dualistic person’s life does not have an overarching worldview that brings all of life into unity.  Life ends up extremely fragmented and doesn’t make much sense.  It also makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to find significance in what we do and who we are.  James hits the nail on the head — this type of person is unstable in all of life.  Someone who is unstable cannot function properly.

Even though many Christian educators decry dualism, I am wondering if double-mindedness hasn’t crept into our homes, churches and schools.  There are some dangerous trends that I see taking hold in our efforts to give our children a biblical worldview integration.  I believe I need to make a disclaimer about what I am about to write.  Some of the practices that I am going to mention may or may not be right or wrong.  However, I am bringing them up to foster consideration and discussion.

If the opposite of dualism is living all of life under a unified worldview, then we must examine all of our practices involved in educating our children and youth to make sure everything is governed by a biblical worldview.  As I bring these issues up, I ask that you ponder them in light of this question.  Is this leading to double-mindedness?  If it is, does it mean that we are becoming unstable in all our ways?

Textbook Selection

This is a hot button to start our discussion.  I have heard all the arguments from both sides of the aisle as to what textbooks Christian schools should use.  I recently wrote an article for another publication and titled it The Hidden Agenda.  The essence of the article is that all textbooks, both secular and Christian, strive to be “academically rigorous”, factually accurate, and relevant to life.  However, there is a hidden agenda in all textbooks.  Every textbook is written from a worldview perspective with the goal of taking the students minds captive by its underlying belief system.

I am not going to argue the pros and cons of using one textbook over another.  I am simply asking you to consider the possibility that we might be practicing dualism if we say we want our children to develop a biblical worldview but then immerse them in secular worldview written textbooks.  When making textbook selections, do we consider this passage in James 1?  If not, could we not only be practicing dualism but also leading our students into developing a dualistic mindset?

Athletics and Other Extra-curriclars

Christian education has come a long way when it comes to these school programs.  This is one area that I am starting to see schools adopt a very worldly/secular pursuit of excellence.  Again, there is not time and space to address the entire topic of excellence in this post.  I will simply point out that worldly excellence is pursued from a purely horizontal perspective based on comparing and competing.  One is excellence if he/she is better than the other person.  Biblical excellence, on the other hand, begins with a vertical perspective and is focused more on character than performance and achievement.

With this in mind, we must ask ourselves a couple of questions if we are going to avoid double-mindedness.  Have we developed these programs within the context of a biblical worldview with the same intensity as we do our “academic” disciplines?  Many schools have to use community coaches and sponsors to lead these important aspects of our schools.  Are we being as intentional with developing these staff members with a biblical worldview and philosophy of education as our full-time teachers?  If we do not answer these questions accurately, we may end up being unstable in all our ways.

Dual Enrollment

This has become a major aspect of the curricular offerings at many Christian schools.  There are some real “perks” to offering students opportunities to take certain courses under a dual enrollment program.  A dual enrollment program allows students to enroll in classes at their school through an arrangement with a college or university.  This allows the students to earn both high school and college credits.  Some students earn as many as 15-20 college credits before graduating from high school.

All of this sounds great but are there some dangers that are inherent in these types of programs.  Many schools are doing dual enrollment programs with secular colleges and universities.  Others offer these programs in partnership with Christian institutions.  I realize that if a Christian school has staff members with the proper degrees, they can actually teach these classes.  However, many times these classes are taught by a secular professor using the textbooks and other resources from the partnering college or university.

Again, I am merely asking that we give careful consideration about how this could lead to dualism.  Would we hire an unsaved teacher to teach in our schools?  I hope we would answer this question in the negative.  However, are we doing the same by some of the dual enrollment programs?

I have mentioned three areas where I see that dualism could creep into our efforts to biblically educate our children and youth.  There are probably more and this can be discussion for another time.  However, we must evaluate everything we are doing in our efforts to provide our children and youth with a biblical worldview education.  We cannot open the door for dualism to get a foothold.  If we do, we will become unstable in all we do.

If you are joining the conversation new, I encourage you to read the first two posts in this series.  The first one was Contaminated Water: A Fatal Decision and last week’s was Contaminated Water: The Cover-up.  As the city of Flint, Michigan continued to use contaminated water, serious problems began surfacing throughout the community.  In fact, General Motors actually stopped using Flint River water in October of 2014. This decision was made to prevent further corrosion of its machines.  The company made a deal to purchase water from a neighboring township and was able to continue functioning without further damage to its machinery.

By early 2015, the facts were in and there could be no denying that the water from the Flint River was contaminated. Consider the following findings:

• January 21, 2015 – A community forum is held with residents showing containers of discolored water to officials. Reports of children developing rashes and suffering from mysterious diseases are circulated in the media.
• February 26, 2015 – The EPA detected dangerous levels of water in the home of a Flint resident. The lead contamination was seven times higher than the EPA limit for drinking water.
• March 18, 2015 – Another EPA test finds high levels of lead in the same residence as its earlier test.
• June 24, 2015 – An EPA memo warns that the city is not providing treatment necessary to decrease the presence of lead in drinking water.
• September 8, 2015 – A water quality study indicated that 40% of Flint homes had elevated lead levels.
• September 11, 2015 – A research team finds Flint water to be 19 times more corrosive than Detroit water and recommends that the state declare the water is not safe for drinking or cooking.
• September 24, 2015 – A research team released a study showing the number of children with elevated lead levels in their blood had nearly doubled since the city switched its water source.

With a major health and safety crisis looming, one might think that government leaders would change back to the safer Detroit water source.  However, officials from the city and state continued to pump contaminated water to the residents and businesses of Flint.  Instead of changing back to its original water source, it was decided that all that was needed was some reform or treatment of the poisonous water.

In an effort to continue using the contaminated water from the Flint River, steps were taken to counteract the contamination by employing certain water improvement efforts.  Here are some of the actions taken to try and make the contaminated waters “better.”

• September 2014 – The city’s water pipes were flushed and more chlorine was added.
• August 17, 2015 – The MDEQ orders Flint to optimize corrosion control treatment in the water supply.
• September 9, 2015 – The EPA begins assisting Flint in developing a corrosion control treatment of the water.
• October 2, 2015 – The state distributed free water filters to schools.

In addition to these attempts at trying to make the contaminated waters “safe” bottled water was distributed throughout Flint and was still being given out in March of 2018.  Homes were encouraged to install water filters and/or use bottled water for drinking.  It was amazing to read about the refusal of leaders and parents to revert back to the original source of good water.  It seems that people kept placing their faith in the contaminated water source and merely trying to “improve” the poisonous water.

The same thing can be said about Christians’ reaction to the growing problems that were becoming apparent in society, the church and their homes from children and youth drinking the contaminated waters from a secular educational system.  Instead of returning the “fountain of living waters” (God), it was believed that the bad water source could be improved.

As time went on warning alarms continued to ring out signaling that the danger of drinking from a contaminated source of knowledge and wisdom was wreaking havoc among the children and youth of the country.  Reports by several research teams indicated that large numbers of teens attending church would leave the church within two or three years of high school graduation.  Some of these studies estimated that as high as 85% of church youth would soon walk away from their faith.

There were a few voices in the church that sent out warnings about the dangers of continued drinking the contaminated waters of secular education.

Unfortunately, our schools are all too often indoctrination chambers where children come to be scrubbed of their trust of parents, their church, and their sexual identity, and are force-fed a diet of secularism and immorality. Erwin Lutzer in When a Nation Forgets God

It becomes possible to raise kids in church and subsequently turn them over to secular institutions for education without having though through the potential outcomes of them losing their faith in the process…We have turned over generation after generation of young men and women to be fully inculcated with the thoughts, ideas, and precepts that are absolutely contrary to our Christian faith…the Church systematically, seemingly without guilt, turns one generation after another of children over to a pagan, godless, secular education system that turns them from the faith.  We do it in public elementary and high schools and colleges and universities.  And we pay the enemy to steal their souls.  Ken Ham & Greg Hall in Already Compromised

School violence began to rise all across the country.  One of the first warning shots that something was wrong in our schools was sounded at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.  On this day, two senior students walked into the school and murdered 12 students and 1 teacher.  Twenty-one other students were wounded before the two murderers took their own lives. Since that time more than 17 other mass shootings killing four or more people have taken place in schools across the country.

However, even with all of the evidence pouring in that indicated there was a major contamination problem with the “new” source of education, people were continually told that the water was safe to drink.  All that was needed were some additional treatments to the system that would take care of the pollutants.

Several efforts were made to calm people’s nerves and assure them that secular education was safe for all citizens.  These treatments ranged from initiating character education (Character Counts was a major program developed after Columbine) to armed security guards and programs that would teach tolerance and acceptance of all values and beliefs. There have been efforts to reform the contaminated waters by placing Christians on school boards.

Parents, church leaders, civic officials and educators continued to keep their trust in secular education.  They believed that with enough money and reform measures the water source of secular education could be purified.

Church leaders thought that the solution to this “water” crisis was to develop new programs for children and youth at church.  Even though programs and resources such as Released Time Bible Classes, Trust Love Waits, Ignite: The Bible for Teens, various VBS programs and a host of other programs and resources were well-intentioned and solid material, the words of C. F. Potter proved to be prophetic.

Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every public [secular] school is a school of humanism.  What can the theistic Sunday school, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching.

There was still a strong resistance to return to the original source of a biblical worldview education.  Better church programs and efforts to reform and improve secular education programs would surely mask the deadly consequences of drinking from a contaminated water source.

Next week I will present some of the costs involved when changing to “water” sources that are contaminated.  It might blow your mind!  Be sure to leave a comment below.

On April 25, 2014 a city in Michigan made a decision that would end up devastating the city’s entire population.  The city was Flint, Michigan and the disaster is known as The Flint Water Crisis.  The decision that was made by the leaders of Flint, Michigan on that dreadful day actually started a couple of years earlier.

Flint city officials explored options on how they might be able to save money by switching the city’s water source.  From 2012 through 2013, a plan was devised that would supposedly save the city millions of dollars by switching from its current provider, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, to the Karegnondi Water Authority.  To accomplish this, the city would need to build its own pipeline to connect to KWA.

However, there was one problem.  It would take time to build a pipeline to connect to KWA. Instead of waiting until the pipeline was completed, the city officials decided to turn to the Flint River as an interim source of water.  On April 25, 2014 Flint River water started flowing to the city of Flint.  This decision proved to be extremely disastrous, even life-threatening.

There was a similar fatal decision made in our country many years ago.  This decision also involved the changing of the source from which people were getting their nourishment.  The decision to make a change where children and youth received their education took place in the 1800s.  However, this decision had been debated for several decades leading up to this fatal decision.

From the early days of the founding of the country, children and youth received their education from two primary sources. These sources were the home and the church.  The education that children received from these sources produced a well-educated person who was also well-grounded in the Christian faith.

In the 1800s it was decided that a new source was needed in order to provide all children and youth with a “better” education. It was also touted as being more economical for all families as there would be “no cost” to this new source of education.  One of the major promoters of this new education was a man named Horace Mann.  John Blanchard shared Mann’s predictions about what would result from Americans switching to this new source of knowledge and wisdom in his article titled, Can We Live with Public Education?

If American taxpayers could provide education for every child in America, within a short period of time the effect of the public school system would empty all the jails and prisons in the country…Let the home and church teach faith and values, and the school teach facts.

The new provider of “free” education to all of the country’s children and youth would be the state or government.  This change in the source from which children and youth would receive their education would guarantee that the United States would remain to be a great nation for years to come.  This was a radical decision to say the least.  Professor of history of American education, Francis Curran, wrote about this decision to change to a new source of education for American children.

…a revolutionary development in the history of education and in the history of Christianity: the surrender by American Protestantism during the past century of the control of popular elementary education to the state…Only in the United States has Protestantism relinquished the traditional claim of the Christian church to exercise control over the formal education of its children in the elementary school…The Christian churches eventually agreed that the state must have an important place in the direction of popular elementary education.

In Jeremiah we see how God views it when His people make the decision to change the source from which they get their knowledge and wisdom.

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.  Jeremiah 2:13 (KJV)

When the decision was made to change the source of our children’s education from the home and church to the state, Christians were in essence “forsaking God, the fountain of living waters.”  God made it clear that it was dangerous to change the source of this most important aspect of life.

The nation of Israel had, in essence, changed their water source, much like the city of Flint, Michigan had done.  God said that they had committed an evil act when they stopped going to the “fountain of living waters” for their knowledge and wisdom.  The second evil they committed was trying to make their own cisterns to hold water from another source.  The problem was that their efforts of collecting water were useless because anything they did on their own ended up cracked and could not hold water.

God’s people changed from drinking “living water” to drinking contaminated water from other sources.  I am sure that these sources seemed safe, reasonable and economical at the time. However, God made it clear that their other sources of water were not only dangerous but also useless.

Now what will you gain by traveling along the way to Egypt to drink the water of the Nile?  What will you gain by traveling along the way to Assyria to drink the water of the Euphrates?  Jeremiah 2:18 (CSB)

God asked His people what they thought they would gain by going to another source of knowledge and wisdom than what He offered.  The educational waters of the world (Egypt and Assyria) were contaminated and could not satisfy.

These two fatal decisions brought with them serious and destructive consequences on society. Next week I will look at the cover-up of Flint’s fatal decision.

Last week I shared how the majority of parents, church leaders and teachers believe that the main purpose of schooling is to prepare students for more schooling!  They may not articulate this as the main purpose of schooling but in practice this is the reality.  As a new school year begins, I believe it is important that Christians develop a few key objectives that should drive the education we give our children at home, church and school.  It is essential that these objectives are achieved if we are going to fulfill God’s purpose for education and correctly prepare our children for the future.

Goal #1:  Our Children Must Increase In Their Knowledge of God

There is no doubt about it.  All education involves the acquisition of knowledge.  However, too much of our educational efforts have to do with gaining more facts about a wide variety of topics.  Unfortunately, most of this effort to know more “stuff” does not provide our children with the God-intended meaning behind all the facts they are taught.  John Piper explains why just knowing the facts about something isn’t real education.

Modern people suppose that if they have the facts about a given thing, person, or event, they have the truth.  They forget that facts are not meaningless or value free, and that if we do not associate the meaning with the fact, we do not have the truth.

J. I. Packer reminds us of why God created man in His image.  He wrote,

Once you become aware that the main business you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall in place of their own accord.

All of the teaching that we give our children should aim at increasing their knowledge and understanding of who God is.  This is what the Psalmist referred to in Psalm 19:1-4 and Paul was saying in Romans 1:20.  Everything our children study is part of God’s creation and should tell them something about who God is.  The late Albert Greene understood this when he wrote,

We must avoid the impression that academics represents the fullness of what school is all about.  Knowing God in and though the creation is what is important…It brings no honor to the Holy Spirit if we then proceed to treat the ordinary school studies, which are derived totally from the created world, as if they had nothing to do with God.  They are laden with meaning because they are all part of God’s way of giving Himself to us, of making Himself known to us.

Are your children increasing in the knowledge of God through their total educational experience?  If not, we aren’t preparing them for the real future.

Goal #2:  Our Children Must Hear God’s Call

In past posts I have shared how God places two calls on individuals.  The first call that God gives to all people is His call for them to be saved.  Scripture tells us that God is long-suffering because He does not want anyone to perish.  However, God also gives each person a specific call.  This is God’s call to a work or vocation.  We have lost the concept of vocation in today’s world.  Tim Keller explains this in his writings when he states,

We must recover the idea that work is a “vocation” or calling, “a contribution to the good of all and not merely…a means to one’s own advancement.”…Something can be a vocation or calling only if some other party calls you to do it, and you do it for their sake rather than your own.  Our daily work can be a calling only if it is reconceived as God’s assignment to serve others.

When the main purpose of schooling is merely preparing our children for more schooling, they may go through twelve or more years of schooling without ever understanding God’s purpose for their existence.  Kevin Swanson puts it this way.

A successful education is achieved when a child is prepared to make maximal use of his God-given talents and abilities in the accomplishment of the child’s calling…The challenge of the first eighteen years of a child’s education is to find that calling…A fulfilled life will be determined by whether he/she has centered in upon his/her calling.

Do your children understand how God has gifted them with certain talents and abilities?  Are they sensitive to God’s call on their lives?  This has to be part of every child’s education from infancy all the way to maturity.

Goal #3:  Our Children Must Pursue Biblical Excellence

In order to pursue true excellence, one must believe that there are absolute standards by which excellence is measured.  Unfortunately, today’s culture refuses to believe that there are absolute standards for anything, including excellence.  This means that excellence is totally relative and is only looked at from a horizontal perspective.  This results in people pursuing an excellence that is only based on “comparison” and “competition”.  One achieves excellence by being better or beating everyone else.  Even today’s western church has adopted this concept of excellence.

A biblical understanding of excellence begins by setting God, Himself, as the true standard of excellence.  Jesus is our model of excellence and our goal is to be like Him (1 John 2:6).  Biblical excellence requires that the primary focus must be on character rather than performance or achievement.  Our motive to be excellent in all things is to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31).   Gary Inrig explains how excellence in character is more important than mere perfection in performance.

…excellence of character rather than excellence of achievement must be the central concern of the believer…the priority of character is due to the fact that what a person is colors all that he does.

Performance takes on eternal significance when it is an extension of one’s godly character.  Consider the words of Darrow Miller.

Because redeemed man is working for God, to fulfill God’s plans, the work is to be done with excellence.  Our guidelines for excellence are found in God’s own nature.  God is true, just, and beautiful.  Our work, in both its means and ends, is to manifest truth, justice, and beauty.

Is the education you are giving your children teaching them that excellence is all about out-performing others?  Are you educating your children in a way that challenges them to pursue excellence of character which will result in their best performance possible for God’s glory?  We must realize that God’s excellence is not based on what He does but on who He is.  That is why He expects us to be holy because He is holy!

These objectives must define and drive the education we give our children at home, church and school.  If we do not achieve these objectives, our children will not be prepared for the future — regardless of what else they might learn!

Next week I will be spending time with my family over the Labor Day weekend.  Therefore, I will not be posting an article next Monday.  I look forward to being back with you on September 10th.  I pray your Labor Day will be a blessed one.

Over the past 2.5 weeks, I have had the privilege of conducting professional development seminars for nearly 700 administrators, teachers and parents from 15 different schools around the country.  During these sessions I asked a series of questions to which I received nearly unanimous answers.  As we discussed the purpose of education, I asked each group a simple question.  What does preschool education prepare the children for?  Without hardly any hesitation everyone in the session replied, Preschool education prepares children for kindergarten.  From this response, I concluded that parents and educators believe that all education is an effort to prepare children for something that they see as important in the future.  With everyone in agreement on this answer, I proceeded to ask a progression of additional questions.  Here are the questions and the answers I received.

1. What does kindergarten prepare children for?  Answer:  Most said it prepared them for first grade while the others were more generic and said elementary school.
2. What does elementary school prepare children for?  Answer: It prepares them for middle school?
3. What does middle school prepare students for?  Answer:  Middle school prepares them for high school?
4. What does high school prepare students for?  Answer:  High school prepares students for college?

Here is the conclusion I came to from these discussions.

The main purpose of schooling is to simply prepare students for more schooling!

I believe this is how most parents look at the education of their children and youth.  Parents send their children to school as early as possible.  Why?  So that they will be ready for more schooling.  In fact, if you ask parents if they want their children to get a good education, you will always get a strong YES.  However, when you ask them why they want their children to have the best education possible, the most common answer you will receive is so that they can get into a good college.  In other words, schooling has become an unending process of preparing our children for more schooling.  It is no wonder that so many graduates leave high school with no real purpose for their lives — other than to go to college.

When the purpose of schooling is to merely prepare a child for more schooling, the child fails to understand how he/she has been created by God for a purpose.  I have heard my friend, Pastor James McMenis, repeatedly saying, Every person is a PURPOSE with a name!

As a new school year begins across the US, I am challenging every reader to ask himself/herself a couple of questions?

1. Am I simply trying to prepare my children/students for more schooling?
2. What are some more meaningful purposes that should be the basis for how I educate my children/students?
3. What do I need to change as I guide my children/students to understand their purpose as I teach them either at home or school?

Next week I will present a few goals that I believe must be the driving force behind the education we give our children and youth.  Please share your thoughts on this important topic below.

I am amazed at how every person desires to live as long as possible.  Even the atheist wants to go on living though he says that he doesn’t fear death.  Whenever some disaster takes place such as hurricanes, earthquakes, or a terrorist bombing, every news station gives full coverage to the rescue efforts and the search for survivors.  Just recently there was daily news broadcasts that chronicled the rescue efforts of a boys’ soccer team that was trapped in a cave due to a flash flood.  This striving for life from when a newborn gasps for his/her first breath to when someone takes his/her last breath, the desire to live forever is a part of what it means to be human.

When God created man in His image, He did so by breathing into man His breath and man became a living soul.  Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, talked about this unique characteristic of all human beings in Ecclesiastes.  In chapter 3, verse 11 we find these words.

 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. (NKJV)

In every human soul there is the awareness that there is something more than this life here on earth.  This is what gives man the hope that one day he can find fulfillment and satisfaction that is unattainable in this fallen world.  We must remember that man was never created to die.  Death was a result of the Fall.  However, even after sin entered the world, man still had that God-given awareness that he was designed to live forever.

Man was made for eternal things because we were created in the image of an eternal God.  Even though man was made for eternity, he cannot know what all God’s plan is from the beginning to the end. This is because man was made by the only eternal being — God, Himself.

Because every soul will live forever, it is important that we educate our children to know that there are only two options for where they will spend eternity — heaven or hell.  If we give them the best education possible and they find great success in life but don’t know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, their education is worthless.  A biblical worldview education is aimed at preparing them for both this life and eternity.  Our children must know that they were created for eternity and because of what Christ did on the cross, they can receive the gift of eternal life and know that they will spend eternity in His presence.

Man has the amazing ability to create pictures in the mind and then bring into reality what was imagined.  We see man’s creativity in manufacturing, art, literature, music, humor and the common activities of everyday life.  Every parent has probably experienced what happens when he/she purchases a nice gift for a child only to find the gift set aside and the child playing with the box the gift came in.

Understanding man’s creative ability is a topic that has captured the thinking of sociologists, psychologists, educators and theologians for centuries.  The creative nature of man baffles those who try to convince us that man has evolved form non-creative beings over millions of years.

The reality is that our imagination and creativity comes from our Creator.  Since man was created in the image of a creative God, man is the only being that can imagine and then bring into existence what he imagined.  Our creativity is a reflection of the very creative nature of God.  Of course, God is the ultimate Creator and the only One who can create things out of nothing.  Man can merely take what God has created and use those things to create something new.

God expects man to use his creativity to fulfill what is referred to as the Cultural Mandate recorded in Genesis.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”     Genesis 1:26-28 (NKJV)

God intended for man to use his creativity to rule over His creation as a steward.  However, with the Fall, man’s creativity would be used for both good and evil.  The creative mind of man developed such things as airplanes, computers and the cell phone.  However, man’s creative abilities were used to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center towers killing thousands; to use computers to transmit pornography into the minds of children, youth and adults at the mere click of a button; to use cell phones to captivate the waking hours  of life and destroy important relationships.

One of the most important uses of our creativity is found in man’s ability to create culture.  Darrow Miller in his book, LifeWork, states that God made humankind to be culture makers and it matters hugely what kind of culture we create.  Miller argues that God created man in His image desiring man to create a kingdom culture — culture that reflects the true nature and character of God.  Again, we must keep in mind that man will not automatically create this type of culture.  In fact, because of sin, man is bent toward creating culture that goes against the very nature of God.

We must remember that behind every educational effort there is some “god” that is feared, pursued and served.  This is a very important fact to keep in mind because the education we give our children will play a big role in determining what type of culture our children and youth will create.  Miller explains it this way.

Culture is a product of a people’s cult, or their civic religion.  It’s a reflection of the god they worship…culture is the temporal manifestation of a people’s faith…The cult [faith] leads to culture.  This, in turn, determines the kinds of societies and nations we will build.

In light of man’s ability to create, it is crucial that we provide our children and youth with a biblical worldview education.  This is our only hope to ensure that they will grow up to use their amazing ability to create for good and not for evil.  When we do this, our children and youth will be able to create a kingdom culture — a culture that will be created by image bearers of God reflecting His nature and character to a lost world.  What are we using our creative abilities to do when it comes to educating future generations?

Today there are two dangerous extremes that people exhibit when it comes to looking at the topic of “work.”  One extreme is to view work as something evil and, thus, something to avoid as much as possible.  This view of work can be seen in how people dread Monday mornings, get some relief when “hump day” (Wednesday) comes and celebrate Friday’s with a shout of TGIF.  When work if viewed as something that is a burden, the goal of work becomes making enough money to retire comfortably as soon as possible.

The second extreme that many people exhibit when it comes to viewing work is the concept of defining your life by your work.  A person’s value is determined by what he/she does.  When people see work as what defines them, there is often a dissatisfaction with one’s job and a constant effort to “climb the ladder” of success.  Work dominates every waking moment and one is said to be a “workaholic.”

Either of these extreme views of work goes against the fact that God created man after His own image and, therefore, He created man to work.  Work has dignity because it is a reflection of who God is.  Throughout Scripture we see the fact that God is constantly “working.”  In Genesis, He performed six days of the “work” of creation.

Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.  And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.  Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.  Genesis 2:1-3 (NKJV)

The Psalmist continually praised God for His “works.”

Say to God, “How awesome are Your works!…Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men.           Psalm 66:3,5

O God, You have taught me from my youth; And to this day I declare Your wondrous works. Psalm 71:17

Jesus also was known for His “works” while He lived on earth.

And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples. Matthew 11:2 (NKJV)

In order to fully understand what it means to be human, every person must realize that God created man to work.  This is seen in Scripture by what is referred to as the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28.  Here we find God telling Adam and Eve to …be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…  This is actually God’s job description to man.  Nancy Pearcey explains it this way in her book, Total Truth.

The first phrase “be fruitful and multiply,” means to develop the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, “subdue the earth,” means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, and compose music. This passage is sometimes called the Cultural Mandate because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures, build civilizations—nothing less.

From his very beginning man was created to work.  One of the primary goals of education must be the effort to guide a child to understand the gifts and talents that God has created in him/her and to develop those talents and gifts.  When this is accomplished, the child can then become sensitive to God’s call on his/her life.  By answering God’s call on their lives our children can then perform work in order to fulfill God’s will for them.

The problem Christians face today is that we have lost the idea of vocation when it comes to work.  This loss has evolved over many years.  The progression that took place in how work is viewed goes something like this.

Work is God’s Call became Work is a job to be blessed by God which then became Work is a job to get ahead and is now seen as Work gives one the ability to consume.

Tim Keller wrote a powerful book, Every Good Endeavor.  In his book, Keller addresses the need to regain the concept of work being a vocation to which God calls a person.  He writes:

We must recover the idea that work is a “vocation” or calling, “contribution to the good of all and not merely…a means to one’s own advancement.”…To one’ self-fulfillment and power…Something can be a vocation or calling only if some other party calls you to do it, and you do it for their sake rather than your own.  Our daily work can be a calling only if it is reconciled as God’s assignment to serve others.

Kevin Swanson explains how a biblical view of work should guide the education of our children when he writes in his book, Upgrade: 10 Secrets to the Best Education for Your Child:

Everybody is gifted and has a purpose in God’s world…Each child has a specific calling, framed by his unique talents and abilities…The challenge of the first eighteen years of a child’s education is to find that calling…A fulfilled life will be determined by whether he/she has centered in upon his or her life calling…A successful education is achieved when a child is prepared to make maximal use of his God-given talents and abilities in the accomplishment of the child’s calling.

In his book, Designed for Dignity, Richard Pratt states:

By filling and ruling over the world, we fulfill our true purpose in life.  We reach the heights of dignity because we represent and extend the authority of the King of the universe.

Let me close with a statement made by Puritan theologian and writer William Perkins.  He wrote,

The main end our lives…is to serve God in the serving of men in the works or our callings.

There a couple of questions we need to answer.

1. How do you view work?  Is it a burden or a blessing?
2. How can your work be done in order to fulfill the cultural mandate?
3. How are you modeling and teaching the next generation that man was created to work?