Tim Euler

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?

One of the most important aspects of understanding what it means to be human is to grasp the reality that God created man to worship.  When we hear the word worship today, many Christians immediately think of a style of music in the church.  However, worship has a much deeper meaning than just one part of a church service.  Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines worship as to adore; to pay divine honor to; to reverence with supreme respect; to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission.  Another definition that combines all of these aspects of worship together states,

To treat someone or something with the reverence and adoration appropriate to a deity.

Man has an unending desire to want to worship something or someone.  This desire is rooted in the fact that God created man in His own image.  In doing so, God instilled into man a need to worship someone or something outside of man’s own physical existence.  When one reads about how God created man, he/she finds insight into this unquenchable desire for worship.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.  Genesis 2:7 (NKJV)

Man was created distinctively different from all other creatures.  The distinctive difference is found in the truth that God actually breathed His supernatural breath into man.  The result is that man is a living soul.  Of course, this would cause Adam and Eve to only worship God prior to the Fall.  After the Fall, man was still a living soul.  However, with man being separated from God and man’s spirit dead in sin, man had a vacuum in his soul that must be filled with something.  Even though man is born a sinner, he still has a desire to worship.

God knows of man’s created desire to worship and that, because of sin, man will focus his worship on something or someone other than God.  Whatever is worshipped apart from God that cannot satisfy this longing.  That is why God’s first instructions to Moses was that Israel was to only worship God (Exodus 20:3-4).  When we think of idol worship in the OT, we think of images carved out of wood, stone or metal.  “Modern man” thinks that he is too sophisticated to worship mere tangible objects.  However, today man still worships false gods.  The objects of many Christians’ worship today are things like power, appearance, wealth/possessions and, even, education.  The truth of the matter is that every person has to worship something.

The reason why this is so important is that we will become like what we worship.  Lambert and Mitchell in their book, Reclaiming the Future, state,

…all people serve some ‘god’ or ‘gods’ in their lives and in turn are transformed into the image of their gods.

This truth is emphasized over and over again in Scriptures as is seen in this passage.

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.  They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes they have, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear; nor is there any breath in their mouths.  Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them. Psalm 135:15-18 (NKJV)

I recently read an article by Tim Tomlinson about how easy it is for man’s worship to become misplaced.  Tomlinson was reflecting on what took place around the world when rock music artist, Prince, died.  He stated,

His [Prince] death dominated the news at every level — nationally, regionally, and locally.  There have been hundreds of “live” reports given from the various locations associated with him.  Billboards throughout Minneapolis are paying homage to him by flashing his image and the symbols he used during his career to establish his “brand.”  Radio stations have interrupted their regular programming to play Prince music non-stop for days.  Interviews with weeping and distraught fans have been aired and printed in the local media.  There have even been god-like references made about him such as: “On Prince we trust” or “Hail to thee, Prince.”

The article went on to state,

What this all points to is our innate human desire to want to worship something or someone.  It is a God-given impulse that is good and right and satisfying — but only when it’s directed toward the one true God.

We say that, as Christians, we worship God, but do we?  If someone could only look at our calendars and checkbooks, would it reflect that God is the only focus of our worship?  When you and I evaluate what we think about the most and what captivates our imaginations, dreams and plans, would it point to true worship of God?  We cannot forget that the Bible is full of warnings about worshipping idols:

..if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. Deuteronomy 8:19 (NKJV)

Are we guilty of idol worship?  Are we treating someone or something in our lives or in our schools with the reverence and adoration appropriate to a deity other than God, Himself?  We have been created to worship and what we worship, we will become!

A person will worship something, have no doubt about that.  We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will come out.  That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character, therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping, we are becoming.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

In order to fully grasp what it means to be created in the image of God, we must understand that God created man for relationship.  The doctrine of the Trinity is a crucial foundation stone of Christianity.  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate persons in the Godhead.  I cannot fully understand this reality with my finite mind.  However, I can understand that God is a relational God.  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have always and will always be in perfect fellowship with one another.  In Genesis 1:26, the Father tells the Son and the Holy Spirit let us make man in OUR image.  Since God is a relational God and man is created in His image, then man was created to relate!

There is something inside each and every person that causes us to want to be with other people.  Loneliness is one of the leading causes of depression, addiction and suicide.  In fact, many of the people who have carried out horrific acts of mass murder, do so because of bullying that isolates them from meaningful relationships.  I find it intriguing that even when a person wants to do something wrong, he/she often wants others to join in with him/her.  Many of the Proverbs warn us about not joining in with others who want to practice wickedness.  Those who want to do wrong always are trying to entice us into joining them.

Of course, God’s first reason for creating man to relate is that we might enjoy a personal relationship with Him.  When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid themselves when they heard the voice of God walking in the Garden.  The Scriptures record that God was searching for them.

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.  And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?  Genesis 3:8-9 (KJV)

Sin broke the relationship between God and man that was the fundamenta reason why God created man in the first place.  Even though Adam tried to hide from God, God searched for him and restored Adam into a relationship with Him.  This is the very reason why God’s Son gave His life on the cross for man’s sin.  It was to restore man’s relationship with God.  In fact, that is what eternal life is really all about.  It is not merely being saved from Hell and saved to Heaven.  It is about knowing God.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.  John 17:3 (KJV)

Not only does God want to have a relationship with every one of us, He also wants us to live in fellowship with each other.  Man is not designed to live life alone.  In fact, after God had declared His creation to be very good, He stated that something was not good.

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18 (KJV)

God then formed Eve out of Adam’s side so he could live in relationship with his wife.  Marriage, the family, church and community were designed by God for relationships to flourish.

When Jesus was asked what was the most important commandment in life, His answer gives priority to the fact that being human means understanding that we were created to relate.

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:36-40 (KJV)

To be human is to understand that we were created to reflect and to relate.  Here are a couple of questions that I have to ask myself on a regular basis.

1. Is my relationship with God a true measure of how He created me to relate?
2. How does my relationship with my wife demonstrate that I have been created to relate?
3. How does my relationship with my children show them what it means to be created in God’s image?
4. Do I love all people as I love myself?
5. How does understanding that I have been created in the image of God for relationships answer many of the issues facing society today?