Christian Education Is for All

We live in a culture where people are turning away from the truths of God’s Word. The pressure on our young people to conform to anti-scriptural ideas and morality is tremendous. The television programs, movie subjects, and advertising are symptoms of this pressure. Since we cannot keep the world’s view away from children and young people, the need for Christian education at all age levels becomes insistent.
Over the past three issues, the editorials in the Lutheran Sentinel have dealt with the need for Christian education—at Bethany Lutheran College, Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary, and Christian day schools. It was not my intention to create an editorial series, yet the subject of Christian education is vital for the Lutheran church and for our Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
Many other Christians have lived under similar circumstances of growing indifference to the Bible. Just 200 years ago, the Enlightenment—a philosophy that claimed to know the laws of nature and concluded that God was not needed—destroyed the faith of many people in Europe and America. Today the church is challenged by post-modernism—a philosophy that rejects all claims of absolute truth and divinely revealed truth. Many young students who once trusted in the Bible have succumbed to this philosophy and live as their own gods of truth. Yet they live alone, unanchored and drifting in a raging sea of unbelief.
God has given the Church only one “weapon” to counter the false assumptions of the unbelieving world—His holy, inerrant Word. The Bible is not to be used as a weapon to kill opposing ideas, but as a light that shines in the darkness to point the spiritually blind to know the truths of God’s salvation, grace, and mercy. Through that Word, the Holy Spirit works to enlighten hearts to know the depravity of their sinful natures and to believe in the salvation that Jesus won by His life, death, and resurrection.
The Bible is clear so that even a small child can know that God loves him and that Jesus died for his sins. The Bible is rich enough that through a lifetime of study a person will never plumb the depths of the riches of God’s mercy and revelation.
Christian education in God’s Word is an absolute necessity for all believers. Before Moses died, he spoke about the necessity of education activities: “Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul…. You shall teach them to your children…, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them” (Deuteronomy 11:18–21). Note the dual emphasis of activity—lay God’s Word in our hearts and teach it to the children. You know what happened to the people of Israel when they failed to do this (see Judges 2:10–14).
We live in a world filled with secular ideals, wicked lifestyles, ungodly temptations, substance and human abuse, and self-centeredness. The devil finds more tools with which to corrupt minds, tempt to sin, and destroy faith. Only through a diligent and continual study of the Bible—personal reading, family devotions, public worship, Bible and confirmation classes, and Christian education in our schools—will we be prepared to resist the fiery attacks of Satan, to avoid the temptations of the world, and to remain steadfast in the faith.
Consider how Jesus spoke about Christian education: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31, 32). The word “abide” means in Greek “to make your dwelling with.” Jesus wants His children to dwell constantly in His Word. Only then will they remain in the truth about God, sin, death, God’s love, Jesus, salvation, faith, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, eternal life, and Jesus’ return in glory.
The Internet allows us to learn about many things. We can find an answer to almost any question. But only the Bible—God’s inerrant Word—will inform us about the salvation God provided for us in His Son, Jesus. We should always thank God that He revealed in the Bible how He accomplished our salvation through Jesus.
Theodore Gullixson is an ELS pastor emeritus living in Mankato, Minnesota.