Word of Salvation – Vol. 24 No. 27 – March 1978

 

The Importance Of Christian Education

 

Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk, Th.Grad. on Deuteronomy6:4-7

Scripture reading: Deuteronomy 6:1-15. 

Psalter Hymnal: 172:1, 2, 5; 120:1, 2, 3; 227; 150; 488

 

Our text points us to reflect on the need and importance of Christian Education.  For most of us Christian Education is a concept with which we have become quite familiar.  We have been blessed with a Christian primary and a Christian high school and again most of us are in agreement that such Christian schools are a must.

However, there are disturbing signs in our community that would seem to indicate that, whilst we agree in principle with the need and importance of Christian Education, we appear to have become less dedicated, less enthusiastic, and less prepared to bring sacrifices for this cause.  Some may even resent that the subject of Christian Education is touched upon in the preaching of the Word in Church, assuming that such a topic is best left to the Board of the Association for Christian Education and that it should only come up at an Association meeting of Christian parents.

However, it should be made clear right in the beginning of our preaching this evening that Christian Education is a concept that comes out of God's Word, not indirectly, but directly and even quite forcefully.  One of the most basic passages that deals with education based on Biblical principles comes from this passage in Deuteronomy 6.  And it being very much a part of God's Word, it calls for attention in the preaching of the Word to the Christian Church.

Unhappily, we have slipped into a situation where Christian Education is being taken for granted by many.  In our particular situation, the question is no longer: “When do we start with Christian Education?” for it exists, we have it already.  But the question has become: when do we become involved?  Do we become involved when we have become parents or already before that, while we are still single?  Do we wait until our children are actually going to the school or long before we have children?  And when do we cease becoming involved?  When our children have left the school or when we die?

Actually, we are already on the wrong track when we think of Christian Education only in terms of the Christian School.  Its concept, as our text will show, is much wider, it involves both the home and the Church.

It is also possible that some shrewd minds, and perhaps with a slight cynical touch, regard this preaching with its reference to Christian Education as a calculated attempt to initiate a drive for more members for the Association for Christian Education, and to increase financial giving.  Well, if that were indeed a consequence of this sermon then we would thankfully acknowledge God's blessing upon the preaching of His Word.

But our purpose is not first of all to increase the membership of the Association and to gain more funds, we happily leave that side of it to the Board, but our primary aim and purpose is to face the Church with the teaching and application of this passage so that one and all realise very clearly the importance of Christian Education, and our duty and responsibility that arises from it, which is surely what this text is speaking about.  And may the Holy Spirit so work upon our hearts, through the preaching of the Word, that whatever practical action that is called for in your life and my life, may eventuate.

As we then look at the text we see firstly how in vs.4 Israel is reminded that there is only one God: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord."  There are no other gods besides the One true God Who had revealed Himself to the people of Israel in former times, and now of course to all men everywhere by means of His holy, inspired and infallible Word.

The Bible is the Self-revelation of God to sinful man and it brings us the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.  We cannot hope to find something of God in natural man, or in the various religions, of the world.  God can only be known through His written Word.  And it tells us that there is only one God, there are no others.  And the very first commandment that God gave to Men is that we are not to have any other gods before Him or in addition to Him.

In practical terms it means that we are to avoid and flee all idolatry which is a placing of trust in something or someone else at the expense of our trust in the one true God.  It follows further that we are to confess this one, true God, acknowledge Him, submit to Him alone with all humility and patience, and expect all good from Him only.  We are to obey His call and fear and honour Him with our whole heart.  All that is part and parcel of that simple but profound statement of truth that “the Lord our God is one Lord" and Him only must we serve.

Now if you have listened carefully and are thinking hard, then you will already see how the importance of Christian Education is looming up in front of us.  To do all that this vs.4 implies, to serve this one God only, is far more difficult than what it may seem.  For we do not live in isolation and in a well-protected little corner somewhere, but in a world of sin where there are other things and other people who will seek to impress upon us life-styles and thought patterns that are contrary to God's Word of truth.  There are tempting and enticing alternatives to lead us away from the one true God and into a way of thinking and a way of life that will ruin and destroy us.  It is in the midst of a complex and contradictory world that we have to serve God.

To do that properly and to God's glory and honour, it will need a careful study of God's Commandments for living with reference to all of life.  We and our children will need to be taught how to think Biblically and how to relate to others Biblically.  And that needs nurture and training from a Christian and Biblical basis.

Vs.5 goes on to spell out what it means to have only the one, true God and serve Him only.  It basically sums up the implications of vs.4.  It means to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength and, as it says elsewhere, to love our neighbour as ourselves.

This commandment of love, love to God and to fellowman, is so broad in scope, so all-embracing that it takes a lifetime of Christian Education to work out what it all entails, and even then we haven't understood it fully.  Love is of course the fulfilment of the whole law of God.  And we should not overlook the fact that these words of our text follow on from what was given to God's people in Chapter 5.

There they were presented for the second time with the Ten Commandments in an up-to-date application for their new situation, now that they were about to leave the wilderness and enter the Promised Land.  And we know how relevant the Ten Commandments are to all of life.  Well, all that is summed up in the double commandment of love, love to God and love to neighbour.

Vs.6 goes on to say that this total love is to be a matter of the heart.  "These words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart."  It is a warning not to make the service and obedience to God a mere routine matter.  Your heart has to be in it.  The real you has to be involved, so it isn't to be a mere outward action, done thoughtlessly and automatically.

Now, this loving of God with all its many implications, is not to be a flash-in-the-pan affair.  It requires total dedication at all times, and it involves the whole family, yes, the whole covenant community.

And Father and mother, yes, but also the children.  therefore the parents have to educate and nurture their children in the ways of God for all of life.  Not separately and independently as families but together covenantly.  "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk to them (that is, of these commandments) when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."

It is easily seen that the expressions used here in vs.7 imply that this training of the children by their Christian parents was to go on anytime and everywhere.  Indoors and outdoors, from the time they rise to the time they fall asleep.  The whole community is involved; in fact, the many families have to back one another up in this task.

If we now look at the historical situation that is at the back of our text, then we will see how greatly important it was for Israel to teach its sons and daughters the ways of God and the Biblical lifestyle that went with it.  The context will show that if the Israelites served God truly and obediently then the blessings of the covenant would be upon them.  God would be God to them, and they would be His people, from the older ones right down to the children and babes.  God's presence would be amongst them, He would keep on teaching them the way of salvation through His prophets, priests and kings, and the people would be led by His Spirit and have hearts that were full of love for God and fellowman.

In addition to these spiritual blessings, they would also enjoy material ones.  They would have the fruit of the land and the economy would be sound and no one would need to suffer any material shortcomings.  All this they would receive if they continued to serve God and walk in His ways.  It called for training and nurture in the Lord's ways of all their children at any time and everywhere.  It would be a great blessing for the nation as a whole.  But if they failed in all this, if they forsook the Lord and began to mix their Biblical lifestyles with heathen practices, and so deny their true God and become idolators, and if they furthermore neglected to train the young in the nurture and discipline of the Lord, then God would forsake them, His Spirit would withdraw from them, the way of salvation would be obscured, and they would fall into a spiritual darkness wherein no one would really know anymore what a God-centred lifestyle was all about.  Moreover, the good land would no longer be good to them.  Their crops would fail and materially they would suffer, and the nation was doomed.

Basically two dangers were there all the time:

- First, to turn away from God to man, and this we call humanism;

- Second, to turn away from trust in God to a trust in material things,
             and this we call materialism.

The subsequent history of Israel sadly shows how the twin dangers of humanism and materialism cut them down time and again.

Now we are living in the 20th century, and many years have passed since the time that Israel heard the words of this text for the first time.  But basically things haven't changed all that much.

Is it possible to say that, when you think of the millions of Jews who ended their lives in the gas-chambers in World War II?

Is it possible to say that, when you realise the very real threat of Communism? 

There is still the one, only true God and Him only we are to serve, trust and obey. 

The world of men is still full of different philosophies and ideologies, and we too, as the generations before us, are tempted and enticed continually to try alternative lifestyles to the Christian one.  But the God of the covenant is still the same.  He will still be our God and all the blessings of Christ's mediatorial work have brought the salvation realities ever so near to us.

But we must walk in His ways, serve Him, obey Him from the heart in all of life.  And that too remains a pretty difficult thing to do.  Many are our failures and shortcomings.  But God patiently teaches us through His Word.  We may fail Him but He remains faithful to His Church.  And as parents we still have the duty and responsibility to teach the young in the ways of God in all of life.  We call it Christian Education but essentially it is the same as what those Israelites of old had to do.  Only we live in different times and the world has become more complex and therefore the training programme will have changed, so as to keep God's teachings relevant and meaningful to the present times.

In fact, whereas the Israelite parents of old could do most of the teaching themselves, with the aid of the priest and prophet, we today have had to call in the help of the specially trained Christian teachers, who can, on our behalf, do what we are incompetent to do at home.  Of course the home is not excluded.  It will always remain the basic centre where the children of Christian parents are taught the ways of God for all of life.  And the ways of God do not mean the learning of a few Bible stories and prayers.

No, it means teaching the young the commandments of God and their meaning and application for all of life.  The twin dangers of humanism and materialism and a host of other evils are still very much with us in our present-day society.  So as parents we remain responsible to teach them a Christian lifestyle that can be maintained in all of life.

Life in the covenant and kingdom of God as we live in the world will call for a Christian view of the various jobs and trades that are open to us.  There is a need to be trained in language, writing, reading, comprehending and setting forth of one's thoughts and ideas, also in mathematics, history and a host of other subjects.  But all things are to have a Christian perspective and depth and it is here of course that we need our Christian schools, and competent, dedicated Christian teachers.  And we need to be sure that these Christian schools maintain an educational basis which is not in conflict with the confession of the Church as regards the truths of God's Word.  The Christian home, the Christian Church and the Christian school should not contradict one another, but be complementary to one another.  The one is an extension of the other.

Now, when do we become involved?  We ask as we did in the beginning: when do we become involved?  If we place the Christian school right in the middle of the covenant of grace and the kingdom of God, where it rightly belongs, can we then still play around with the question when do we become involved?  Is there any time that we are not involved with the covenant and kingdom of God?  Do we ever say from such and such a time I will become involved with the covenant and the kingdom?  Not to be involved in those means to be outside of salvation and away from God!

Truly, the question when do we become involved in the Christian school should not really have to be asked.  It is such a vital part of God's kingdom and covenant, that if being a Christian means anything to us, then we should never find ourselves not involved.  Every member of the covenant and every citizen of God's kingdom should always be involved.  It is for the good of the Christian community and the good of the nation.  And involvement means prayer, support and the giving of your time and talent to keep on realising the aims and goals of Christian Education and local school.

It means also that you support the Association financially so that the Christian schools can operate on a basis within the reach of all parents whose children attend.  It means that you don't wait until your child actually goes to the school because there are also other children and people in the covenant community.  There is such a thing as a mutual responsibility to one another and towards our children.  Each time we as a congregation promise at the baptism of a covenant child to so order our life and witness that the child may grow up in the knowledge and love of God and be continually surrounded by Christian example and influence, then we are giving expression to this mutual responsibility.

Christian education in Christian schools is an expensive business, and we should not assume that government support will always be forthcoming.  Therefore from the moment that we begin to earn an income, we may express our responsibility by financially supporting the cause of the Christian school in the covenant and kingdom of God.

The Christian school is so important to the community and nation, that we cannot allow only a few, or only just the parents of children attending, to support the cause, for we may well not be able then to afford it all.  Financially, it may well mean some kind of sacrifice, although honesty would compel us to say that with all the luxuries around us, it is primarily a matter of rearranging our priorities.  But let us be obedient to God and put first things first in all humility.

There should be no room for selfishness in the kingdom of God.

We have a wonderful God whom we may serve in joy and happiness in this complex world with its many dangers and temptations.

Come then, let us put our shoulders to the task and help one another in living God's ways in all of life.

AMEN.