The Best Education

2 Tim 3:13-17

 

1. A new school year 2007-8 has started, whether back to school or newly admitted. Our church also starts a new school year for our Sunday school and Korean language school today. I hope that all our students would be successfully educated both in school and church. Far eastern peoples are eager to learn, because education is regarded as the necessary and best way for successful life. Historically, it is the influence of Confucianism. Lao-tzu insisted a natural life without artificial shaping by education, but Confucius thought that human nature should be restored by the learning of the heavenly will, because uneducated human is barely distinguished from animal. China, Korea, and Japan adopted Confucius as their teacher, and therefore only the educated have been honored in those societies.

2. In the West, education and science have been well developed mainly by the influence of Christianity. Not only European universities of long history but also American universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have been started by churches. Christianity is the religion of education, because its life depends on studying, teaching and learning the revelations of God both in the Scripture and nature. So, church practiced and encouraged education.

3. But, in the beginning of 20^th century, some American churches had a serious doubt on the so-called high education and some anti-intellectualism movement arose and sent their children not to colleges but to Bible institutes. Even though such movement is now weakened and changed Bible institute to college, still more than one million students are not sent to regular school but taught in home mainly for religious reason. It was because a serious question arose about the essence of good education. The best education was regarded simply as educating in the most prestigious and famous institutions. But, because such schools lost the most important goal of education to “make human being” and replaced it with more secular goal to “make technical machine,” our education is in crisis now.

4. Whether we are educators or students, we should not forget why we teach and why we learn. Even though this is technological era and we need skills and data to survive this society, still we have to ask ourselves what should be learned before learning such skills and data. What kind of education really makes our life successful? What is the best education that we can get and we can give to our beloved children?

5. According to the Scripture today, the best education for human being consists of four essential elements. First, it teaches truth. Bad education is described in v. 13: “evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” Good teachers are honest and humble to teach only what they know sure with clearly limiting their teaching in the proper circumstances, not insisting their hypothesis, theory, or imagination as truth. Bad teachers pretend like omniscient god. No human knows the origin or destiny of the universe. No human can prove that there is no god. Accordingly, bad education is “deceiving and being deceived” as a result. It is like the blind guiding the blind. Such academic pride goes “from bad to worse” today. However sophisticatedly their teaching is expressed, it is a bad education to teach atheism or evolutionism, nationalism or racism, pride or elitism, materialism or human ideologies. Such an education, however long and much, is useless but harmful, because it is “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.”(7) Only God is the truth, and His Word is true. Any education in opposition to God and His Word is a bad education of deception.

6. Second, it gives true wisdom. Good education gives not only knowledge but also wisdom. But there are many secular kinds of so-called wisdoms that are in fact foolishness. True wisdom is the wisdom to save oneself and others from wrongdoings and sinful life. Bad education gives bad wisdom for self-glory and self-destruction. True wisdom is to make one humble and submit to the will of one’s Creator that he or she lives by obeying and following the purpose for which God created him or her, denying one’s selfish ambition or sinful desires. The Scriptures “are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”(15)

7. Third, it develops morality. Whatever education one got, if one has no moral integrity and pursues selfishly sinful life, such person got a bad education. However high education one got, if one is so selfish to have good relationship with other people including one’s own family and so undisciplined in word and deed, such person got a bad education. The Word of God “is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”(16)

8. Finally, it equips to serve for others. The purpose of Christian education is to prepare and empower to love God and love neighbors. Christ died for us “that those who live should no longer live for themselves.”(2 Cor 5:15) In the secular mind, the purpose of education is a better life for themselves. But because it is the way of self-destruction and social discrimination, it is a bad education. The purpose and result of good education is “so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”(17) Our education does not end when we graduate schools. We have to learn until we die. But not all learning is good. Because you are so precious to God, you deserve the best education, better than any famous school in the world! In this season of education and reading, get the best education in the God-breathed Scriptures! Amen.