Avoiding Wolves

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.  Ephesians 6:4

Sometimes I can’t believe my ears.  I love to talk so I get into conversations easily.  I was talking to a woman today for the second time.  We had met because of her profession and found some time to chat as we worked.  

It became obvious from her conversation that she was a Christian and today she said that her daughter is in kindergarten in a Christian school.  We talked about the school and the transportation a little.  Then she said, “We expect to keep her in Christian school until fifth or sixth grade and then throw her to the wolves.  She’ll need to learn to deal with the world sometime!”

My response was mild.  “Well, you can evaluate that as you go along.” She immediately said, “Not that we keep her sheltered now.”  She was finished what she was doing and so the conversation ended there.  If things go as expected I should have a couple of more opportunities to talk with her.  One of the things I want to ask her is why she would ever throw her daughter “to the wolves!”  And, in addition, why not shelter a 6 year old for a while yet?

 In Matthew 10:16 Jesus says to His disciples, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.  Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”  So, if her daughter is in Christian school until she finishes sixth grade I am pretty sure she will still be as innocent as a dove – not that there aren’t some bad influences at Christian schools, but how many seventh graders do you know who are as shrewd as a snake?

The words that the Bible uses to describe wolves and their behaviors are “tearing their prey, they shed blood and kill people” in Ezekiel 22:27, they are fierce in Habakkuk 1:8, ferocious in Matthew 7:15, and they are savage according to Acts 20:29.  If people have these tendencies or behaviors why would we ever send our children among them? 

There seems to be this thinking in the Christian church that if our children aren’t exposed to the behaviors of the world that they will never be able to defend themselves or their faith as they get older.  I just don’t believe that.  The more they know of their own faith, the more secure they are as they grow then the more capable adult they will be. 

Satan deceived Eve in the garden making her believe that if she ate of the fruit that God had forbidden that her eyes would be opened, “and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So, Eve ate and Satan was right, she learned about good and evil by experiencing it.  Do you remember what it brought?  Shame, guilt, and separation from God – she and Adam tried to hide from God in their shame.  Is this what God wants for His people?  Is that what you and I want for our children?

Romans 16:19b says, “but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.”

Please hear me that I do not think that every teacher in the public school system is evil.  I know some wonderful teachers, many are Christians, who work hard and care deeply about the children they teach.  But the system is corrupt.  The NEA has become a political machine fighting against godly causes and working hard to keep God’s name out of the buildings – no less the curriculum. 

Our own government has placed so many teaching mandates on the teachers that they are helpless to deliver all that is required.  The system is so corrupt in the financial realm that the teachers have to help support their own classrooms.  It isn’t that there isn’t a lot of money in the system it’s just that the laws about how it can be spent favor the system – not the children. 

The Bible doesn’t call parents to raise children who will fit into this world.  We aren’t called to teach them about sexual perversions (my son was taught the “facts of life” with AIDS teaching when he was nine years old – without warning parents first!),  evolution rather than creation, anti-Christian philosophies, or history revised to back a political agenda. 

Wherever we choose to educate our children, our call as Christians is to raise them in the training and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).  We are to teach them Biblical truth and point them to a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  When He sent grown  men out into the world Jesus warned them about the wolves.  We need to make sure that when our kids get into the world that they are secure and knowledgeable enough to deal with the wolves from a Biblical worldview.

Say whatever else you will about the public schools, our children will never find that Christian worldview inside the walls of an anti-God, government school.