Education and the Bible

Pictures placed in this article were taken during a trip in April 2018, when the junior and senior class of GLBA visited Washington DC

Tyranny by either government or clergy has always been preceded by an attack on two things: education and the Bible. God Himself declared that it is from Him that we understand the basis of knowledge.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." (Proverbs 1:7)

God is not scared of an educated person. God is the Creator of education. Why would He be scared of it?! Many "scholarly" people would try to convince us that Biblical Christianity is based on ignorance, but this is just not the case. History would tell us that the great inventors and explorers of the past were also devout Christians. It was in fact the Bible that gave Christopher Columbus the idea that the earth was round. According to his own testimony he simply read it in Isaiah 40:22 "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth..."

It was also because of daily studying of the Bible that the famous oceanographer, Matthew Maury, first discovered predictable currents in the oceans. Mr. Maury set out on a life-long journey of discovery that started while meditating on Psalms 8:7 "The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas."

Again it was Christian doctors in the 19 century that finally proved the medical world to be wrong in the dangerous practice of "blood-letting." For centuries physicians had erroneously believed that disease and sickness could be "let" out of the body by bleeding off a portion of the "infected blood." In fact, many doctors today believe that significant blood loss due to blood-letting may have been the official cause of death for George Washington. What finally convinced doctors of the incredible importance of blood to human health and life? The Bible of course! Doctors decided to take God at His Word when He said, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood..." (Leviticus 17:11) and thus the demise of a dangerous medical practice.

So does God want ignorant and unlearned robots as followers? The unsaved might want to convince us that this is the case, but where would the world be if not for Bible-believing Christians? Though many would cry that God is not the author of education and man has a higher priority on education than God does, history would show us that there has never been a tyrant that didn't rise to power on the backs of an ignorant people.

History SHOULD know Adolf Hitler as nothing more than a radical and a criminal, but because of the lack of the Bible and the lack of education, a whole nation applauded as a tyrant set up the one of the most cruel and oppressive government our world has ever known. To fuel the senselessness, the current forms of education were demolished. On May 10, 1933 in Berlin, Germany, over 20,000 books deemed "unGerman" were burned. This also included the Bible. This might explain how a self-educated, high-school dropout could seize the most powerful position in the country. The “Hitler Youth Organization” began educating youth and Germany was exposed to the sharpest and quickest educational decline in its history. Hitler put his educational beliefs best when he was quoted on the subject, "My program for educating youth is hard, weakness must be hammered away. In my Ordensburgen (special Nazi colleges) a youth will grow up before which the world will tremble. I want a brutal, domineering, fearless, cruel youth. Youth must be all that... The free, splendid beast of prey must once again flash from its eyes...That is how I will eradicate thousands of years of human domestication...That is how I will create the New Order."

Pictures taken at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC

Hitler and colleagues also wrote up 30 articles for his new established state church, the "National Reich Church." These articles called for "immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany" declaring that the "Fuehrer's (Hitler) 'Mein Kampf' is the greatest of all documents."

Hitler is just one example of tyrants thriving on ignorance and the lack of God's Word. History is very clear that the Bible and education make the best people in the world and that a lack of the two plunges a people into darkness. Certainly, the greatest period of ignorance and oppression in human history is a time that we know as the "Dark Ages." This is a period that lasted from the 5th century to roughly the 15th century. This was a time when poverty and oppression were high and education and Christianity were at all time lows. Politically, this era was marked by power-grabs, cruel dictatorships, and the rising and falling of empires. The factors that would eventually bring Europe and much of the world out of this darkness was the revival of the idea that every man, even the common man, should have a copy of the Bible and that men should be educated to be able to read that Bible. Such men as John Wycliffe began to tirelessly work to translate the Bible into the common languages of the day. Up until that time, the leaders of the state church were insistent that the Bible stay in Latin, a language in which only a few select clergy were educated. Another very important event was the invention of the movable-type printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg. Now the Bible and other books could be printed, quicker, easier and cheaper. For the first time in history, the Bible and many other books were being put in the hands of the common people. This catapulted Western civilization out of the Dark Ages and put Europe on a path to being the leader in education, politics, power, and Christianity.

Pictures include an Erasmus Greek New Testament, a Coverdale Bible, and the Bible on which Abraham Lincoln took the Inaugural oath on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. The Gutenberg Bible and the picture of the students was taken inside the Library of Congress. Notice the inscription above the students. It reads, “The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.”

Clearly, the Bible liberates people. It does not put them in bondage. We can see the incredible importance of the Bible and education in our society. History proves that if we are to remain a free people, then we must embrace the Bible and put a high priority on education. The Bible and education must go hand-in hand. This is why I believe in biblically-based education, for if the Bible and education are paramount to our society then the best environment for education would be one where the Bible is taught as fact and as the literal Word of God. The Bible must be the basis of education, for history has proven that if it is not, the liberties and freedom of that people are at risk to tyrants and dictators.