“Any education that ignores or omits God
cannot impart real knowledge and thus
misses the point of all life for “from Him and
through Him and to Him are all things.”
of his teaching then becomes of paramount importance.
An education without a focus on Christ, who is the Truth
and the very source of knowledge, simply amounts to the
student’s acquisition of facts and information—knowledge
to be sure—but very limited in scope and not constituting a
sure and enduring knowledge. 7
Knowledge Inseparable From God
exists in logical form with rules and order (Ps 119) to allow
communication, a function of God’s Trinitarian nature, and
meaning, part of God’s sure and enduring purpose. Even
geography boasts of the preeminence of Christ in all things,
as Jerusalem and thus the nation-state of Israel, God’s chosen
instrument to bring the knowledge of God to the world (Isa
49:1-7), exists “at the center of the nations” (Ezk 5:5).
Education is the process of instructing or teaching.
Indoctrination is deliberate education into a particular
teaching (i.e., a doctrine), and it occurs through the educa-
tional process. Indoctrination into falsehood constitutes a
working definition of brainwashing. However, indoctrina-
tion into truth brings clarity to reality and leads to life. In
fact, for the Christian, indoctrination is commanded (Eph
6:4). 6 The failure of parents to indoctrinate their children
into truth will simply give someone else the opportunity to
indoctrinate them into something other than the truth. This
is critical considering the sobering reality of Jesus’ words in
Luke 6:40, “Every student, when he is fully trained, will be
like his teacher.” The teacher, his character, and the substance
So, if knowledge begins with God, and our teaching should
be “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4),
then how is this done practically and with everyday objects
and events? Is there a moral relevance?
Take a pencil for instance. How do you know how long
it is? If you compare it to a paperclip, it is long; to your
arm, it is short. So how do you know its length? The only
way to ascertain real and useful knowledge (in this case
and in general) is to compare the pencil to a standard: a
reference that does not change, like a ruler. Interestingly, all
science (which means “knowledge” or “to know”) is based
on measurement, 8 and all measurement is based on the
concept of standards as the basis of knowledge regarding
the measured entity. 9
Imagine a room without windows. Knowledge of time
is perceived by the hands of a clock moving against the
backdrop of a stationary (reference point) face. 10 Outdoors,
knowledge of time is perceived by comparing the position of
the sun in the sky with reference to the horizon, which is for
us, a fixed and unmovable point. How does a student know
if they’ve passed a class? They reference a standard grading
scale that does not change. Knowledge of personal identity is
based on who your parents are, an unchangeable fact. The
list could go on. Practical knowledge, whether it be physical
or nonphysical, is ascertained via comparison to a standard.
As is evident from Einstein’s theory of relativity, estab-
lishing an unchanging reference point, absolute in all
circumstances in the natural universe, is not possible. Given
a Big Bang and an evolutionary unfolding of the universe,
by definition, nothing is stable. In an evolutionary universe
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