We Want Greatness for our Children!

My wife is at a women's retreat, which means that I need to watch the children this weekend. Clearly, I am less skilled at this task than my wife is, for so many unquantifiable reasons. Further, this feeling is exacerbated by the fact that I am less than completely healthy.

At any rate, as I am watching the children, I recognize that the world makes it so easy to pollute their minds early. My friend, Eddie Poole, recently wrote a blog on this concept. The world is quick in its attempt to degenerate our children. And it can be an easy path to go down, but we need to do all we can to protect our children from these inputs.

The problem, however, is that this blatant, overt attack only encompasses a portion of the things attacking our children. There is also the degradation of education, in general, which scares me. Last week, I listened to a lecture by Michael Sacasas about how our society is flattening the education process by turning the quest for wisdom into the quest for knowledge. Further, we tend to flatten knowledge by turning the quest into a quest for information.

Now you may claim that the attack on education is either unimportant or not a big deal. However, I think that it is. In a discussion with Marcus Mennenga recently, we talked about some of the things taught to our kids, even at church. He quibbled with a few songs that aren't teaching our children to be discerning. I think of people teaching my children only part of a Bible verse that strips it of all context.

For example, someone once taught children I Peter 5:7b, "He careth for you." First, I believe that this is a true concept. Psalm 40, in my opinion, fleshes this concept out. I am in favor of teaching this concept to our children. However, to teach them from this verse is like trying to teach someone how great American history is merely by looking at the topography of Detroit. You learn some of the greatness, to be sure, but you miss the big picture.

I Peter is about how to deal with life when it gets tough. The verse itself is within the context of proper leadership being not domineering, clothed in humility, and being watchful. In that context, we can look at the example of the chief Shepherd and how he provides a good example of leadership. The richness of the promise is even more exciting!

Now some may say that this is being too precise. Yet, I think this leads to a society of believers and leaders who do not live up to what they should. The book Why Johnny Can't Preach describes how this relaxed view of education leads to a subculture where we don't even know enough to hold our preachers accountable. And all of this just from my worrying about my kids, hoping that they don't have a terrible future.