The Idol of Education

I do believe that education is one of the prevailing gods of our time. A great myth is that modern education will provide its beneficiaries with great wisdom, a secure future, as if we can secure our future by hard work. One mark of idolatry is the attitude that something we achieve or acquire will bring us lasting security, contentment, and power. This attitude is often directed toward education. If we just get enough good education, we will be able to have the life we want. We can be in charge of our own lives once we have a degree in hand, and the more advanced the degree, the better. In addition, the myth continues, we can use educational achievement to place ourselves ahead of others. Those with letters after their names are viewed by our society as the ones who are ahead; the ones who are being successful; the ones that we need to listen to, even if that means we need to not listen to what God says at times. There are some professors who, if you forget to call them “doctor”, they about have an aneurysm. You make sure you call them by their official designation which they gained by all of their education!

People are willing to make great sacrifices to gain a great education for themselves and their children. Many go into large amounts of debt to get an education; debt that at times seems to take a lifetime to pay off. Some are willing to work their way through college, making it so that all that it seems they do is either work, go to school, and do homework. Some parents are willing to sacrifice time with their families to go back to school so they can get a better job than they currently have. But at times this comes at great cost. Souls are lost because education becomes such a focus and love in our lives. We can become so distracted by the demands education place on us. We can also be indoctrinated with “knowledge” that contradicts the word of God and is based on philosophies that are ungodly. We may not be passing our children through the fire in worship to Molech, but it at times can be the case that we are in a sense “passing ourselves or our children” through the fire in worship of education and enlightenment. The fire can kill them, especially when they are not prepared for it.

Anything that the world calls “knowledge” that points us away from God or his truth is an idol. It is not truth. It is false knowledge and foolishness. Paul says that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). If we are going to submit ourselves or our children to the American educational system, we need to make sure they are ready for it. They need to have a strong foundation of Biblical truth, and they need to have their own faith in Christ and their own devotion to prayer and studying his word so that they can obey what Paul says in Colossians 2:8:

"See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ."