Merry Christmas! Curriculum (2) – The Law of God and Public Policy: Education (7)

Merry Christmas!

Curriculum (2)

The Law of God and Public Policy: Education (7)

Along with the Word we must also teach children all the works of God.

“When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt.’” Deuteronomy 6:20, 21

Curious children will naturally wonder why we put so much emphasis on learning the Word of God in the instruction we provide for them. The answer, as we have seen, is that we want them to know, fear, love, and serve God so that they might also be able to love their neighbors as themselves and enjoy all the blessings and goodness of God throughout their lives.

This will beg the question of the nature of God and will open the door for teaching all the various works of the Lord as further illustration of His glory and means by which to love Him and our neighbors. The works of God include everything that falls under the rubric of creation, providence, and redemption. Thus, all arts and sciences, history and humanities, study of institutions and culture, all languages and technologies, and much, much more fall under the heading of the works of God. By His works—manifestations of His steadfast love and faithfulness—God enables human beings to know more of His goodness and to express His glory. It makes sense that the more children are equipped for understanding and engaging the works of God, the more they will both enjoy and glorify Him in every aspect of their lives.

“Behold, to the LORD your God belong the heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it” (Deut. 10:14).  God is making Himself and His glory known through the things He has made, and it is the duty of human beings to search out by wisdom all that God would have us to know, and all the good He intends us to do, by entering with Him in the works of His hand.

Today the work of God is denied in all sectors of the public school curriculum. Even in Christian schools, how the Lord’s work of creation, providence, and redemption relates to such subjects as mathematics, science, history, literature, and languages is only vaguely understood and, for the most part, inconsistently taught. We need a more robust approach to understanding the steadfast love and faithfulness of God as these are expressed in all His works and in teaching all the disciplines of the educational curriculum from the perspective of the eternal wisdom and good pleasure of God.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.