Thoughts about education.

  While thinking about countries that have some limited access to education, such as, India, and, probably, many others and thinking about Latvia, where it seems like people study until they are old. In Latvia education is everything - people study in universities to get a diploma, they study what they do not like and may never use in their work life, just to BE SOMEONE, as if education turns them into someone! It sounds a little bit absurd. There is a saying: "Knowledge turned monkey into a man". But we know it is not true. It is written in first chapters of Genesis (1:25-27) that on the fifth day God created animals and on the sixth day He created a man - a man and a woman.

  So it seems, the thought of the time of so called "enlightenment" rules in Europe - knowledge makes you better. Knowledge is a value in itself. But what does it give? Really, what universities are all about? You know how to read books and write well, you have much knowledge in your head (at least till the moment when you have to write a test, often times it disappears not long after). What really was this time of "enlightenment"? It was a time, when people stopped thinking about God as an over all authority over everything, an authority that everyone in the end will have to give and account to, and started to see humans as a value in themselves. What did it lead to? Schools without God - children are tough evolution, public prayers are forbidden, and, the list goes on and on.. And, are schools really that well off without God in them? - bullying, drugs, disrespect for the teachers.. we all know these things!

Back to the idea of the "enlightenment", that most of the so called "developed" world lives on - that knowledge is a value in itself. What does God has to say about it? Is knowledge the goal? Did God became flesh to give us more knowledge? Jesus says:  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." (Matthew 7:24) Knowlege is benefitial only when it is put into practice.

   What all about the glorification of education? Sin started with a desire for more knowledge. In Genesis we read that in the garden there was a tree and the one who will eat from eat will KNOW good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17)

    We should seek to know the things of God (Colossians 1:9) and to know more the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18), not things of this world. This world will soon pass with all the wisdom that it offers
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness” (1Corintians 3:19)

   What does it give if children know how to read, but do not take to heart what they read in the Bible and do not repent? What does it give if person finishes, school, then get one diploma, another one? What do people have if they gain the whole world but forfeit their soul? (Mark 8:35) What can a person give in return of a soul lost (Matt16:26) - diplomas? good marks?

  As a conclusion, I do not want to say that education is a bad thing in itself, let's just seek the real things - Christ, seated at the right hand of God (Ephesians 1:20) and HOLD ON  the MESSAGE OF THE CROSS "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)