NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Can Christians Send Their Children To Public Schools?
Aired: 2022-05-13
Duration: 07:29


=== Rendering Children to God (06:35) ===

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[00:00:21]  Hi, this is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to another episode of our show called Questions.
[00:00:26]  Today's question is as follows Can Christians send their children to public schools?
[00:00:32]  Can Christians send their children to public schools?
[00:00:35]  The answer is no.
[00:00:36]  Thanks for tuning in.
[00:00:38]  The answer is no, but I'll flesh it out a little bit more.
[00:00:41]  Matthew 22, verses 17 through 21.
[00:00:44]  Matthew 22, verses 17 through 21 says this Tell us, then, what you think.
[00:00:51]  Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
[00:00:54]  But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?
[00:01:00]  Show me the coin for the tax.
[00:01:03]  And they brought him a denarius.
[00:01:06]  And Jesus said to them, Whose likeness and inscription is this?
[00:01:10]  They said, Caesar's.
[00:01:12]  Then he said to them, Therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.
[00:01:22]  Whose image is on the coin?
[00:01:26]  All the way 2,000 years later, and in our culture on the other side of the world, still to this day, when it comes to our currency, whose image is on the coin?
[00:01:35]  Whose image is on the dollar bill?
[00:01:38]  Caesar, Washington, Benjamin, but it's Caesar.
[00:01:45]  It's man.
[00:01:47]  It's the civil magistrate.
[00:01:50]  It's the civil officer, the ruler, but it's man.
[00:01:53]  The answer is man.
[00:01:56]  Well, then render to man, render to Caesar, render to the civil magistrate what belongs to him, but render unto God what belongs to God.
[00:02:08]  I think that we could very easily look at this text and just ask one further question.
[00:02:13]  Jesus said, Whose image, whose inscription, whose likeness is on the coin?
[00:02:19]  Caesar.
[00:02:19]  Then render it to Caesar.
[00:02:22]  But what if we asked, Whose image is on your son?
[00:02:26]  Whose image is on your daughter?
[00:02:30]  Whose image is on our children?
[00:02:34]  Are our children made in the image of Caesar?
[00:02:38]  Or are our children made in the image of God?
[00:02:41]  Jesus says, Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but render unto God what belongs to God.
[00:02:48]  Whose image is on our children?
[00:02:50]  It is God's.
[00:02:51]  Who do our children belong to, therefore?
[00:02:54]  It is to God.
[00:02:55]  So when it comes to their education, who do we render our children unto?
[00:03:02]  God.
[00:03:04]  Public schools, we must never forget, are state schools.
[00:03:09]  Who is the head of the state?
[00:03:11]  Caesar.
[00:03:12]  When you send your child to a public school, you are sending them to a state school.
[00:03:17]  And our state has a religion.
[00:03:19]  Our state has an ideology.
[00:03:22]  Our state has a philosophy.
[00:03:25]  And it is not neutral, it is not morally neutral.
[00:03:29]  And our state has a ruler, namely Caesar.
[00:03:32]  So when we give our kids to public schools, we are giving them to state schools.
[00:03:37]  Who runs the state?
[00:03:38]  Caesar runs the state.
[00:03:39]  We are rendering our children to Caesar.
[00:03:42]  It is one thing to pay taxes to Caesar because Caesar's image is on our coin.
[00:03:46]  It is quite another thing to pay the cost of our children to Caesar.
[00:03:54]  Caesar's image is not in our children.
[00:03:56]  It may be on our coin.
[00:03:58]  It may be on the dollar bill, but it is not on our sons and daughters.
[00:04:01]  Our sons and daughters were not made in the image of Caesar.
[00:04:04]  They were made in the image of God.
[00:04:06]  Therefore, we must render them to God.
[00:04:08]  So, in terms of education, we must render them to a Christian education.
[00:04:14]  Not a state education run by Caesar, but a Christian education that is submissive to the will and commandments of God.
[00:04:26]  And listen, there is a difference between Christians in education.
[00:04:31]  And a Christian education.
[00:04:34]  Rendering your children to God in regards to the category of their education means rendering your children, handing them over to a Christian education, not a state secular pagan education where certain Christians happen to be employees, aka, well, Joel, I'm in this certain town in Texas or in Idaho or in Arkansas, and there are a lot of good Christian men and women who work at our public school.
[00:05:01]  Yeah, Christian men and women, God bless them.
[00:05:04]  But Christian men and women in your public school teaching your children a state education because that's their job.
[00:05:13]  And if they are faithful to go against the secular indoctrination that the state demands, then guess what they won't be doing for much longer?
[00:05:25]  Working at that public school.
[00:05:27]  They will be fired promptly.
[00:05:30]  So there may be Christians in public education, but those Christians in the public school, Are not giving a Christian education.
[00:05:40]  They are Christians in education giving a secular education.
[00:05:44]  Because if they were Christians in education, in state education, giving a Christian education, they would be what we might call unemployed.
[00:05:54]  The state would not tolerate that.
[00:05:56]  Caesar would not tolerate that.
[00:05:59]  So when you send your kids to public school, you are sending them to state school.
[00:06:04]  The state is run by Caesar.
[00:06:05]  You are rendering your children who bear the image of God, not Caesar, They bear the image of God, but you're rendering them to Caesar.
[00:06:13]  You must render them to God.
[00:06:14]  And in terms of their education, that means giving them a Christian education, not just surrounding them with Christians in education, but a Christian education.
[00:06:23]  That means a Christian worldview.
[00:06:27]  That doesn't just mean a Christian portion of their lesson plan, right?
[00:06:32]  30 minutes of their daily lesson plan is about the Bible.

=== The Christian Education Plan (00:53) ===

[00:06:36]  That's great.
[00:06:36]  Do that.
[00:06:37]  But it also means, and then we go to literature and math and science, and all of these things are taught.
[00:06:44]  With a Christian foundation, with a Christian worldview.
[00:06:49]  They are being given a Christian education because, in that way, by giving our children a Christian education in the realm of education, that is what it looks like for us to render our children to God.
[00:07:00]  And they belong to God because they bear God's image.
[00:07:03]  Our money may be made in the likeness of Caesar, but our children are made in the likeness of God.
[00:07:10]  Thanks for tuning in.
[00:07:12]  Thanks so much for listening, but real quick, Before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
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[00:07:28]  Thanks so much.