The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Can Christians Send Their Children To Public Schools？

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

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00:00:21.080 Hi, this is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries,

00:00:23.560 and you're listening to another episode of our show called Questions.

00:00:26.700 Today's question is as follows.

00:00:28.520 can Christians send their children to public schools? Can Christians send their children

00:00:34.200 to public schools? The answer is no. Thanks for tuning in. The answer is no, but I'll flesh it

00:00:40.060 out a little bit more. Matthew 22, verses 17 through 21. Matthew 22, verses 17 through 21

00:00:47.220 says this, tell us then what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But Jesus,

00:00:55.160 aware of their malice, said, Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the

00:01:02.380 tax. And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, Whose likeness and inscription

00:01:09.020 is this? They said, Caesar's. And he said to them, Therefore, render to Caesar the things

00:01:16.100 that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Whose image is on the coin?

00:01:25.160 all the way 2,000 years later, and in our culture on the other side of the world,

00:01:30.160 still to this day, when it comes to our currency, whose image is on the coin? Whose image is on the

00:01:36.940 dollar bill? Caesar. Washington. Benjamin. But it's Caesar. It's man. It's the civil magistrate.

00:01:48.340 it's the civil officer the ruler but it's man the answer is man well then render to man render

00:01:57.940 to caesar render to the civil magistrate what belongs to him but render unto god what belongs

00:02:05.860 to god i think that we could very easily look at this text and just ask one further question

00:02:13.840 Jesus said, whose image, whose inscription, whose likeness is on the coin?

00:02:18.980 Caesar.

00:02:19.440 Then render it to Caesar.

00:02:21.860 But what if we asked whose image is on your son?

00:02:26.580 Whose image is on your daughter?

00:02:30.360 Whose image is on our children?

00:02:34.160 Are our children made in the image of Caesar?

00:02:37.320 Or are children made in the image of God?

00:02:41.200 Jesus says, render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but render unto God what belongs to God.

00:02:48.060 Whose image is on our children? It is God's. Who do our children belong to, therefore?

00:02:53.460 It is to God. So when it comes to their education, who do we render our children unto?

00:03:02.140 God. Public schools, we must never forget, are state schools. Who is the head of the state?

00:03:10.620 Caesar. When you send your child to a public school, you are sending them to a state school,

00:03:17.180 and our state has a religion. Our state has an ideology. Our state has a philosophy,

00:03:23.920 and it is not neutral. It is not morally neutral. And our state has a ruler, namely Caesar. So when

00:03:33.140 we give our kids to public schools, we are giving them to state schools. Who runs the state? Caesar

00:03:38.920 runs the state. We are rendering our children to Caesar. It is one thing to pay taxes to Caesar

00:03:44.460 because Caesar's image is on our coin. It is quite another thing to pay the cost of our children

00:03:51.300 to Caesar. Caesar's image is not in our children. It may be on our coin. It may be on the dollar

00:03:59.040 bill, but it is not on our sons and daughters. Our sons and daughters were not made in the image

00:04:03.760 of Caesar. They were made in the image of God. Therefore, we must render them to God. So in

00:04:08.740 terms of education, we must render them to a Christian education, not a state education run

00:04:16.220 by Caesar, but a Christian education that is submissive to the will and commandments of God.

00:04:25.500 And listen, there is a difference between Christians in education and a Christian

00:04:32.040 education. Rendering your children to God in regards to the category of their education means

00:04:39.300 rendering your children, handing them over to a Christian education, not a state secular pagan

00:04:47.380 education where certain Christians happen to be employees, aka, well, Joel, I'm in this certain

00:04:53.940 town in Texas or in Idaho or in Arkansas, and there are a lot of good Christian men and women

00:04:59.260 who work at our public school. Yeah, Christian men and women, God bless them, but Christian men

00:05:05.220 and women in your public school teaching your children a state education, because that's their

00:05:12.220 job. And if they are faithful to go against the secular indoctrination that the state demands,

00:05:20.840 then guess what they won't be doing for much longer? Working at that public school.

00:05:26.300 they will be fired promptly. So, there may be Christians in public education,

00:05:34.500 but those Christians in the public school are not giving a Christian education. They are Christians

00:05:41.140 in education giving a secular education. Because if they were Christians in education,

00:05:46.980 in state education, giving a Christian education, they would be what we might call unemployed.

00:05:51.920 the state would not tolerate that caesar would not tolerate that so when you send your kids

00:06:00.960 to public school you are sending them to state school the state is run by caesar you are rendering

00:06:06.500 your children who bear the image of god not caesar they bear the image of god but you're rendering

00:06:11.620 them to caesar you must render them to god and in terms of their education that means giving them

00:06:17.140 a Christian education, not just surrounding them with Christians in education, but a Christian

00:06:22.340 education. That means a Christian worldview. That doesn't just mean a Christian portion

00:06:30.120 of their lesson plan, right? 30 minutes of their daily lesson plan is about the Bible.

00:06:36.000 That's great. Do that. But it also means, and then we go to literature and math and science,

00:06:41.760 And all of these things are taught with a Christian foundation, with a Christian worldview.

00:06:48.840 They are being given a Christian education because in that way, by giving our children

00:06:54.540 a Christian education in the realm of education, that is what it looks like for us to render

00:06:59.000 our children to God.

00:07:00.300 And they belong to God because they bear God's image.

00:07:03.900 Our money may be made in the likeness of Caesar, but our children are made in the likeness

00:07:09.540 of God.

00:07:10.380 Thanks for tuning in.

00:07:12.440 Thanks so much for listening, but real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment,

00:07:17.980 and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly the best way that

00:07:23.680 you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible. Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - May 13, 2022

QUESTIONS - Can Christians Send Their Children To Public Schools？

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