“For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” (Proverbs 2:6)
Martin Luther wrote, “I am much afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engrave them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount.”
Luther’s fear was well-founded. Today, many public schools, especially universities, have become gateways to the most insidious philosophies, including Darwinism, the woke movement, Critical Race Theory, gender transition, virtually anything non-Christian, and all under the cap-and-gown guise of academic freedom. And far too often, Christian students in these anti-Christian environments find themselves marginalized, intimidated, ridiculed, and in some cases, unsuspectingly indoctrinated.
Not that such indoctrination is inevitable or that universities have nothing of value to offer. They do. But they can also be places dangerous to faith. And to be forewarned is to be forearmed. In the words of C.S. Lewis: “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”
King Solomon was one of the wisest, wealthiest, and most powerful men to ever live. Under his rule, Israel reached its zenith, enjoying forty years of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Yet what did Solomon want most for his children? Not fame or fortune or power; rather, wisdom; a wisdom which Solomon unequivocally associated with wisdom from God. And so he wrote, “For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” (Proverbs 2:6)
At times, wisdom is equated with intelligence, age, experience, academic institutions, postgraduate degrees, or individuals like Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Einstein, and Hawking. However, virtually every Bible word for wisdom , from the Hebrew hochma to the Greek sophia , has the sense of prudence and discernment, that is, possessing the knowledge required to determine right from wrong. Is this type of wisdom taught in institutions of so-called higher learning, where truth is fluid, not absolute; where distinguished professors can no longer define the difference between males and females?
As Solomon taught, true wisdom, knowledge, and understanding come from the mouth of the Lord, that is, from His holy, infallible Word. Unlike the wisdom of the world’s best and brightest, God’s wisdom never changes. It is as absolute, infallible, and unchanging as He is. “I the Lord do not change,” He declares in Malachi 3:6 (NIV). Therefore, there is no uncertainty in the Scriptures between right and wrong, male and female, marriage and divorce, heterosexuality and homosexuality; about who we are and where we came from; about the source of all ills and the source of all contentment; and especially about how God views sin and how God saves sinners. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 NIV)
Indeed, where worldly knowledge is horrifically dim—origins, ethics, salvation, that which lies beyond the grave—the Bible is brilliantly clear. From cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation, the Bible’s answer to all the nagging questions of human existence is unwaveringly the same: JESUS CHRIST “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge .” (Colossians 2:3)
Remember: At best, worldly wisdom is changeable; at worst, it is destructive. By contrast, God’s wisdom is unchanging and infallible. To which should we entrust our children?
Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:15, “From infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (NIV)
This, dear reader, is the HIGHEST form of education.
is a professor at Immanuel Lutheran College in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.