There’s no doubt about it: education is valuable. In general, more education means more money, greater employment options, and better job security. Even if education in a particular area does not have much economic impact, it still usually improves your quality of life. When you know how to do something, it reduces your frustration and increases your confidence. When you learn basic facts, you are often able to string them together to draw deeper conclusions, converting knowledge to wisdom.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10). You can be very educated, with a lot of useful knowledge, but it does you no good for eternal life unless you know the Lord. Education is valuable, but education for eternal life is priceless.

For eternal life you need to know the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). He made many promises to you, including that your sins are forgiven through faith in him. He proved that all of those promises were true when he rose from the dead. The basic facts of his life, death, and resurrection put everything else you learn in a new and improved light.

Don’t think of Christian education as a Bible class in addition to a regular set of classes that could be found in any public school. Christian education applies the gospel of Jesus Christ in every class. When every thought is taken captive by God’s love in Christ and is made obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5), no school subject is secular.

Applying the gospel in every subject does not come naturally to human beings. It takes thorough training and repeated practice to become a Christian teacher. It is possible to learn to teach a particular subject without God’s Word. One can study methodologies and strategies. But when God’s Word is added, almost everything has to change. The basic premises of the world are turned on their head. Almost every lesson plan is affected.

The gospel also changes the context of education. More money, greater employment opportunities, and better job security become gifts from a gracious God, and not the main point in life. The point of good order in the classroom becomes setting up opportunities to speak law and gospel to students, with the gospel predominating.