The series is going to be called Trivium and Scripture. Now, Trivium, anybody know what that word means or what it refers to? Yes, Bear? The three ways. Tri is three and viem is ways. And what are the three ways of the Trivium? Anybody know? What's that? Ah, that's the Trinity. Yes, it does have the tri part. That is correct. Tri, unity, three persons, one God. So trivium is grammar, logic, and rhetoric. It's a system of education in which, as a child's mind develops, so the curriculum develops. Little children from their infancy are learning a whole new linguistic system. They have to memorize lots of facts. They have to memorize specific words about people, colors, things. And the hardest thing in the human mind to do is to memorize a whole new linguistic system. And that's what every infant does. from their conception until they're about maybe three or four years old. They're memorizing. So they're very good. The brain is very good at memorizing. And historically, in the trivium, that's called the grammar phase. Now we think of grammar as like, okay, subject-verb agreement, and you've got a subject-verb direct object, you know, that kind of grammar. But grammar just means the basic thoughts or it means your grandma. One of the two. So the basic thoughts or the basic truths of any subject of information is the grammar of that topic. The second phase is called the logic phase. And this is where a child's mind goes from memorizing facts to asking questions. And the questions tend to revolve around, why is that the case? They want to know, okay, I have all these facts you've taught me, mom and dad. What are the reasons for those facts? Why is this the case? Why does this happen this way? What's the relationship between this fact and that fact? And they start trying to put together a coherent whole of the facts that they've learned. That's the logic phase. And the human mind develops exactly in this manner. It's not airtight, but it's basically infancy to four or five years old, maybe sometimes six. Then they get into this questioning phase, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. But then they're wondering, how do I fit all these things together? And then there is what they call the rhetoric phase. That's the third phase of the trivium. And this is where someone becomes more creative. They become more interested in persuading other people. This is usually around the teenage years. They want to be able to say their case, argue their case, persuade others, present information. They might put it in writing. They might put it in verbal communication. But this is like declaring the truth that you learned the logic of, that you learned the grammar of. And that's how the human mind develops. Very good memorization in the early years, then moves into the questioning and the logic of things, the inner relationship, what are the fallacies of reasoning, what are the arguments that can be used, what are the definitions of terms, and the inner reason of those facts. And then behind all that is the facts themselves. Now this trivia model, it's extremely important to understand, this is what gave us men like William Shakespeare, this is what gave us the Renaissance man, this is what gave us the most literate generation of Americans after Noah Webster. They started their children in grammar, then moved them to logic, then moved them to rhetoric. And then the classical liberal education, you guys ever heard that term? It has nothing to do with being a leftist, by the way. It has to do with being free. So the classical liberal education is the free man's education. If you want to be a free man instead of a slave, you have to do grammar, logic, rhetoric, and then four other ways, the quadrivium, they called it. And this would include, first, the trivium, then arithmetic, which is the logic of the divine mind as it relates to numbers. Second would be geometry. This would be the divine mind as it relates to the spatial realm. So you've got numbers, you've got space, and then you have music, the logic of the divine mind as it relates to sound and to timing. because that's what music is all about, sound and timing. And then finally, the fourth phase of the quadrivium would be astronomy, or the divine order in terms of the planets and the fixed stars. So the classical liberal education starts with the trivium and then does the quadrivium, or the four ways. First three, grammar, logic, rhetoric. Last four would be arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. And after those basic skills were mastered, then they would do what they called the practical skills. And that would be something like, now I'm going to study law, or I'm going to study medicine, or I'll study theology. So all of the education for a classical liberal education was identical from ancient Greece until the 19th century, that's how everybody did it for a classical liberal education in Western civilization. So if you were a theologian, if you were a politician, if you were a doctor, if you were a lawyer, you had all the same stuff up until you were about 17 or 18 and then you worked on your doctoral degree. And they were usually done with their masters by the time they were 13 to 18 years of age. And they were way better educated than our master's degrees are right now, by the way. And I'll get into that. But these practical skills would build on top of the trivium and the quadrivium. And by the way, the trivium method can be repeated with any new topic that you could learn. So let's say the practical skill that someone did after they finished their classical liberal education, let's say it was goldsmithing. That was the practical thing. Well, they could take the trivia model, grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and they could use that to do architecture. They could use that to do theology. They could use that to do painting. They could use that for anything. Because once you learn the method of how to learn, you can learn any topic that you choose. And that's where the Renaissance man came from. He had been trained grammar, logic, rhetoric. Then he had learned the quadrivium, these basic topics of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Then he learned his first practical skill and then he repeated and started over. Then he went to the next skill and started over. Then he went to the next skill and started over. And he could do that. That was very easy for him because he had learned how to learn. Now, in the modern idea of education, we don't learn how to learn. We learn how to regurgitate. It's almost like it's an extended grammar phase for the entirety of your education, where the whole testing, the whole point of the testing is, can you regurgitate what I told you? I don't want you to know the logic of the facts. I don't want you to be able to present and persuade. I just want you to be like a baby your whole life and just learn how to regurgitate. So understanding how the mind of man develops, grammar, logic, rhetoric, patterns, education, after how God made the mind to work is very interesting. I believe, this is my view, that the Bible itself follows the trivia model, grammar, logic, rhetoric. And what do I mean by that? Well, let's start out with there on the first part, section two of your handouts. How is the trivium or this model of education related to scripture? Well, the first relationship, because so far all I'm arguing for is that naturally we observe that the mind develops a specific way. What does that have to do with the Bible? Here's the first. Grace perfects nature. We were just talking about this earlier. One of the basic errors of our day is that people don't believe that there is a nature. Or if they do, they think of it in terms of change. But biblically speaking, nature is how God made the world. That cannot change. It does not change. It will not change. How God made the world is how he made it. And consequently, when the grace of the gospel comes along, Is God going to take nature and throw it in the trash? Is he going to take nature and diminish the power of it? Because many people, you say, mm-mm, but you would be surprised how many people unwittingly think that's the case. We were talking about borders. Borders represent the Sixth Commandment, and they represent the Fifth Commandment conjoined together. Respect for lawful authority, we call it your fatherland, right? Because these are the people that you're part of. And there's a line drawn around that says, we own what's inside of these lines. You know what communists don't believe in? Ownership. which is the sixth commandment, the order of nature, and therefore borders represent the sixth commandment. Mine and yours, and there's a line between them. You can't come on mine without my permission. So anytime you have people flooding our southern border, you know what they're saying? I'm a communist. I don't care about the sixth commandment. I'm going to walk into your property without your permission. That's what they're saying. So they're saying, I'm lawless, I'm wicked. And by the way, the Church of Rome teaches them that. They teach them that grace abolishes or diminishes the duty of nature. Prime example of this, the law of nature says don't make any graven images, doesn't it? How many graven images do you find in a Roman Catholic church? I mean, it's everywhere. It's all of their worship is consumed with these graven images. So their premise for worship is grace abolishes nature. But God doesn't teach that. So for example, Genesis 1, 26 and 27. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. This is the basic order of nature. Man reflects God's nature. That's the thing about man that's unique. And this is true of male and female. We reflect something that is truly infinite, which is God himself, in a finite capacity. We're not infinite, we're not all-knowing, we're not all-powerful, but we have a specific nature that's like God's nature, so much so that the whole created order, God said, I'm gonna put you in charge of it. I'm gonna give you dominion. That doesn't mean the same thing as stewardship, by the way. Dominion and stewardship, people often confuse those because they don't like the idea of dominion. But the Bible teaches dominion, which is lordship. That means you own it, you rule it, it's under your control. It's under your power in that sense. And many people, because they watch too many Disney movies as a kid, they think, oh, animals, they're like humans. No, they're not. They're not like humans. We shouldn't think of them as humans. We shouldn't feel about them as we feel about humans. They are under us. We have dominion over them. Just as God has dominion over man. There's a lordship. There's a chain of authority in other words. So God made us like him. And then Ephesians 4. This is extremely important. This was part of how Paul preached when he went around the ancient world preaching the gospel. Listen to what he says. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." The Apostle then goes to talk about several of the Ten Commandments. Verse 25, he mentions the Ninth Commandment. Lie not to one another, because you're members of one another. You're not to speak lies, you're to speak the truth. Then he talks about the Sixth Commandment. If you stole, steal no more. Rather, work with your hands so that you have whereof to give to him that has need. Verse 28, he talks about the Eighth Commandment. Actually, sixth commandment is the idea of murder. Eighth commandment, the idea of stealing. And then in verse 29, he deals with the third and the ninth commandments. Again, bringing us back to slander, bringing us back to speaking reproachfully of God's name, taking his name in vain. The whole point being that when Paul envisions what does the gospel mean, he doesn't truncate it to just mean the forgiveness of our sins. Because he says you have not so learned Jesus. You have not so learned our Lord Jesus Christ. If you understand the truth as it is in Jesus, it entails more than the forgiveness of sins. That we would call justification. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. That is one aspect or benefit that God gives to his people. When we believe in Christ, God forgives our sins. He also imputes the righteousness of Christ so that my record is not my record anymore, it's his record. God looks at his record and says, has this man obeyed? Well, let's see, what did Jesus do? Did he obey? Okay, well then I count that as your obedience. That's one aspect. The other is, well, I have actually disobeyed and that's where our sins are nailed to the cross and they're forgiven us. Is that the gospel? Certainly. Is that all that the gospel teaches? Certainly not. Because beyond the doctrine of justification is what we call sanctification. What the New Testament refers to as holiness. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. So yes, you must have your sins forgiven. But James says, if you want to prove that you actually have your sins forgiven, that you've actually been justified, that you actually believe the gospel, how are you going to do that? Are you going to show me by just telling me you believe? or by your works, exactly, and that's sanctification. So here the focus is on sanctification, but look, look at what he says. He says in verse 17, I testify this in the Lord. So he's speaking as an inspired apostle, very seriously to them, making a testification to them, like he's witnessing in court to them. that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles. Well, how do Gentiles walk? How do they live their life? Not the steps of their feet, but the steps of their life. How do they do it? Look, vanity of their mind. And the vanity is the concept of something that doesn't fulfill its purpose. What did God make our mind for, in other words? Gentiles have no clue. When we're in the flesh, when we're outside of Christ, when we're not renewed in God's image, we have no idea what our mind was given to us for. And all the thoughts that we think are vain, pointless, useless. This is why many people give themselves over to lives of pleasure-seeking, because their mind is vain. They cannot think. But how did God make us? He made us in the order of nature to think, to reason, and to have purpose in our mind for our thoughts. So that we could, one, know God. Two, know his creation. Three, know our duty in light of what God has given us in his creation. He goes on and talks about their understanding being darkened. He is focusing on the mental process because this is the basic problem. The basic problem with Gentiles is their mind. The mind is what we reflect from God. The body and the affections that is what we reflect from beasts. So we share kind of a medium position between the angels who are strictly spirits and the beasts which are strictly bodies and affections. We are kind of a blend you might say. And in this way, the Gentile is without understanding. He does not have light in his understanding. And because of the status of his mind, he's alienated from the life of God through the what? Ignorance, right? His lack of knowledge about God and his things alienates him from the life of God. That means that if you want to be reconciled to God, what do you need? Knowledge. You have to have the knowledge of God revealed in the scriptures. All this to say Gentiles are against nature. Christianity and the gospel, what does it do to nature? Restores it. restores the mind, restores the understanding, reconciles us instead of being alienated from the life of God through ignorance, through the blindness of their heart, we are reconciled to God through the knowledge of Jesus Christ. That's why he says, you have not so learned Christ. Some people say, well, You can learn about God or you can know God. You can know about God or know God. The Bible never distinguishes those two. The Bible makes those the same. If you know about God, you know God. Because the knowledge that we have is the means by which we get out of the darkness. that nature is restored. The whole superstructure of the gospel is built on the foundation of nature. God is restoring the natural order. He's restoring his image. But the Gentiles, as we all are by nature, are darkened in their minds. Vanity of the mind, alienated from the life of God. And because of that, He says, being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. The moral problem starts with the mind problem because the moral problem, the conscience. Anybody know where we get that word conscience from? What's the root? Con. What does that mean? With, that's right. And what is science? Knowledge. And it's the same in Greek. Soon Edison is the Greek word. Soon is together with and Edo is to think in your mind. So the conscience in the Bible is that thing that goes along with your knowledge and it's like a moral judge based off of the knowledge that you have. So God informs you with knowledge and the conscience says guilty or innocent. and it even tells you in the future this is what you should do and this is what you shouldn't do based off of the knowledge that God has revealed to you or if you've suppressed the knowledge of God you become past feeling and you give yourself over to what? lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. I'm unclean, I'm filthy but I want more. So he says, you have not so learned Christ. I didn't teach you, Paul says, that grace abolishes nature. I didn't teach you that the gospel is against the law. I didn't teach you that you can act like an animal because Jesus died on the cross, in other words. I didn't teach you that you can be ignoramuses because Jesus saves us from our sins. I didn't teach you any of that. So then he goes on. If so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, that is the fallen nature, put it off, kill it, put it to death as we read in Romans 8. And then he says, that corruption of the old man is because of those lusts that lie to you. They tell you that things are true that are actually lies. Deceitful lusts, they promise you things. And then it turns into ash in your mouth when you take the forbidden fruit. It doesn't bless you, it curses you. But it promises so much, it's a deceitful lust. And then he says, that you be renewed in the spirit of your, what? mind. I did a bible exam one time in a missionary training course and they said they were misquoting Romans 12 to see if we'd notice it. And it said that you should be transformed by the removing of your mind. But it's actually in scripture it's the renewing of your mind and this is what he's talking about. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Okay so here we see that the renewal of the human mind is the perfection of God's original order. It's the renewing of his image. It's the recreation of us in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and our dominion over the creatures through that knowledge. That's what he's saying. Okay, and then Proverbs chapter 9 verse 10. This is a very familiar concept, very familiar verse. But notice here, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Now, the holy there, usually in the Proverbs, you have parallels that will help to explain, well, what is it talking about? What is the holy? Well, it's the Lord. What is the fear of the Lord? And it's the beginning of wisdom. Well, it's knowledge and understanding. So it's giving us to understand that the fear of God entails knowing things that God has revealed. It entails understanding and that the principle point of man's wisdom consists in knowing the fear of God. Now when we hear the fear of God, We think of lots of things. Some people think, well the fear of God is against the love of God. That's based off of a misinterpretation of 1 John. Where he says, perfect love casts out fear. The word there is not phobos, which means to have reverence or fear for someone. It's trauma, the idea of fear in 1 John. So if you expect to be eternally punished, that means you don't have the love of God in you. That's what he's saying. But the fear of God is that you receive his commandments and you submit yourself to them. You respect what he says are the household rules. Just like if you reverence your father, honor thy father and thy mother, fear your parents, in other words. And the Bible enjoins that of both father and mother. Let every man see that he fears his mother and his father. Cursed is he that setteth light by his mother or his father. Set light by thy mother, not important. So this idea of fear is reverence. God gives you a law, you obey it. God gives you a promise, you believe it. God issues a threat, you tremble at it. That's the idea of the fear of God. And he says that that is the beginning of wisdom. That's like the first lesson, the first building block. If you don't learn the alphabet, you can't write. That's the first, the principal point of writing is learning your alphabet. Well, what's the principal point of wisdom? fearing God. Okay, now, because the point of education is to restore our humanity, the idea of a classical liberal education is to restore what is lost in our humanity, let me ask you a question. What has to be the principal point of the curriculum? in light of what we've just seen. What is it that can actually restore human nature? What is it that can restore the mind of man to its proper function? Well, it's obvious. It's the fear of the Lord. And only the fear of the Lord can restore to us the beginning of wisdom. It's only by learning Christ that the mind can go from vanity and futility and darkness and uncleanness From that to putting on the new man. The only thing that can do that is the gospel. The only thing that can do that is the fear of the Lord. That's it. Everything else is pointless. Everything else is vain. Everything else is an exercise in futility. So that's the first point. The grace of the gospel restores nature. It doesn't abolish it. Now another point here is that nature includes the skill of thinking. That's the next point. Nature includes, human nature in particular, includes the skill of thinking. Colossians 3 verses 9 and 10. Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Notice there, knowledge. That's the image of God. Have you ever noticed that birds don't have universities about humans? whereby they describe the behavior of humans and they have great books written with pictures taken because they figured out how to make a photograph machine and how to print out these pictures of humans. You ever notice they never did that? And they don't have little surgical centers where they dissect humans and look into their bowels and their heart and the function of their eye and they don't sit there and observe humans and write books about it. You know who does that? Humans about birds. Why is that? Well, because in the order of nature, who is it that has dominion? Who is it that's created in the image of God and who is not? Well, I can tell you this much. Birds are not created in the image of God. They don't have knowledge. They don't have the capacity for this kind of understanding that he's talking about. And I'm merely illustrating with natural things. Go to the next step, supernatural things. Go to the next step of God the Creator. Birds have no knowledge of these things. They are what we call brutes. We'll look at that in a little bit. Alright, now John 1 verses 1 through 5 and then verse 9. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Verse 9, that was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Okay, now this is an extremely important passage for many reasons. And usually we think of it in terms of Jesus being fully God, right? And that is true. That's what he's saying. That's the foundation for the gospel is that God took on flesh. So here he starts us with that. Then he talks about how Christ pre-existed the created order. And that everything that was made was by him. In other words, the Logos. He's the creator of all things. And then he states it negatively. Without him was not anything made that was made. So he states it positive and negative, which is for the sake of emphasis. just so it drives home. Then it says, life was in him and that life was the light of men. That's a very interesting phrase, a light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness. Remember what Paul said, the vanity of the mind, the darkness and futility. Here is the light of all men shining in darkness because man does not understand And then it says in verse 9, that was the true light, referring back to the Logos, the light of men, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And there cometh is a reference not to the light, but to man. Every man, in other words, that comes into the world. They're both, what is it, accusative, masculine, singular. It's a direct object. Christ is the light that enlightens this object and this object is every man that cometh into the world. So there is a specific relationship between the image of God and Christ himself. Christ is the light that enlightens human nature. Therefore, back to the idea of education, can you be enlightened without a Christian education? No. All you can be given is further darkness. That's all you can ever get. So the grace of the gospel perfects the nature that God created. And actually we've been looking at this in our series on Romans that I'm preaching through Romans 8 right now. You find that even the created order is expecting to be restored in that original order that God made. So the whole creature groans and travails like it's giving birth to a second heavens and a second earth that Peter talks about. Why? because God in the gospel is restoring nature. He's going to restore the whole heavens and the earth. He's going to give us a body that is immortal and incorrupted. It's going to be the same body you have, just like the heavens and the earth are going to be new. It's not like God's going to trash the first one. No, he's going to renew it. He's going to fix the problem, not going to abolish it, just like he does with our bodies. Okay, so Christ the true light that lightens every man. So the image of God is a specific reference to Christ himself as the Son of God and as the Lagos. which is word, it's translated word. But that word Lagos can be translated as a sermon, as a discourse, logic, reason, accounting, reckoning, like all the ideas of rationality. Ratio is the Latin translation of the word Lagos, or word here. So there is this rational principle of the universe, but it's actually Christ himself. He is the rational principle of the universe. Therefore, all education that takes place outside of Christ is cursed. And that was the motto of Harvard when it was founded. Cursed be all education outside of Christ. That's what they believed. That's what they practiced at the beginning of Harvard. Alright, then we'll conclude this part of our series with 2 Peter chapter 2. verses 10 through 12. Peter says, but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise governments. Now, remember we were talking about the early heretics in the church. That's what he's dealing with here. They're saying the fifth commandment doesn't apply. And the seventh commandment doesn't apply because, and these are false teachers in the church, they're in the church, they're pastors, they're elders, they're teachers, and they're saying these things. They live in this fleshly way, Peter says, just like there were false prophets in the Old Testament. He said, so there'll be false teachers among you. And this is what they're going to say. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities, whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural, brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption." Okay, now speaking against someone is contrary to God's law. Did you know that? If you speak against God, it is blasphemy against the 3rd commandment. If you speak against your neighbor, it is a 9th commandment violation. You are bearing false witness. You are maliciously abusing their name. If you speak evil against the dignity, it is against the 5th commandment. So you see, false teachers will say that the law does not apply. The fear of God is trash. Don't don't worry about that. That was for the Jews. And then notice he says, verse 12, but these as natural brute beasts, this word brute, extremely important. A Logos, that's the Greek word. Without what? Logos, right? Without rationality. That's what a brute is. They lack the capacity for rational thought. In fact, those who denied that Christ was God in the early church, they called them the olagoi, the irrationalists, because they asserted no logos. They said, the logos isn't part of the Godhead. So the theologians made a joke and said, you are olagoi. But here Peter says, when you have this false teaching that the grace of the gospel abolishes the duties of nature, that the idea of being obliged to obedience to God is abolished through the grace of the gospel. He says these are like animals that cannot think. They're moved by their passions because that's what a beast is, right? You set food before a hog. What does he do? Does he stop for a moment of silence to give thanks to his creator for all the blessings that he's been given? No. Rushes on that feed, doesn't he? Like a brute. Because that's his nature, isn't it? He's not created in the image of God. So, of course, he's made to be taken and destroyed, right? That's what you do with animals. Contrary to Disney, Peter has the sense to say, you take an animal and you destroy it. You know, you bleed it out, you gut it, skin it, take the meat, cook it up. You take them and destroy them. That's how these are. But notice, their false teaching is that grace abolishes nature. Now, I wanted to say one book recommendation. It's called Education, Christianity, and the State by a gentleman named J. Gresham Machen. And in this book, he actually delivered before a committee of the Senate of the United States as to why there should be no nationalized Department of Education. And if you have an opportunity to read this, you realize that this guy was like a prophet. Not in the sense of speaking things futuristically, but in the prophetic sense where they would declare the word of God, and they knew the Bible so well that they could tell you, if you go down this route, here's what's going to happen to you. This is exactly the moral order of the universe. God has determined that you're going to destroy our nation, that you're essentially going to turn us into a totalitarian state, that everything will go to the lowest common denominator, and that this society will be addicted to pleasures, and nobody will be able to think they will become a lagos. They will become brute beasts. They will be made to be taken and destroyed, and they will utterly perish in their own corruption. He's basically saying that, not in so many words, but he was presenting this before the Senate. And what he says, this is extremely interesting, he gets into the necessity of the Christian school, that's chapter 5 of the book, and that's exactly what I've been talking about. We must understand that when we educate a child, or an adult for that matter, if we're going to educate, this is interesting, to educate means to lead out. Dukkari is to lead, like a duke or a duct, like a duct is a pipe that leads somewhere. So e is out of and dukkari is to lead. So the exodus is the way out and the process is called education. So the book of Exodus is a book about education. And what's at the center of the book? God's law, the 10 commandments. Right smack dab in the middle. Here's your education. The fear of the Lord is the principal point because it's the first table of the law, isn't it? No other gods, no graven images, don't take his name in vain, remember the Sabbath. That's the fear of the Lord, in summary fashion. There are all sorts of other commands that fall under those four categories. Okay, well then what's justice? Well, honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, et cetera. That's part of the fear of God because we obey the second table for the sake of the first. The fear of God is what leads us to love our neighbor. So if we're going to have education, can you have secular education? Can you bring redemption and deliverance by means of mere worldly philosophy and thoughts? No, you have to have a greater than Moses, which is Christ, and you have to have the law of God written upon the tablets of the heart as Solomon commands his son, listen to the wisdom I'm giving you, write it upon the tablets of your heart. So education literally requires Christianity. And what Machen argues in this is that if you're going to institute a secular form of education, Essentially, what you're going to do is destroy this nation and turn us into a bunch of lawless brutes. Guess what happened? Oh, isn't that interesting? Exactly what he said. To the point that now, if you look at the landscape of the teachers' unions that were built on the back of this federal program that he's speaking against, you find that they are the most beast-like, lawless, rebellious, and some of them claiming the mantle of Jesus. You were talking about this. People say Jesus believes in no borders. You know what they're saying? Grace abolishes nature. The ownership of specific lands, that doesn't apply anymore because Jesus died on the cross and rose again. That's what they're saying. And that border means thou shalt not steal. You don't come on my land without my permission. If I invite you, that's fine. If you ask may I come and I say yes, that's fine. If you trespass on my land, you're committing an act of thievery against my property. Okay, so that's true on a national scale too. And so Jesus doesn't say, oh, let's get rid of the order of nature. That's what the false teachers say. They turn Jesus into a communist. And if they try to use Jesus at all, it's to promote their wicked, godless, evil, brute-like teachings that somehow grace abolishes nature. Whereas true education, a true philosophy of Christian education is the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. God made us in his image and the goal of a true education is to restore that person in the image of God and then to equip and train them so that they can exercise the gifts that God has given them in the context of the fear of the Lord. Alright and that's it for our first