The Presidents Speech vs Timothy's Childhood

Unfortunately, many people are dismissing the President's speech to the children on Tuesday as "generic". This is a very sad state of affairs!!! This speech was far from "generic". If they knew the philosophies and ideologies behind the speech, they wouldn't call it "generic" at all.

But, rather than take the time to explain all those presuppositions and then rebut the whole speech, I thought I would show you two quotes from his speech and then contrast that with an example from scripture about what an education should look like. Apart from his 'push for more academics in order to better serve the country', here are two of Obama's quotes...

"Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future."

"Today, I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education — and to do everything you can to meet them."

A contrast from scripture...

From childhood Timothy was taught that God controlled his destiny and God determined 'the goals' for his life. Here are a few other things Timothy was taught…

• Read, meditate on, and master the content of Scriptures.
• Be an example in word, conduct, love, faith, and purity.
• Challenge others who hear the Word to apply it in their daily lives which some times involved rebuke, warning, encouragement, or comfort.
• Not neglect his spiritual gifts.
• Instruct (teach) others boldly and lovingly.
• Shun profane and idle babblings.
• Pray. Fight the battle against the enemies of Christ.
• Lead a quiet and peaceable life with all godliness and reverence.
• Labor and suffer reproach.
• Do nothing with partiality and prejudice.
• Withdraw himself from certain kinds of people.
• Be content and remember the brevity of this life.
• Flee foolish and harmful lusts.
• Not trust in riches.
• Guard the Truth.
• Not be ashamed to name the name of Jesus when afraid of potential persecution.
• Teach other faithful men to teach.
• Be diligent and present himself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
• Avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, which lead to strife.
• Not quarrel.
• Be patient.
• Be ready to preach in season and out of season.

This is obviously not an exhaustive list but it does show the different focus on how and what to educate our children with, as compared to today’s standard for education.

For Timothy’s childhood, eternal values and practical living skills were first and foremost, the academics were certainly needed in order to live out some of these charges but the focus of the education was not in the academics; it was in the weightiness of eternal things.

In today’s society, academics are pushed for the sake of building knowledge so that we can better serve man.

In Timothy’s day, academics seemed to be taught as way to help “conform the children into the image of Christ” that they may better serve the Lord… which in turn does help our fellow man, but in a completely different way.



Well, I hope this helps... If nothing else, I pray it will cause you to dig deeper into the philosophies and ideologies behind government-run education so that you are no longer fooled by smooth words.