A millennium and a half ago Diogenes said, "The foundation of every
state is the education of its youth." Both ancient and modern philosophers
have recognized that education is basic to the making and keeping of any
great and strong nation great and strong. Lowell said, "It is in making
education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all,
that the destiny of the free republic of America was practically settled."
No one can deny that there is a correlation between our greatness as a
nation and our education system. The opposite is equally obvious. In
nations where people are kept ignorant we do not find greatness, nor
anything that is attractive and appealing to man's highest and noblest
desires. In America, however, we find these things such as freedom, rights,
justice and multitudes of opportunities to develop and expand one's life.
Christians cannot doubt, nor can any historian deny that this is due in
large measure to the fact that God's Word played a major role in
America's educational system. The tragedy is that men in their worldly
wisdom have come to the point where they are willing to play the fool and
remove from our educational system any biblical teaching. The removal of
prayer has also made our educational system closed to God. It is the very
foundation that has been removed if our text is true.
Verse 7 cause me to see the whole issue of prayer and the Bible in the
public school in a new light. This verse brings God into relationship with
all knowledge. In essence it is saying that any education that ignores God,
and which does not seek to instill in students a reverence for God, is
merely training then in being more effectively evil with better and more
modern means. Aldous Huxley said, "We have improved means toward
unimproved ends." Maybe what was practiced in many schools before
prayer was forbidden was not too effective, but I can see why even as a
symbol it is important, for to deny God any place in one's education is to
deny that He is important in one of the most important aspects of our life
and nation, and this easily leads to denying that He is of any importance at
all. It tends toward the secularizing of all of life. America could well be
destroying that foundation that made her great.
Verse 7 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge."
The first thing preachers always tend to do is to assure people that fear
does not mean fear, but reverence. This is correct, and it is wrong to get
the impression that we are to be afraid of God. C. S. Lewis reminds us,
however, that it is possible to so water down the concept of fear that it is
useless to motivate us. He writes, "Servile fear is, to be sure the lowest
form of religion. But a god such that there could never be occasion for
even servile fear, a safe god, a tame god, soon proclaims himself to any
sound mind as a fantasy. I have met no people who fully disbelieved in hell
and also had a living and life-giving belief in heaven."
Jesus said, "Fear not those who can kill the body and that is all they
can do, but fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell." Paul
said, "Knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men." Reverence for
God must include the awareness that there is real danger in not walking in
His will. Reverence must never be limited to merely being quiet in church.
Reverence must characterize our whole pattern of life. To fear God is to
live constantly a life that pleases God. Such an attitude, if it is kept
consciously before us, is that determining factor in what we become as
believers. Without this we do not even begin to become what we ought to
be. To fear God is to fear all else less, and this enables one to do what is
best and right without the fear of men that enslaves so many and compels
them to walk in paths that lead to destruction.
Young people who truly fear God will rather disappoint their friends
then Him. They will rather face the disapproval of men than the
disapproval of God. To fear God is the only way to freedom. For those
who do not are bound by their nature and environment to be fools. Only
the believer who is a God-fearer is free to be wise, and to choose a course
of life that bears fruit for time and eternity. The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge. Lord equals Jehovah. It is not just fearing any
god, but Jehovah only. The fear of other gods is the beginning of
ignorance. Volumes could be written on the tragic follies that exist
because men fear false gods. Franklin O. Nelson tells of a 15-year-old boy
who was shot in the leg. He was a Christian boy with a pagan father. He
was taken to the mission hospital and cared for, for 4 days, and then the
father came and took him out to a place where he sacrificed a cow to
appease the evil spirits. Meanwhile he and others had a drunken feast,
and the boy bled to death. Fear of a false god was the cause of this folly. It
is only the fear of Jehovah that has led to all the knowledge that daily
saves people from foolish suffering and death.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. We have made it
clear that fear means reverence, and the Lord means Jehovah, but the
hard part is still ahead. What does it mean that the attitude of reverence
toward the one true God is the beginning of knowledge? The facts of life
compel us to recognize that there are brilliant atheists, learned agnostics
and scholarly skeptics who do not fear God at all. Like the unjust judge in
the parable of Jesus, they fear not God, nor regard man, yet this does not
mean that the judge did not know his law practice. He was, no doubt, an
excellent lawyer, and had a vast knowledge in his field. All godly people
are not learned, nor are all irreverent people stupid. These facts make it
clear that this verse does not mean that without reverence for God men
cannot learn any knowledge.
The Hebrew word for beginning is from rosh, which means head, and
so it can mean either the starting point or the chief point. G. Campbell
Morgan feels very definitely that the proper reading here is chief point.
The Amplified Version combines the two concepts and says, "The reverent
and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning, and the principle and
choice part of knowledge-that is, its starting point and its essence." In
other words, though a man may learn many things, if he does not
reverence God, he remains a fool, for he does not know the most important
thing there is to know in all human knowledge. It is better to know
nothing else and reverence God than to know all else and not fear God.
Faust complains,
I've studied now philosophy
And juris prudence, medicine,-
And even, alas! Theology,-
From end to end, with labor keen,
And here, poor fool! with all my lore
I stand, no wiser than before....
These ten years long, with many woes,
I've led my scholars by the nose,-
And see, that nothing can be known.
He was wrong on his conclusion because he started wrong. He did not
start with the fear of God, and the result was, he ended up with many facts
but no meaning and purpose. The end was pessimism and despair. The
beginning is the only place to start one's education. The Christian is
optimistic and believes man can know much and be very wise, but he must
begin at the beginning for reverence for God. This is the alphabet of
knowledge. Teach a child the alphabet and all the literature of the
language becomes available to him as possible knowledge. When we fear
God, we have the foundation laid on which we can build wisely in any area
of study. The believer is not always the most brilliant in his field, but he
has the most enduring foundation, for when all else ceases to be, that
which he knows endures forever. To fear God then is the chief part of all
knowledge.
Education will not bring men to God, but God brings men to be truly
educated. The Christian has high regard for education, but not a part
from the reverence for God. Horace Mann felt if there were enough
schools there would be no need for jails, but we know this is superficial
optimism based on an inadequate view of man's sinful nature. We must
not react by denying the value of education, but by pointing out what is
missing in such a view, and that is the fear of God. We do not oppose
knowledge and instruction, but we must oppose the attempt to eliminate
the reverence for God from our educational system.
Fools despise wisdom and instruction. This does not mean a fool does
not think he is wise and instructed. He feels just the opposite, for he feels
he is wise and so does not need anything from others. A well known
traveler was on a journey, and he was being bored by a man who forced
himself upon him, and made a great deal of his vast learning. He stood it
as long as he could and then said, "My friend, you and I know all that can
be known." The man smiled with the sense of satisfaction and said, "How
is that?" "Well," said the traveler, "You know everything except that you
are a fool, and I know that." It is important to recognize our limitations,
and not try to talk people into believing we are all knowing. Someone said,
"None but the fool is always right."
The Hebrew word for fool comes from the root for thick brained and
stubborn, but it carries the idea also of moral deficiency. Such persons
laugh and mock at what they do not understand, as if that was proof that it
was of no value. This can be true of the intellectual as well as the ignorant.
The intellectual is often very anti-intellectual in his attitudes toward fields
of knowledge outside of his own. Without the fear of God they become
their own absolute, and they judge all by its appeal or lack of appeal to
themselves.
The fool has said in his heart that there is no God, and the result is
that there is no fear of God, and so even though he may be a learned man
he does not know the alphabet of ultimate knowledge. Thomas Carlyle has
a unique way of saying this. He wrote, "The man who cannot wonder,
who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he president of
enumerable royal societies, and cared the whole of Mecanique Celeste and
Hegel's philosophy, and the epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories
with their results, in his simple head,-is but a Pair of Spectacles behind
which there is no eye." This is but another way of saying that the fear of
the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
