"Learn not the way of the heathen"

Jeremiah. 10:2a "Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen" (KJV).

The Hebrew word translated in Jeremiah 10:2 as "heathen" is Goyim. The Hebrew word can be translated as "heathen," "people" or "nations" and refers to non-Jewish peoples -- the Gentiles or unbelievers. We can understand the passage this way:

The Lord commands us not to learn the ways or customs of those who do not believe.

Young's Literal Translation has it as "Unto the way of the nations accustom not yourselves"

Do believers really need any other argument to pull their children out of the pagan public school system? The Lord has explicitly commanded His people not to learn the ways of those who do not believe in Him - this is exactly what the statist, humanistic, anti-God, public school system is doing. It is teaching your children the ways of the heathen.

Don't believe me? Read their words, written by their own pens:

Charles Francis Potter, signer of the Humanist Manifesto and author of Humanism: A New Religion, wrote, "So Humanism is not simply another denomination of Protestant Christianity; it is not a creed; nor is it a cult. It is a new type of religion altogether." Potter also directed attention to the battleground where the humanist religion dominates ? the public school system. Potter said,

"Education is the most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday Schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?"

... "Humanist educator John Dewey [father of modern progressive education], also a signer of the Humanist Manifesto, called for a new humanist religion in his work A Common Faith.

http://www.contenderministries.org/humanism/humanismreligion.php

This is not simply a natural "evolution" of education as might be claimed. It is a direct assault against God, Christianity, and your family.

In 1897, John Dewey wrote that the teacher is always "the true prophet of the true God, and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God." (Lawrence A. Cremin: Public Education, p. 76f. via R.J. Rushdoony in his The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum, p. 175) But what "God" and what "kingdom of God" is Dewey talking about? Is it the God of the Bible? The answer is an emphatic "NO!" His idea of God is the union of the "ideal" and the action or experience which supports the realization of that ideal - the human experience. In his A Common Faith, Dewey writes:

The idea of God, or, to avoid misleading conceptions, the idea of the divine is, one of ideal possibilities unified through imaginative realization and projection. But this idea of God, or of the divine, is also connected with all the natural forces and conditions - including man and human association - that promote the growth of the ideal and that further its realization. We are in the presence neither of ideals completely embodied in existence nor yet of ideals that are mere rootless ideals, fantasies, utopias. For there are forces in nature and society that generate and support the ideals. They are further unified by the action that gives them coherence and solidity. It is this active relation between ideal and actual to which I would give the name "God." I would not insist that the name must be given.

(John Dewey, "Faith and its Object," Abridged from A Common Faith, http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/dewey.html)

His god being now the creation of man's own experience as he works toward realizing his own ideas, Dewey destroys any foundation for the existence of an absolute truth. By defining God this way, Dewey has created a god who is constantly evolving as man's ideals change and as he experiences new ways to actualize these new ideals.

His philosophy, his god, has actualized into what we see today in public school system:

• Moral Relativism (no absolute truth - no ethics or morals - no fixed standards)
• Academic Dumbing Down (everyone must be equal - lowest common denominator)
• Far-left Programs/Socialism (cradle to grave security - complete dependence on the State)
• Near Absence of Discipline (No concept of real authority)

20 years ago, parents would have been appalled at the idea that the State owned their children, now many are appalled at the thought that the State does not and should not own their children. "Yes," many of today's parents would say, "parents have certain responsibilities toward their children, but in the end it is the States responsibility to feed, educate, train and employ them."

But what does God's Word say?

4 "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut. 6:4-9, NKJV)

We are to teach our children. And what are we to teach them? "These words which I command you." We are to teach our children to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." We are to teach our children that Jesus is the King which rules and has dominion over all things.

9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9-11, NKJV)

We must teach them that since God created everything, they must understand all things according to how He defines them in His revealed Word.