What Should the Content or Curricula of Education Be?
By Rod Dreher
Rawlings School of Divinity
CLED 720: Biblical & Theological Foundations of Education
Genevieve Hamer
July 7, 2022
What Should the Content or Curricula of Education Be?
Education should found its foundation in the worship and reverence of the Lord:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
—Proverbs 1:7
As for the subjects to be covered, anything good, true and beautiful is fair game. Classically,
students were taught according to the Trivium of subjects, namely Grammar, Logic and
Rhetoric. This format is followed by classical schools today. In my own perusal of Scripture I
found support for inclusion of the following subjects. The list is not certainly not exhaustive but
may be instructional.
Natural sciences. Adam’s first job was to classify the animals. Proverbs 6:6-8 encourages
entomology as a source wisdom.
Biblical Hermeneutics. Jesus says one who has mastered the Old Testament and is also
trained in the New Testament is like a man who “brings out of his treasure what is new and
what is old” (Matthew 13:52).
Philosophy and poetry. The Apostle Paul quotes from pagan poets and philosophers
when he needs to demonstrate a point, indicating the value in this study (cf. Ti. 1:12, Acts
17:28).
Literature. Jude (1:14) quotes from the Book of Enoch, even citing the passage he
quotes as an authority. Paul asked Timothy to bring him his books (2 Tim. 4:13).
Cosmology and Astrophysics. Psalm 19 says that the heavens declare the glory of God.
The study of the heavens ought to aim to find out what the heavens are saying.
History. Scripture is itself a historical text and is filled with commands for God’s people
to “remember.”
Christology and Theology. Jesus tells his followers to teach disciples “All that I have
commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20), just as Paul tells Timothy to pass on “What you have
heard from me” (2 Tim. 2:2) and to “follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard
from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 1:13) .
What Is the Biblical Goal of Education?
Ultimately, the goal is that the student would own his own learning and be able to test
doctrines and studies himself, to discern truth from error. For example, the author of Hebrews
admonishes the Hebrew Christians for their inability to have achieved maturity, calling them
children in need of “milk” (Heb. 5:12).
The Berean Jews, on the other hand, took ownership of their own education and searched
the Scriptures as soon as they heard the new teaching of the Gospel; Luke (the author of Acts)
calls them “noble” (Acts 17:11).
Good instruction is life-giving (Prov. 4:13); as parents we ought to seek to educate our
children in such a way that, when they are older, we will be happy if they stick with it (as they
most likely will according to Proverbs 22:6). We want our children to become the kind of
learners who intertwine their righteousness with their learning and become wiser still (Prov.
9:9).
Ultimately our goal is to ensure that our children are provided with the tools to become
mature and complete through their studies, studies which are rooted in Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-
17) but which branch out into every area of God’s world, and studies which are supplemented
by rigorous testing, which produces maturity (cf. James 1:4).
There are many more passages we could have cited and dissected, but this should at least
provide parents with a framework for thinking robustly, from a biblical worldview, about these
three pertinent questions as they seek to pursue their children’s education in a way that honors
the Lord.
