When we share knowledge with children, we have the wonderful opportunity to make sure it is knowledge worth sharing. We learn in Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 

When I write history, I tell about many of the bad things that have happened in the world, but I also get to tell about true, honorable, right, pure, and lovely things. I get to tell about excellent things that people have done. That is part of history, too.

Surely there are few parents who don’t at least wish their children could get a good education. For so very many parents, a good education for their children is far more than a wish. They sacrifice greatly to give that to their children. 

Sadly, sometimes parents sacrifice a truly good education for a poorly defined “good education.”

Sometimes the push to get what the academic world calls a good education puts children at risk spiritually. What God calls good can be far different from what the parent hears is good from whatever source the parent is hearing.

I one time read a curriculum review of a secular homeschool curriculum. My heart sank. Homeschooling is too wonderful an opportunity to waste. Why would a parent who can prepare a child for life–and life after death–settle for preparing him or her only for this life? 

Why?

God makes a distinction between learning that is good and learning that isn’t. Not all knowledge is created equal. Knowledge is good if it is . . . well . . . good, if it is knowledge that builds up and leads to righteousness and goodness.

As we learn in Ephesians 5:8-10:

. . . for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. 

In 1 Corinthians 8:1, Paul warned the Corinthian Christians that knowledge can “make arrogant.” In 1 Timothy 6:20, he wrote:

O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge”— which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. 

When thinking about a good education, let’s make sure we use God’s definition for good.