• Does God Approve?

  Good Morning!

  It has been a while since I have written.  April and May are busy months for us at Keepers.  It is a blessing to see how much so many children have learned in the past year, and all that they have accomplished.  Learning is important for them and for us too, but it is important to know what kind of learning is good because all learning is not equal, especially in God’s eyes.

  “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,”  —2 Timothy 2:15.  Well, that sums it up.  The only approval we need for what we learn and study is God’s approval.  If we do not have His approval, we shouldn’t study it.  How much simpler can it get?

  God would approve of study of His Word because there are so many places where He tells us to study, meditate, learn His laws, His statutes, and His judgements.  Yes, even in the New Testament He tells us to keep His commandments.  We should study His Word, all of it.

  God would approve of the study of creation, for all of His creation brings glory to Him.  Science is a testimony of His wondrous mind and creativity.  Good English skills allow us to read His Word.  Good Writing skills help us to influence others for His Kingdom.  Good Speaking skills enable us to give the Gospel.  Geography allows us to explore His wondrous earth.  History, especially the history found in the Bible, reveals God’s dealings with man since time began.  And then there are the Living skills concerned with finances, clothes, and food.  There are loads of character skills named in God’s Word as well as relationship skills focusing on loving others.  There is the husband and wife relationship, and the parent and child relationship.  There are just so many things to study and God approves of all these things.

  And yet, there are things not to learn.  God, in His Word, teaches us of things not to do, not to study, not to know, not to be around.  They do not meet His approval.

  Jeremiah 10:2 says, “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.”  What kind of knowledge is heathen knowledge?  Astrology?  Mythology?  Isn’t mythology the study of false gods?  Does God approve of us teaching our children mythology in the name of education?

  Exodus 22:18 says, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”  Hmmm.  That is what God thinks about witches, so why would we want to read or give books to our children to read or watch movies that have witches in them?  It is difficult to think that God would approve of stories about witches if He thought that they should not even walk upon the earth.

  Deuteronomy 18:10-12 says, “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.  For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”  This is just one verse but there are more on familiar spirits.  And God drives them out, but we can bring them into our homes via “Great Books” whose authors dabbled in the occult, such as L. M. Montgomery.

  Ephesian 5:11-12 says, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.  For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.”  If it a shame to speak of things done in darkness, would God approve of us reading about them?  Murder or illicit love relationships?  And worse?

  2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”   Imagination means to “form a mental image of something that is not present or that is not the case.”  Hmmm.  Let’s read that definition again.  Imagining is thinking thoughts that are not quite real.  Something not quite real . . . does that mean these thoughts are a lie?  Are you following me here?  Are we giving our children imaginative tales?  Are we as parents told to develop our child’s creative imagination of things not quite real?  I wonder if God embraces that idea?  He tells us to bring our every thought into captivity to obedience to Him, and others are telling us to develop imaginations apart from Him.

  And one more Scripture found in John 8:44 says, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”  Most of the books of this world contain philosophies that are not concurrent with God’s Word.  They often contain many falsehoods, but even if only three lies are printed in three hundred pages, would God approve of those books?  Why would God approve of any book with falsehoods in it?

  I received a sweet email from a young lady last evening.  She had previously sent me the following:

  I found this quote on Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, regarding lesbianism:
  “In an interview with the writer Louise Chandler Moulton, [Louisa May Alcott] later commented with pre-Freudian candor on her own feelings: ‘I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body … because I have fallen in love in my life with so many pretty girls and never …

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