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It has happened again! Another school slaying! This time 26 are dead, including a former student who committed the murders. The nation is grieving with the Connecticut families who have lost family members. Everyone is asking: Why? But it seems nobody knows why.
The President implies the only way to stop this is gun control. But if that is the case, why is it that teenagers have handled guns in this nation ever since the Pilgrims landed, yet earlier generations of young people didn’t go on rampages using them to kill fellow-students?
The problem is not external– it’s internal! It’s not the fruit on the limb we need to cut off; it’s the root we need to destroy. It isn’t actions we need to stop; no police force in the world is big enough to make people do right. What we need to change is thoughts. The Bible says,
“As [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he.”
(Proverbs 23:7)
Thoughts produce actions. Jesus said,
“For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders…”
(Matthew 15:19)
The question isn’t how to stop the school murders: It is how to change the thoughts of school students!!
This is why the Bible has so much to say about the instruction of children: Both what is to be taught to them and the way in which it is to be taught. God told His people concerning the Ten Commandments that He had previously given them:
“Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding…Only take heed to yourself…and diligently teach them to your children and your grandchildren…that they may teach their children…”
(Deuteronomy 4:6-10)
Our nation used to be called great because it believed and taught its children these commands of God. Foreigners used to come to America looking for the secret of its greatness. Alexis De Toqueville came from France in the 1830s and spent two years looking for the secret of America’s greatness. He summed up his findings when he said,
“America is great because America is good…there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America…”
(America’s God & Country, pgs. 204-205)
Even foreigners could recognize that the teachings of the Bible were what made America the most orderly and prosperous nation on earth.
This is the simple answer as to why students are murdering their classmates. They are not being taught the Biblical way of living in their home, school or even their church. They aren’t taught that God made them and has a plan for their lives. They are taught that they evolved from some low life form and there’s no specific purpose for their lives. Thus, they live a low life and disrespect the lives and property of others. They aren’t taught that God has a way for them to live summed up in the Ten Commandments and thus, they keep pushing out more and more violently, trying to find the boundaries and the security those God-given boundaries provide. They aren’t taught that there is forgiveness for their wrongs because of Jesus’ death; and hope of being good again because of His resurrection. They are taught guilt is not real and there’s no such thing as good and bad; thus, they wallow in ever-increasing guilt and ever-deepening despair until they have no hope. They aren’t taught that they will face God in the end and give account for their actions; they are taught they will just recycle as some other life form.
No Creator; no purpose; no forgiveness; no accountability: It all adds up to chaos and its very real evidence of—murderous rampages in schools.
Most of what I’ve just shared with you I wrote in April of 1999 after the Columbine School shooting. God’s truth never changes; which is why Biblical education is our only hope! And make no mistake: The home is the safest place to do that!!
Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—
and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson this has been Think About It.