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Often when I speak in churches I ask people to be involved in their government in order to protect the liberty of their children.  Many times they look at me with bewildered looks, as if to say, “How can I affect government?”  I’m sorry we’ve gotten to such a state.

When the Pilgrims came to America they had been through many years of government oppression.  And before them, many others had felt the restrictions of ungodly government and education.  Because of the hurt they had experienced through un-Biblical government, they knew they must establish education which was true and government which was just.  They knew the Bible taught that liberty could not be maintained in any nation apart from teaching the ways of God in their schools; neither could they expect liberty to continue if their government was not the form of government taught in the Bible.  Thus, they worked to create cultural institutions which God taught in the Bible:  Institutions which would teach and protect the moral foundation necessary for Republics to carry out their God-given purpose.

When people look at me with a questioning face that says, “How can I affect government?”,  I know they have bought into the lie that only a handful of people are smart enough to govern others.  That is just exactly the opposite of what the Pilgrims believed.

They, themselves, were not people of means, neither had they graduated from universities.  Yet, they were educators and they planted the most powerful economic system in world history.  Where did they get the knowledge to do these astounding things?  Are you ready for a simple answer?  The Bible.  That’s right.  Though most of them held no university degree, they became very wise people through their study of the Bible.  Like Peter and John astounded the learned men of the first century so that they asked where they got their boldness, being such untrained men; the Pilgrims likewise came to live boldly according to the Bible because they found its principles worked in this present world.  Their study of the Bible convinced them that wisdom was to be gained, not from a university degree, but rather from learning and obeying the Bible.

Not that they were against university education per se.  Later they would work to create institutions of higher learning.  But they would make sure those institutions were solidly based in the Bible so that the learning they instilled was Biblical and not man-centered.  Indeed, Yale’s first handbook actually stated, “Cursed be all learning apart from Christ.”

It was for this reason they believed they could govern themselves with Godly reasoning better than a man-centered thinker could govern them.  They believed self-discipline of the mind and body were the basic qualifications for governing others in a home, then a church, then a village, and then a nation.

A home built on Christian principles was a little Republic.  Members of that home were individuals who had Christ living inside them.  He was governing them from within.  Thus, by His indwelling power, they could govern and educate in the best manner this earth has ever seen.

They were examples of what the Bible teaches in Psalm chapter one:

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.  But his delight is in the law of the LORD…” (Psalm 1:1-2)

Who is the best influence on government?  You are—if you have Christ living through you!  Do you?

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.