"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
The battle we face today in education is one of control over mind, body and soul, and it is not a political battle. This is not a battle between party groups, right-wing or left-wing. This is a spiritual battle between …
Right vs. wrong KNOWLEDGE
Good vs. evil WAYS
Holy vs. un-holy SPIRITS
Righteous vs. wicked ACTS
Life vs. death ETERNITIES
Real vs. fake DEFINITIONS
War of Words
Battle of Jericho
The defeat of Jericho is significant to the battle we face today in compulsory education because, though time has passed, the spiritual battle is the same. The city of Jericho was built thousands of years before Joshua was even born. It was one of the oldest cities in the world.
“In some places, it had fortified walls up to 25 feet high and 20 feet thick. Soldiers standing guard on top of the wall could see for miles. Jericho was a symbol of military power and strength – the Canaanites considered it invincible … Israel would attack this city first, and its destruction would put the fear of God’s people into the heart of every person in Canaan.” -NIV Study Bible notes from Joshua 6:1-2
Joshua led his warriors into battle, but it was not man made armor that crumbled these enemy walls. Rather it appears to me to be what Paul describes in his letter to the Ephesians (6:11-18), “the whole Armor of God”. Just prior to the battle, Joshua submitted to the commander of the army of the LORD, and he fell on his face, worshiped, asked what his lord had to say, listened and obeyed! (Joshua 5:13-15)
Armor of God
Belt of Truth
Breastplate of Righteousness
Shoes of Readiness
Shield of Faith
Helmet of Salvation
Sword of the Spirit
Notice the battle pattern at Jericho in relation to putting on the WHOLE Armor of God – There is a central core, an outer fringe and a timeless seed. God instructed his chosen people to march in circles around the city of Jericho for seven days. They acted with their feet, held the Ark at eye level, blew the trumpet with their lungs, and shouted loudly with their tongue.
"So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city."
Breastplate of Righteousness
God promises blessings for those who are obedient.
God promises curses for those who are disobedient.
Blessings and Curses
Obedience
“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God."
Disobedience
“But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.."
Shield of Faith
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host."
In my article, The Whole Child, I explained how I learned my connection to the whole by reading the Bible, and once I understood what the voice of the Lord was telling me to do, I obeyed. I learned to trust Him because He always used my actions for the good of His message. Sometimes He instructed me to speak when I wanted to be quiet, but I obeyed. Sometimes He instructed me to say “yes” when I wanted to say “no”, but I obeyed.
And in those moments when I chose not to obey, the Holy Spirit would reveal to me all the pieces He orchestrated for such a time as this and the missed opportunity of my unfaithfulness. At first I was so hard on myself. I feared He might give up on me. I feared He might realize that I just didn’t have what it takes to be an effective disciple of Jesus … but through God’s faithfulness to me, I grew in faithfulness to him and I learned how to extinguish the devil’s flaming darts with the armor of God’s Shield of Faith.
He has always been gentle in correction and redirection of me. His rebuke has never been too harsh or too hard for me. The beauty and creativity of His blessings have brought me unfailing comfort beyond measure.
Sword of the spirit
Go beyond what the human eye can see. Close your eyes and hear the voice, feel the breath, smell the sound, taste the Word on your tongue.
word and letter sounds
While in the Book of Psalm, I underlined every sensory word and it’s correlating verb. I learned that each of the five senses is to be used for God’s law, word, precepts, commandments, ways, testimonies, statutes, rules and promises. I also noticed that words are spoken and heard with the tongue and ear before they are written and read with the hand and eye.
Language
Noah Webster says, “Language consists in the oral utterance of sounds,” and in the Hebrew tongue each letter holds significance in its sound, form, meaning, name, and numerical value. Look at how the first two letters of the Phoenecian alphabet make the sound Aleph-bet, which looks an awful lot like alphabet. Look at how these two letters have retained their form throughout centuries, civilizations, and great distances.
Alphabet
The letters above are from a study titled, “Hebrew Linguistics and the Bible.” If we are truly interested in knowing exactly what God’s word says and teaches, then the history of language is a fascinating study. The problem with so many translations of the Bible is … well, so many translations of the Bible. For instance, the author points to five different Hebrew words in the Bible that all translate to English as “heart” – lev, nephesh, sekviy, me’ah, qerev. Understanding these subtle differences provides clarity for deeper understanding.
I will also note that the origin of our own English language is steeped in the biblical warfare of nations past, present and future.
God spoke creation into existence through the breath of his mouth, therefore the “Word” is first an action of the tongue, mouth and lungs. The Sword of the Spirit is also the only offensive weapon we have been given in God’s armor. All the other weapons are defensive. This is because we have been instructed to love our enemies the way Jesus loved us, and to let God do the fighting, judging and destroying.
Belt of Truth
Place of Wisdom
People cannot seek out Wisdom and Understanding with the human eye.
“From where, then, does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air.”
“God understands the way to it, and he knows its place. For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. When he gave the wind its weight and appointed the waters by measure, when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lighting of the thunder, then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out. And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”
FEAR THE LORD
Shoes of Readiness
The Puritan founders, who laid the foundations for what would eventually become the United States of America, knew the fear of the LORD. “For them, the state was a divine institution ordained by God charged with carrying out God’s commands – primarily punishing evil, as defined by God. And that is why they felt it proper to use both church and state – inseparable institutions, in their mind – to educate children.” (Newman, page 10)
It’s as if America has forgotten that just two centuries ago, the educational scene was dominated by the free market and Christianity. At that time the majority of parents chose to educate their children at home and in private schools.
Purpose of Education
It is important to remember that before Horace Mann, and John Dewey after him, created America’s first ever “state-controlled, bureaucratic, property-tax-funded government school system” (Newman 10) the broader Western world regarded the primary purpose of education to be this:
LEARNING TO KNOW GOD
Giving children intellectual tools and moral instruction in school was not meant as a replacement to this primary purpose, but rather as a compliment to their learning to know God.
For well into the 20th century, the New England Primer (pronounced “prem’ –ur”) was the beginning textbook or students just learning to read, and was the principal text (alongside the Bible) used to teach students in all American schools (public, private, semiprivate, home, dame, parochial, etc). It contains a rhyming alphabet with woodcut illustrations, An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth, Bible questions, Dr. Watt’s prayers and hymns, Mr. John Rogers’ advice to his children before being martyred for his faith in 1554, and Mr. Cotton’s Shorter Catechism.
Noah Webster considered education useless without the Bible. It is written in the commentary of this first of all American dictionaries that Webster intended “to utilize God’s written word as a key to the meaning of words … Actually, it was Horace Mann in the 1840’s who removed the Bible and its sacred purpose from the schools, not the United States Supreme Court in the 1960’s.” (Webster, page 9)
Reading through this pocket book reveals how easy it is to learn to read and write. At a cost of $7, it also reveals how affordable it is to learn to read and write. Many of the bureaucrats employed by public institutions of learning would be out of a job if educators used this simple phonics formula. Could it be that the Whole Language method was in part designed to feed the constant stream of dyslexia and illiteracy that has flown from it Without compulsory education laws, I do not believe the American majority would have fallen prey to the government school system and the atrophying of minds.
“One of the most far-reaching innovations to enter the schools under Mann was the “whole word” method of teaching reading, as opposed to the phonics that had been used for thousands of years.” (Newman, page 11)
Helmet of Salvation
This piece of armor protects the mind from false doctrine.
The general belief among people today is that modern civilization is better, smarter, freer, and more refined than that of our predecessors. Many think that, due to advancements in science, technology, engineering and math, we are somehow more intellectually superior to, let’s just say, Moses of Exodus, Joshua, Job, King David, King Solomon, Daniel, the Apostle Paul, or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the Gospels.
Atrophy of the Mind
The words of 21st century America tell a very different story though. Our understanding of the very language we speak in America becomes more and more infantile compared to even tribes who communicate through oral language alone now and in the past (ironically classified as marginalized societies by UNESCO). Think of the way we text messages, respond on social media, and use AI to form, write and think for us.
I see a modern civilization that, even among its educated class, possesses less understanding and wisdom than any generation before. We have become so comfortable with modern day luxuries, and we employ technology to do so much thinking for us, that our brains – which God created to solve complex problems – are atrophying under disuse, misuse and neglect.
Full armor of God
The LANGUAGE OF WAR correctly ordered is actually God’s domain. He is both the Maker and the Leveler of all governing authority on earth and in the heavens. God wages war on DEATH while evil wages war on LIFE, but God is the beginning and the end, the first and the last. He is above all battlefields. This is why THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE.
"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."
“Language of War” works cited (in addition to links in-line):
Hebrew Linguistics & The Bible. https://www.gods-abcs.com/
Newman, Alex. “Indoctrinating Our Children To Death – Government Schools’ War On Faith, Family & Freedom – And How To Stop It.” Liberty Sentinel Press. 2024.
The New-England Primer. Camera Reproduction of the 1777 New England Primer originally printed by Edward Draper, Boston. Reprinted 1991, Wall Builder Press, 18th printing.
Phonetics Media – human vocal organs at the point of articulation. Published by Encyclopedia Britannica. Access date September 30, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/science/phonetics#/media/1/457255/3597
Phonetics Media – tongue position for vowel sounds. Published by Encyclopedia Britannica. Access date September 30, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/science/phonetics#/media/1/457255/3598
Stroll, Avrum, Martinich, A.P. epistemology. Encyclopedia Britanica, 2 Aug 2025, https://www.britannica.com/topic/epistemology . Accessed 9 August 2025.
Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. Dover Publications. 6th Century BC reproduction.
Webster, Noah. American Dictionary of The English Language. Foundation for American Christian Education. 1828.
This Little SCHOOL+HOUSE
In 2020, the Governor’s Education Roundtable put together A Roadmap for Transformational Change in Minnesota Education that says, “We need to mobilize all of us – not just teachers and students – to nurture assets and DISMANTLE BARRIERS so every student and their family has all Minnesotans supporting their academic and personal growth.”
On the other hand, Kelly Smith, Founder of Prenda, says his micro-schools are “BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS that will make it easier for people to start their own schools.” Meanwhile, One Stone, a school with no teachers, no tests and no grades, says they are “BREAKING DOWN the one-size-fits-all nature of a conventional classroom.”
As you can see, there are a lot of proverbial BARRIERS BEING BROKEN DOWN these days, and they appear to be at war with one another. G.K. Chesterton said, “Whenever you remove any fence, always pause long enough to ask why it was put there in the first place.” Wise advice from a wise man.
My question is, which SCHOOL+HOUSE is able to BUILD UP? Anyone can break down in a world ruled by the laws of gravity. Whether good or evil , real or fake – anyone can destroy – but only REAL things grow while under this sun … only REAL is granted authority to build upward … only REAL has the soft heart needed for love … only REAL is able to truly hear His story (history) spoken … and only REAL is able to truly see the Word written into the fabric of creation.
This Little School+House will pair with the “Borders and Boundaries” series of 2025 in exploring the question, “What is education, actually?”
This Little SCHOOL+HOUSE
Pit Of Fake SUCCESS
The Abstract Fringe
The United Center
The Whole Child
To Whom The Votes Fall
Language of War on Life
Make Straight Paths
