What does it mean to be educated? When it first occurred to me to formulate an answer to this question, I thought it would be easy. Even the uneducated know an educated person when they encounter one, don’t they? It turns out, however, that when one actually tries to define educated, the water gets deep quickly. Let’s make the attempt anyway because one of the major reasons you homeschool your children is so that they will end up educated, right? It seems only prudent to be able to define the goal. Otherwise, how will you know if you reached it?

First of all, being educated goes beyond being trained. Many people have been trained to perform various kinds of tasks, some of them quite complex. They may even be able to support themselves by so doing, but we would not go so far as to call them educated. Being educated involves something more.

Does attending school make one educated? If so, at what point does educated apply: eighth grade? twelfth grade? something further down the road? I suspect you are now saying aloud to me, “It isn’t the time they spend in school, it’s what they become as a result.” While one could become educated as a result of attending school, many graduates have been exposed to a great deal of information, but remain uneducated.

Are you educated if you occupy an office at a college, wear a beard and an old tweed jacket with elbow patches, smoke a pipe, often look thoughtful, and make provocative statements? Not necessarily. Some of those folks know a great number of “facts” that are based on utterly false premises.

I think we could all agree that the educated person knows things and can do things that are beyond the uneducated person—things which particularly distinguish him as educated. But where does all that begin? I will answer by declaring where it must begin.

In Proverbs 1:7 we read, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…” Any education worthy of the name begins there, because in Him “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). We must begin with God because He is the source of what we seek. Furthermore, the truly educated person will also end with God, because it is ultimately Him that we seek!

The physical universe in which we live was created by God. Even before He created the universe, He was the embodiment of truth. He has ordained the nature of everything visible and invisible. To be educated, for the Christian, is at least in part to know God and the true nature of what He has created. While no man can know God or the truth comprehensively, he can most certainly know God and some amount of truth. We begin to know this truth by studying the Word and forming our worldview in terms of it.

In the Scriptures, we also learn of man and his relationship to God and other men. We learn what He requires of us in terms of worship, obedience, and work. This much in itself is a very great education, and because it is based in the truth, it makes the very best foundation for further learning. Having begun well by beginning with God and His Word, the prudent man will, through diligent study, increase in knowledge and wisdom. He will communicate what he knows, or use his knowledge to benefit others, thus becoming a blessing to his family, friends, and community.

There are many among us who hold advanced degrees. They have spent many years in universities and have learned many things from others who have advanced degrees. In many of these cases, however, the degreed person is not educated because what he “knows” isn’t true. What he knows may appear to be internally consistent within his worldview, but it is not consistent with what God created and ordained. When your worldview is wrong, your conclusions are also wrong.

The most obvious modern example of an incorrect worldview is atheistic evolution. The atheistic evolutionist, whose primary commitment is that there is no God, must develop his worldview having gotten Step One flat wrong. His proverb would be, “Anything but God is the beginning of knowledge.” It should not surprise us that he develops fantastic theories about origins or sees relationships where none exist. His commitment is not to truth, but to his adopted worldview. He considers himself educated, and at the same time considers uneducated those who begin with God’s revelation. When we speak to him, we must speak in terms of God’s revealed truth. It is precisely here that we fail to communicate with him because our truths do not fit his grid. He thinks this is because he is educated, but it is actually because he is not.

Assuming that you want your child to be educated in the best sense of the word, what should you keep in mind as you teach him at home? Let me just offer a quick list.

The reason one needs to become educated, in the full sense of that word, is so that he can obey God’s command to take dominion in the earth. Only those who know God and have understood creation and life from His perspective, can take effective dominion and thus glorify God.