The Scene Repeats Itself
The apple has always been more than fruit. The apple represents the false promise that you can have knowledge without obedience, wisdom without submission, and truth without God.
Since moving to Alaska, I’ve watched that same lie play out in another form. Parents are told they can “homeschool” through state correspondence programs that offer funding, technology, and access to “resources.” The pitch is simple: you’ll still be in control.
But “control” has conditions. The state requires registration. It assigns educational advisors. It reviews quarterly progress reports and portfolios. It enforces graduation standards and oversight that ensure every student aligns with state objectives. Parents can choose curriculum, but only within the boundaries of what the state approves or accepts for reimbursement.
This isn’t freedom. And it surely isn’t the order of authority and jurisdiction God has designed.
So the question must be asked again: Who is teaching your children, and under whose authority? Scripture answers that question clearly. God gave educational authority to fathers within the covenant household. The state has none.
The First Classroom
Genesis 3 opens in the world’s first classroom. The serpent was the teacher. Eve was the student. Adam was silent.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which Yahweh God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’” (Genesis 3:1, LSB).
Eve received doctrine from the deceiver. The serpent questioned God’s Word, redefined obedience, and promised enlightenment. “Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The sin was rebellion that was disguised as education. Eve listened to a voice that did not have the right to teach… and even used Scripture to do it. Adam, who did have that right, stood by. And the world fell.
Paul grounds this pattern in creation order:
“I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first formed, then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression” (1 Timothy 2:12–14, LSB).
The created order places authority and accountability with the man. When that order is reversed, deception follows.
The Family as God’s School
Education was never designed as a neutral endeavor. It is moral, covenantal, and worshipful. God commands fathers to teach His Word diligently to their children.
“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7, LSB).
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4, LSB).
Education is not the government’s business. It is a covenant duty given to the household, governed by the father, and aimed at godliness. The family is the first classroom. The father is the first teacher. The home is the first seminary.
The Reformers and Puritans understood this well. Calvin wrote that fathers must “bring up their children in the fear of God, to the end that the seed of the godly might not be cut off.” Richard Baxter warned that men who neglect family catechism betray their charge. The Westminster Directory for Family Worship called every home “a little church.”
God’s order is not complicated. But it is costly. The family instructs, the church disciples, and the state restrains. When the state assumes the role of teacher, it commits theft against God’s design.
The Serpent’s Strategy Reborn
The serpent still whispers. Only now he speaks through classrooms, screens, and funding programs. He promises that state-sponsored education can be both “free” and “faithful.” But the moment the state claims oversight, it claims lordship.
The message is the same: “You can have wisdom and still be free.”
But freedom without obedience is slavery. A people who will not submit to God’s truth become slaves to man’s systems. Their learning leads them away from the Lord who gave them minds to think. The more they learn apart from Him, the less they know.
This is how civilizations collapse. Knowledge divorced from truth corrupts a nation faster than ignorance ever could.
Many fathers repeat Adam’s failure. They let the serpent teach their children under the promise of safety, savings, or convenience. But there is nothing safe about surrendering your duty. There is nothing convenient about losing your children’s minds to unbelief. Abdication always leads to destruction.
And wives who shoulder the full weight of teaching alone bear a burden they were never meant to carry. God calls men to lead, to be faithfulness to teach, guard, and guide in love.
A Call to Fathers
Fathers, the education of your children is your calling. God entrusted you with their formation. You cannot outsource it. You cannot delegate it to the world. You are accountable for every influence that shapes their hearts and minds.
Oversee what they read. Guard what they hear. Speak truth often. Correct error quickly. Pray over their lessons as earnestly as over their souls. Education is discipleship, and discipleship is warfare.
Teach your sons to love truth more than ease. Teach your daughters to see wisdom as obedience, not self-expression. Build your homes into strongholds of truth where the serpent’s voice finds no audience.
“Hear, O sons, the discipline of a father, and give attention that you may know understanding, for I give you good instruction; do not forsake my law” (Proverbs 4:1–2, LSB).
The Tree Still Stands
The apple still gleams. The serpent still teaches. The classroom may have changed, but the question remains.
Who is teaching your children, and who holds authority in your home?
The fruit of obedience still brings life. The fruit of rebellion still brings death.
Christ, the true second Adam, restores what the first man lost. He renews fathers. He rebuilds households that stand on His Word.
Let your home become the garden again. Guard it. Tend it. Teach within it. And silence the serpent at the door.