Our US public school system started with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston in 1647. Supported through tax money, it marked the beginning of the US public schools. The ordinance that established this system was known as “The Old Deluder Satan Act of 1647,” and specified that every town with 50 families was required to have at least one schoolteacher and every town of 100 or more had to have a grammar school. The Bible was to be at the center of its curriculum and the following statement was included in the ordinance “one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, is to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures” (Based on Genesis 3, and John 8:44).
They wanted everyone to be able to read so they could read the Bible for themselves, understand it, and not be deluded by Satan so they could respond to God appropriately.
Many of us have wondered how and why this country is blessed far beyond the rest of the world. There are very smart, hardworking people of every race and nationality. I do not think it is that Americans are intrinsically better than anyone else. I think it is that God simply blessed us beyond all others. I think it is because of the reverence for Him among those early Americans and because America was an incubator where the church could grow, thrive, and be a light, a “city set on a hill” (Matt. 5:14) for future Americans and the rest of the world.
Are we deluded by Satan? Are we ignorant of the Scriptures (II Tim. 2:15)? Is he having success in keeping our lights under a bushel (Mark 4:21, Matt. 5:15)? Are we each, and are we collectively, living as a city set on a hill, as a beacon to a lost world?
Let’s all use our blessings and determine today not to be deluded, to study the Bible, to actually live the Christian life, and be a light to the lost.
For the elders, Gary Woodall