Common Sense
“It is a thousand times better to have common sense without an education than to have an education without common sense.” Anonymous
Much of education today, whether “higher” or that for the very youngest learners, is shamefully lacking. It is lacking in common sense. For clarity, the “sense” we refer to as common is based in established biblical truths that have been known for generations. As an example, the fact that there are only two genders and that they were made so by God, has long been known. There are biblical laws (and civil ones to one degree or another) that prohibit murder, lying and stealing. To know such truths and be guided by them is common sense.
Much of education today can still teach a student how to make a living, but not how to have a good and stable life grounded in common sense. That is why Ambassador College, an extension of God’s Church, had the motto “Recapturing True Values.” Mr. Herbert Armstrong’s focus was on regaining common sense while learning how to make a living. Education is essential and a thousand times better if it teaches God’s truth with the standard curriculum.
Our God is pro-education, but His emphasis is on spiritual truth first. His priority is made clear through Moses. “And he said to them: ‘Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe—all the words of this law’” (Deuteronomy 32:46). This sounds a lot like modern home schooling — the parents instructing their own children. But whether home schooling or not, clearly parents are to teach the common sense that is embodied in God’s law. An adult seeking higher education should, likewise, take it upon him or herself to develop and maintain their own mastery of God’s Word and its principle in order to see through the many godless and foundationless ideologies being propagated today.
There is a vital purpose in having common sense. Moses continues, “For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life, and by this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess” (Deuteronomy 32:47). Common sense is not an empty or meaningless thing because it is at the heart and core of our lives! If a stable, enjoyable life blessed by God is important to us, we must love His Word.
There is no benefit in the senselessness of this world. “He who despises the word will be destroyed, but he who fears the commandment will be rewarded” (Proverbs 13:13). Those who have bought into the enlightened ideologies of “higher” education will be destroyed for lack of the common sense of God’s Word. “The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death” (Proverbs 13:14). God’s Word, and the wisdom that comes from it, is what the good life, that evades far too many, is all about.
An education combined with the common sense of God’s Word is the only education that is truly higher.
Marshall Stiver
