education dominion in the role of the state part three. We'll be looking at Deuteronomy 6126 or so. And we're looking at a somewhat complicated topic. What is the role of the state in education? Does it have a role to play? And I know that there are those who I've been calling Christian status to believe that the state has a lot of a role to play, primarily in confiscating people's money through coercion and then using it to set up Christian schools. And we're going to see that the Bible doesn't teach that at all. And so we're going to look at the sophisticated arguments in favor of the state involvement based on the Levites and so forth today. It's a bit complicated, but we'll get through it. You'll learn a lot about if you don't care about public schools or parochial schools or whatever, you're going to learn a lot about the Levites and the priest. So, but I'll begin reading a verse one. Now, these are the commandments, the statutes and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you that you, you might do them in the land, whether you go to possess it. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou and thy son, my son, son, all the days of thy life. And that thy days may be prolonged. Here, therefore, Israel and observed to do it, and it may be well with me that you may increase mightily as the Lord God of my father's have promised me in the land that flows with milk and honey. Here, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and I shall love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in my heart. And I shall teach them diligently unto my children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in mine house, and when I walkest by the way, and when I lie astound, and when I rise up. And I shall bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And I shall write them upon the posts of the house, and on thy gates." You can see the incredible importance that the Bible plays on a religious and explicitly Christian education. Who's responsible? The parents are responsible. And we looked at some of that last week in our introductory considerations. We've now come to our next major consideration, which is the teaching function of the Levites. In the period of time in which the New Testament was written, the church existed in a hostile pagan of the Roman Empire, or apostate states like Israel. And thus it is rather obvious that these states had nothing to do with Christian education. You're not going to see anything in the New Testament about the state financing education or being involved in education because the state at that time were the enemies of the church, both in Israel and the Roman Empire. The Romans and Greeks were diligent in education and made use of tutors and academies, as could be afforded. The early Christians, and of course the Jews as well, as today we're going to look to a degree, we're going to have a side note on the education practiced by the Jews in the days of our Lord, did not participate in pagan education whatsoever. The Christians didn't do it. and the first century Jews did not do it. In fact, in the intertestamental period they didn't do it. So the idea that we practice in America where the majority of professing evangelicals have their children in state schools which are run by sodomites and atheists and lesbians and feminists and Christ-haters would be completely foreign to the Christian churches and of course to the Jews. They were totally opposed to such an education. Consequently, if one wants to see a pattern or guide for how a Christian state should operate, one must go to the Old Testament. This examination must be done very carefully for an ancient Israel. There are many laws and practices that were ceremonial and positive, which only apply to that state. So we have to make a distinction between that which is positive and continues, and that which is moral, which obviously continues, and that which is not intended to continue. We don't have priests today. We don't have Levites today. We do have teaching elders or pastor teachers, and we do have ruling elders, and we do have deacons. And a lot of that is taken from those Old Testament offices, but they're not identical. Therefore, we must ascertain those laws and practices that are moral and perpetual. And this will help us understand who should teach in the New Covenant era and how teaching should be financed. There were teachers in Israel beside the parents of the children. However, these teachers were not secular employees of the state. They were not composed of teachers' unions, full of atheists and sodomites. They were the priests and Levites who were set apart by God to a religious service or function. To understand their ministry or purpose and how they were financed, we need to have a brief overview of their calling and tasks. So we're going to look at the priests and Levites. What did they do? And how are they financed? And we're going to see that they were not financed through state taxes, but through tithes. All priests and Levites are descendants of Levi, the third son of Jacob by Leah. Levi was the smallest tribe among the Israelites. During the wilderness wanderings, it was singled out for special services related to the tabernacle, and that's going to be Numbers 8, 24 to 26 in Deuteronomy 10, 8, as well as judging the people and teaching the law. As you well know, prior to the exodus and the making of Israel into a nation, the head of households or more accurately, the head of clans, extended families, offered sacrifices. Genesis 22, 31, 54, 46, 1, etc. There was no central sanctuary. There was no tabernacle. Genesis 12, 7 and following 13, 18, 28, 18 to 22, 33, 20. And the only godly or non-heathen priest mentioned in the whole book of Genesis is Melchizedek. Other priests are mentioned, but they're all pagan priests. The only priest of Jehovah mentioned in the whole book of Genesis is Melchizedek. the king priest of Salem, that's 1418. This mysterious figure is given tithes by Abraham, 1418, and is noted as a type of Christ in Hebrews. Hebrews 5, 6 and 10, 6, 20 and 7, 1 to 21. Along with Israel's civil leaders, first the judges, then the kings, The prophets and priests had a particular responsibility to help maintain Israel's special covenant relationship with God. Although much of what they did, the priests and the Levites, was ceremonial. Sacrificing animals, burning incense, the use of trumpets, goes back to her exodus with the priests, musical instruments and all sorts of other ceremonial duties as added under the reign of David. Much of what they did was ceremonial and was fulfilled in Christ and no longer binds Christians at all. We don't burn incense. We're not supposed to have harps and lyres and cymbals and trumpets in our public worship. We're not supposed to have music in our public worship. That was for the temple. The trumpets were played by the priest, the Levites played the lyre, the harps, the cymbals, etc. There were a number of functions, and we don't have priestly dress. We're not supposed to have priestly robes and so forth. That was for the priest. The high priest in particular had a special outfit. Yet much of what they did was moral and perpetual and continues in the New Covenant era. We sing psalms today the way they sang psalms back then. the teaching of the Word, the preaching of the Word, the reading of the Word. These things, prayer, public prayer, these things all continue. They're moral. They're perpetual. And of course, teaching in public prayer and reading the Word of God and so forth continues in the New Testament permanent offices of pastor, teacher, and elder or overseer. It is for this reason that we must examine their ministries in the national context of Israel for our study of education in a Christian covenanted nation. What do they do that applies to us? What do they do that does not apply to us? How is education paid for? How is it decentralized? And so forth. Conservative scholars are in agreement that the priesthood in Israel contained three levels of hierarchy. The High Priest, and only he could go into the Holy of Holies once a year. According to the Talmud, he had a rope tied around his ankle in case God killed him. The priests, and then the Levites. The first official High Priest was Aaron, the older brother to Moses, who was the firstborn of Amram. Moses was Aaron's little brother. The high priest was a hereditary office passing from the father to the firstborn son. If that son proved to be unworthy for office, he would go to the next time in line. That's very clear in the case of Nadab and Abihu were killed by God and it passes on. As the second-born son served as a type of Christ, the second Adam, and as a prophet, priest, and king, or political leader. There's a reason that Moses, not simply that Moses was more faithful than Aaron, but there's a reason God chose Moses, the second-born son, to be a type of Christ. It is noteworthy that although Aaron was given the honor of being asked to go up on the mountain with Moses, Exodus 19, 24, only Moses drew near to God on the mountain. The typology of the one mediator between God and man was maintained in the Old Testament. The high priest served as the leader of the priest, had unique functions, and was separated from the other priests by a special, highly symbolic uniform. Exodus 28, 2 to 48 and 29, 29 to 30. The high priest could give important advice to the king and was personally responsible for maintaining the true religion in Israel by the proper function of his priestly duties You all remember, under the godly High Priest, Jehoiada's leadership and direction, the wicked Queen Adalia was removed, Baalism was rooted out of the land, and Biblical worship was restored. They're responsible for the temple, they're responsible for the true religion in Israel. That's the High Priest. The priesthood And if you read your Bible, the priests are sometimes called, there's several names given to them. Aaron's sons, the priests, Levitical priests, the priests, the sons of Levi, priests, and occasionally they're even simply called Levites with the context indicating that Levitical priests, not the lower order of Levites are in mind. The priesthood served God at the tabernacle and temple by performing the higher functions of the temple, of the sanctuary, which the Levites could not perform. The Levites helped in cutting up the animals and so forth, but it was the priests that offered the sacrifices. They were the keepers of the sacred scriptures. Deuteronomy 17, 18. shows this, and apparently they were responsible for storing the original manuscripts. If you go on to read Deuteronomy 17, the king was to make a copy from the original manuscripts. The king was not permitted to have the original manuscripts, he had to make a copy. So they were the keepers of the Word of God, the pillar and ground of the truth, as the leaders of the church in that sense. They did a special job of helping to maintain the purity of the people through sacrificial offerings. Leviticus chapters 1 and 2, Deuteronomy 33, 10, etc. Reading the sacred scriptures. Deuteronomy 31, 9 to 13. Teaching and preaching to the people the law of God. Leviticus 10, 11, Deuteronomy 24, 8 and 27, 9 and 33, 10. Maintaining ritual purity. Leviticus chapters 21 and 22, etc. rendering judgment in difficult judicial matters. Deuteronomy 17, 8 to 11 and 21, 5. We'll go on to see a little later today that Israel had a Supreme Court like the United States. And on the Supreme Court were civil officials and priests and Levites. And they were responsible for claiming blessings on the people. Deuteronomy 10, 8, 21, 5, and possibly curses for serious habitual disobedience. Deuteronomy 27, 14, and following. That may be just the Levites that are giving the cursings. Many of these functions are non-ceremonial and carry over to the New Covenant era in the offices of pastor, teacher, and elder or overseer. Although the priests were to be consulted regarding important and difficult judicial matters, they were servants of Jehovah in the religious sphere. In Latin, in sacris, for matters of the Lord, in matters of the Lord, Numbers 4.4, 1 Chronicles 9.32, 2 Chronicles 26.18, and functioned separately from the civil government. Israel had a separation of church and state. Both, however, were directly under God in the pre-incarnate Christ in the Holy Spirit and accountable to God for their duties. They did not have a separation of religion and state. They had a separation of church and state with separate functions. The king could not offer sacrifice. Now you see David sometimes offering sacrifice and so forth as a type of Christ. But normally there was a very clear distinction between the priesthood and the civil magistrate. And that's maintained throughout the whole Old Testament. They were functionally separate from the civil government. Consequently, their personal counsel and religious instruction to families in Israel does not justify state-run or government-run schools. The state didn't have schools. Ever. If the state is going to have a school, it could possibly have a military academy for training in warfare and weaponry. That would be it. It does, however, point to the church's involvement in religious instruction and discipline. There is not one passage in the whole Bible that teaches or even implies that civil authorities or their bureaucrats, for example, state funded teachers unions, are to be involved in the education of children. And the only possible exception would be training for warfare in military academies. The Levites, that's the priest, we looked at the high priest briefly, we looked at the priest briefly, now let's look at the Levites. Now the reason I'm going into such detail on the Levites is the basic argument of Christian status is that the Levites had a religious function, some Levites had a civil function, and they tried to make the Levites tax collectors for the state. And we're going to look at those arguments, they're totally bogus. That's why I have to go into detail. The Levites had many duties connected with the tabernacle and temple and served as assistants to the priests. Numbers 150, 3, 6, and 8, 16, 9, 1 Chronicles 23, 28, Ezra 3, 8, and following. They could go near the sacred furniture and had many special privileges. Before the permanent temple was built, they had charge of dismantling, transporting, and reassembling the tabernacle. when the people moved to a new site. And we're going to see after David gets the temple, establishes the temple under divine inspiration. The Levites were responsible for repairs, upkeep, cleaning. So they had a role similar to, in many ways, elders and also deacons. They were the caretakers of the temple. They made the repairs. They were in charge of taking care of the temple and so forth. They had many special responsibilities at the temple complex. 1 Chronicles 28, 11 to 13 and 19. They prepared cereal offerings. They cared for the courts and the chambers. Numbers 3, 6 to 8, 69. 1 Chronicles 9, 14 to 31, 23, 28 to 29. Certain Levitical families were responsible for singing in the temple choir. There was a special temple choir. It was not open to anyone in Israel, it was only open to certain Levites. They were responsible, certain Levitical families were responsible for playing musical instruments in the public worship of God at the temple. Harps, cymbals, 1 Chronicles 15, 14 to 17 and 19 and 21 and 22 and 24, 2 Chronicles 7, 6, etc. These instruments were played during the worship and sacrifices at the temple. Second Chronicles 29, 25 to 28. They were not played in the synagogues, which were throughout all of Israel, which were the local congregations. They were only used at the temple. And that's a fact of the Bible, it's a fact of church history. The first synagogues to use musical instruments did so around 1850 in Germany. The Levites are of special interest to those who look for guidance regarding education in a Christian covenant nation. Because they were required to be scattered among all the other tribes to make sure that the true knowledge of the Lord and his lawward permeated every aspect of Israelite society and culture. When Cain was to be conquered and settled, they were not given a fixed territory like the other tribes, but rather as ministers of God It says Deuteronomy 10, 9 and 18 to the Lord is their portion. We're given 48 towns to dwell in. Now, some of these towns, especially near Jerusalem, were for priests as well. But these were the 48 Levitical towns. That is, they were to have as many houses in them as were required for their accommodations. Along with these houses, certain suburbs also were commons, for their herds and flocks were to be assigned to them. covering an extent on each side a distance of 1,000 cubits or 1,500 feet around their cities, numbers 35-4. Besides around the inner, another outer circle of 2,000 cubits was to be drawn in every direction. These were to be the fields and vineyards of the Levites, verse 5. The number of these cities in each tribe varied according to the size of its territory. Thus Judah and Simeon had to furnish nine cities, Naphtali only three. And each of the other four tribes, Joshua 21, and each of the other tribes for six. Lastly, the 13 Levitical cities in the territories of Judea, Judah, Simeon and Benjamin were specially assigned to the priests, the descendants of the House of Aaron, while six of the Levitical cities, three east and three west of the Jordan, were set apart as cities of refuge for the unintentional manslayer. It is interesting to notice that even the number of the Levitical cities was significant, the number 48. They amounted in all to 48, which is a multiple of 4, the symbolic number of the kingdom of God in the world, and of 12, the number of the tribes of Israel. It's not part of today's lecture, but we could go through and see throughout the Old Testament in types and symbolism The teaching that Christ's kingdom is to take over the whole world. And that the teaching of the law of God is to go forth from Jerusalem to the whole world. And by Jerusalem is meant the church of Jesus Christ. Our goal must be the goal of the Bible. Our goal must be that every nation covenants with Christ. And our goal is to disciple whole nations, not simply individuals. Now we have to disciple individuals first. until there's a majority of people that are believers. But our goal is not pluralism. Our goal is not to be like Fox News where you have a sodomite and a conservative. Our goal is to establish explicitly Christian nations and outlaw things like homosexuality and lesbianism and transgender perversions and all sorts of things. The spreading of teachers throughout the whole nation is the basis of the parish system. Developed by the church in the Middle Ages and adopted to one degree or another by Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians in Scotland. That's where the parish system come from. The system of Levitical teachers. And we're going to have a brief excursus on the school system in the days of our Lord. We're going to see that they practice the parish system as well. Every town had a school. connected to the synagogue that was run in the synagogue by the elders of the synagogue, and you were not allowed to go to the town next door to take your children if you wanted to have them in school. You had to go to your local church for the school there. And the question that is relevant to our discussion of education is, does the system of decentralized or local religious instruction constitute a kind of a public education system in Israel? Well, if we are thinking of modern Western public education system, the answer is certainly not. Nothing like what we have in the United States today. If we are thinking of some kind of religious instruction designed to instill in Samantha, true religion in Israel, the answer is yes. They helped both parents and children with biblical doctrine and ethics so they would remain faithful to the covenant. There was a system of schooling throughout Israel. But let's not confuse that with modern Western public education. Two different things. Two different means of financing. Education in Israel was controlled by the church. Not the state. It was financed by the church, not the state. It was financed privately through contributions, not through state taxes. And we'll prove that. As to whether there were separate classes for children, like a modern school, the Bible is silent. Now we're going to see in the days of Christ, they did have schools for children. But we don't see that in the Bible explicitly. All the examples of instruction recorded in the inspired history of Israel consisted of whole families, with the exception of Samuel the prophet, who was handed over to Eli the high priest and was educated by the priests as a small child. Moreover, in the law of God as noted, the responsibility of educating children in the biblical world in light view is placed squarely on the father's shoulders. It's the responsibility of the father and the parents. This command, however, does not exclude Levitical help. Especially the converts to the faith are illiterate or almost completely ignorant of the Bible and theology. What do you do in a Christian nation? If somebody who's got three small children converts to Christ at the age of 35 and is completely, totally ignorant of Scripture? What if they can't even read or write? What do you do? You need a Christian school system, not a state school system. You need a Christian school system run by parents and the church. If the parents are not capable or are in dire poverty, the Levites would be there to train the parents to do their job and help the children because the parents were not yet competent. And as we study the school system in the days of Christ, we will see that It was expected that if parents were incompetent, they would send their children to the local synagogue school. Those Christians in our day who insist that only homeschooling is allowed by Scripture. There are people that insist that. Only the Bible allows homeschooling. Ignore the fact that, number one, there are many occasions when the parents need help. to insist on homeschooling when the parents are not yet capable or in extraordinary conditions, under extraordinary conditions, make it exceptionally difficult, ignores the church's role in charity and religious instruction when families in the church need help. We don't believe in Christian welfare programs. We don't believe that the church should hand out checks to people. However, if the extended family of somebody, particularly somebody like a widow, is not there to help them, It's the church's job to step in there. The same goes for education. The church does not violate the covenantal spirit of the family when helping with education any more than it does when helping with charity. There's no violation there. And this is especially true in missionary context, and it's especially true when a nation first covenants with Christ, and you may have a lot of people who are completely ignorant of scripture, and yet they have a lot of children. The parents have to be trained and the children have to be trained. And then number two. Parents can seek assistance and help from qualified experts for the training of their children without relinquishing their authority or responsibility. If the Bible demanded only homeschooling, with no exceptions at all, then it would have been immoral for Elkanah and Hannah to hand their small child Samuel over to the high priest for special religious instruction. 1 Samuel 1.24.25 and 2.11. Elkanah and Hannah did not relinquish their authority, but rather loaned their boy to the Lord to serve him. 1 Samuel 2.11. And that's the language of the Hebrew. It's used twice. They loaned their child to the Lord. And the scripture regards this loan as praiseworthy. And Jehovah raised up the Son as a great prophet and judge in Israel. So we have to be careful. There are a group of people out there who insist that only homeschooling is appropriate. And that's simply not scriptural. And it's not practical in a Christian nation when you have people that are not Christians and you have people that are uneducated and ignorant. The church is there to help. There's a reason there's Levites. There's a reason there's pastor teachers and elders. Well, now we have an excursus on Jewish education before the destruction of the temple. And we'll get back to the Levites in a moment. Well, the Bible does not have a lot to say about the Levite's role in education in their local communities. The Jewish Talmud in Mishnah shed light on education in the time during Christ's life. Now, these extra-biblical sources are not inspired, and thus we take everything they say with a large grain of salt. And considering the state of religious corruption that existed at that time, we have to be extra careful. But it's interesting to see what they were doing when Christ walked the earth. What did they do? What kind of schools did they have? How are they financed? Did the rabbis come to the same conclusions as Christian statists and have a state-run school system that was state-financed? We'll see. No, not at all. According to Edershon, Home teaching began at three years of age and focused on learning the alphabet, memorizing verses of scripture, benedictions and wise sayings. At five years of age, the Hebrew Bible was to be begun, commencing, however, not with the book of Genesis, but with that of Leviticus. And it's kind of interesting. Now, they probably didn't do it for the same reasons that we would do it, but Leviticus is kind of like the gospel of the five books of Moses, because it presents the sacrifices. It's the book that really, in types and ceremonies, focuses on Christ. The rabbis at that time regarded the instruction of boys differently than girls, because their mission and duties were so different. And yes, there was probably some sexism, however, note that in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit praises women, such as Lois and Eunice, for their effective training of children in the scriptures, as well as Priscilla, who was so confident in Christian theology that she, along with her husband, was qualified to privately, not publicly, privately instruct Apollos in, quote, the way of God more accurately. Acts 18, 26. So let's not confuse Christianity or Christendom or the Bible with modern Islam, which treats women like dogs and cattle and beasts. And doesn't want them educated at all. Women should be highly educated, and they have to be highly educated because men are going to be out working the fields and women are going to be doing a lot of teaching of the children. They have to be smart, they have to know how to read and write, they have to be miniature scholars, and they have to know theology. But we should not treat women and men the same. We should not treat small girls and boys the same. They need to be prepared for different tasks in life. After Child was educated faithfully at home, and knew the main teachings of the law to an extent, and was capable of reciting prayers aloud at the age of six, he was sent to an elementary school connected to the local synagogue. The schools were run right out of the synagogues. The synagogue is the local congregation where non-ceremonial worship and teaching occurred. And yes, they're authorized by scripture. If a young boy showed exceptional intellectual gifts, he would be sent to a special religious academy for training. What they did was interesting. They had their school and they noticed that this boy over here and that boy over there were exceptionally bright and scholarly. They were segregated out and trained to be rabbis or trained deeper in deeper religious studies. The synagogue was the Old Testament Jewish equivalent to the New Testament Christian congregations. Therefore, Israel did not have state schools, but church-run or supervised schools. Let's get that clear. It had nothing to do with the state. The faithful Jews were aware of the Greek method of education, but rejected such methods and curricula syncretistic high apostate high priest Jason. And you can, by the way, you can read about this, it's not in the Bible, it's in the Apocrypha, Second Maccabees 4, 12 to 13, attempted to introduce such content and methodology in Jerusalem. You have to understand what was going on in the intertestamental period. You had a faction of Jews who said, let's be like the Greeks. Let's follow Greek wisdom, let's follow Greek sporting events. Let's do this and let's do that. Let's imitate the Greeks, but we'll still keep our religion. And then there were the conservatives, the faithful Jews, who said no, they rejected all that. That was going on. The fact that the Jews had schools for boys connected to the synagogue before the destruction of the temple implies the existence of church-run elementary schools at an earlier period. This practice had been going on for quite some time before Christ was born. It didn't arise during the life of Christ. Edersheim says this. Every place then which numbered 25 boys of a suitable age, or according to Maimonides, 120 families, was bound to appoint a schoolmaster. More than 25 pupils or thereabouts, he was not allowed to teach in a class. If there were 40, he had to employ an assistant. If 50, the synagogue authorities appointed two teachers. This will enable us to understand the statement, no doubt greatly exaggerated, that at the destruction of Jerusalem, there was no fewer than 480 schools in the metropolis. According to the Talmud, there were 480 schools in Jerusalem when it was destroyed. That's a lot. From another passage which describes the fall of the Jewish state to the neglect of education of children, we may infer that what importance popular opinion attached to it. But indeed to the Jew, child life was something particularly holy, and the duty of filling it with thoughts of God especially sacred. It almost seems as if the people generally had retained among them the echo of our Lord's saying. that their angels continually behold the face of our Father which is in heaven. Hence, their religious care connected with education. The grand object of the teacher was moral as well as intellectual training. To keep children from all intercourse with the vicious, to suppress all feelings of bitterness, even the wrong had been done to one's parents, to punish all real wrongdoing, not to prefer one child over another, rather to show sin in its repulsiveness than to predict what punishment would follow either in this or the next world. So it's not to discourage the child. Such are some of the rules laid down. A teacher was not even to promise a child anything which he did not mean to perform, lest its mind be familiarized with falsehood. Everything that might call up disagreeable or indelicate thoughts was to be carefully avoided. The teacher must not lose patience if his pupil understood not readily, but rather make the lesson more plain. He might indeed, and he should, punish when necessary, and as one of the rabbis put it, treat the child like a young heifer whose burden was daily increased. But excessive severity was to be avoided, and we are told of one teacher who was actually dismissed from office for this reason. When possible, try and kindness. And if punishment was to be administered, let the child be beaten with a strap, but never with a rod. At 10, the child began to study the Mishnah. At 15, he must be ready for the Talmud, which would be explained to him in a more advanced academy. If after three or at most five years of tuition, the child has not made decided progress, then there is little hope of his attaining to eminence. In his study of the Bible, the pupil was to proceed from the book of Leviticus to the rest of the Pentateuch, thence to the prophets, and lastly to the Hagiophobe, a grappa. This regulation was in accordance with the degree of value which the rabbis placed to these divisions of the Bible." So it's very fascinating. As bad as the Jews were in the days of Christ, they did some things pretty good. Although the schools were held in the synagogue, and the content was explicitly religious, the teaching was not restricted to Levites, but also include the synagogue overseers. An overseer was the chief minister in the synagogue, who was the chief minister in the synagogue was called Shazan. Haqqa Neshef, that is the bishop of the congregation, and Tziliak Tizbor, the angel of the church. So the leader of the school is the bishop of the congregation and the angel of the church. Although Edersheim does not believe that this is a spiritual office but merely a salaried schoolmaster, The Hebrew term Chazan was used of a spiritual office, as Samuel Miller points out. Here's what Samuel Miller says, and he's actually quoting somebody else, but here's what he said. In the synagogues, there was first one that was called the Bishop of the Congregation. Next, the three orderers and judges of everything about the synagogue, who were called the Sekidim, or by the Greeks, Note the term Presbyteroi, Presbyter, or Gerontes, Counselor. These ordered and determined everything that concerned the synagogue or the persons in it. Next to them were the three Parnassin, or deacons, whose charge was to gather the collections of the rich and distribute them to the poor." Now, if Edersheim is correct, it would mean that the elders of the synagogue chose qualified men, men knowledgeable in the scriptures, theology, and biblical ethics who were good examples to the students. He writes, the highest honor and distinction attached to the office of teacher, if wordly discharged, want of knowledge or of methods regarded as sufficient cause for removing a teacher. But experience has always deemed a better qualification than mere requirements. No teacher was employed who was not a married man. You had to be a married man to teach in a Jewish school. Now keep in mind that these schools were for boys and young men, not girls. The teaching of boys and girls was always segregated in Israel. They were taught by different people at different times. Married men were chosen because biblical training involved training to be the head of a covenant family. Interestingly, the parochial system was followed in Israel at that time to discourage unwholesome rivalry and to raised the general educational standard, parents were prohibited from sending their children to other than the schools of their own towns. So in each town you had a synagogue. Each town had a synagogue school. We can assume that the Levites were teaching at these decentralized schools, at least in the beginning, and also men who were married, who were either elders at the synagogue, or were hired by the synagogue as competent teachers. Nothing at all of state education at all. Now we're going to take a little break and come back. I hate to break this up in the middle of talking about the synagogues in the days of Christ, but I have a few more pages. We'll come back to this and then we're going to get into detail about the Levites. We're going to go into detail about the Levites, but as far as the system of the Jews in the intertestamental period and the life of Christ, they had a parochial system of schools explicitly run out of their churches and supervised by the elders of the church. That is nothing at all like what we have in modern America. They were not state schools. They were not parachurch schools. They were church schools. So I hope that helps. We're going to get back to the Levites in a moment. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word on this matter. Help us to understand it and obey it. that the next generation may serve you, and that someday, when reformation comes, and our nation covenants with Christ, we would know what to do, and what kind of schools to have. We pray, Lord, that you would raise up many more Reformed Christians so the churches are big enough to have their own schools, if they desire. The effective teaching of children, and the helping of parents who may not be able who may be ignorant. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.