Micah 6:8 English Standard Version (ESV) He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Once the bible stopped being used as primer in school, what taught us to be good? Who asked us to be good? What made us feel good about ourselves? It fell back on the family to show us our place and how to feel about ourselves. If negative reinforcements were used, children grew up feeling like they were bad and that led to bad behavior because the truth still applies even in the absence of education.

Proverbs 23:6-8 English Standard Version (ESV)

⁶ Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies,
⁷ for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.“Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
⁸ You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten, and waste your pleasant words.

Lessons of man’s fallen nature will not be taught. We learn about bad behavior by succumbing to our base nature and if we are told to enjoy life without understanding that life without justice, mercy and humility leads to a cycle of disappointments.

Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁰ And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. ¹¹ Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

A life lived to learn this lesson is a life wasted.

Romans 12:2 English Standard Version ESV Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Renew our minds to be transformed. It does not say how to renew the mind nor does it say what needs to change. This may lead you to wonder; what’s wrong with the way I think? This may be more difficult to explain than a mere 300 words here can provide.

What language do we speak? What we hear and are taught. Our first contact with language is familial and if it is the habit of the family to explain things, we learn to think in the manner that family dictates.

At some point teaching takes on a wider arena of responsibility to provide more information than busy parents can accomplish. Where we attend school now has a role in educating the mind. There are various schools of thought and we might not be aware of that during our primary instructions.

Does that education system teach you how to think or what to think? Boards of education around the world choose what materials will be used in there school systems. Few use the bible as a primary source of information about how to think. It was not always that way.

At one time in our past Americans were taught to read and right and to think using bibles that were more available than other literary materials. Poor education systems had to use what was available.

As time progressed and incomes increased other materials were purchased and the bible was no longer used in school. That became a matter of the home and church to provide lessons in righteousness, mercy, grace, justice and love. All that was left out of the new school system that was educating children and preparing them to make their way in the world.

Where did we learn to feel good about ourselves then?