On my first day of college, a professor found out I was a believer, and he stood in front of the class and announced, “My aim is to dismantle your belief system.” Sadly, that’s the aim of much of the world today: to marginalize us as fools if we believe in the Bible and teach our children its truths. They basically want us to shut up and go away, or to conform and do what they say.
But the apostle Paul said, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). How do we do that? How can we stand up to the giant of conformity?
In Daniel 1, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had conquered the Middle East and had taken the Jewish people back to Babylon, including Daniel and his friends. The king gave them three years of training, so they could serve him. The training included isolating them, indoctrinating them with a Babylonian worldview, and even giving them new names that honored pagan deities…
