What Are “Vegemite Kids”?

Over our children’s growing-up years, Mally and I sent them to Christian school or homeschooled them. Now, during that time, many in the church, including many pastors, claimed our children should have been in the public schools to witness to the other kids. When I have asked for a biblical justification for this, they would often quote Matthew 5:13,

You are the salt of the earth.

But then I would explain to them that Mark 9:50 states, “Have salt in yourselves,” and that the rest of Matthew 5:13 really is about contaminated salt that is now worthless.

But if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out to be trampled under foot by men. (LSB)

While speaking to the students in chapel, I explained why their parents were sacrificing to send them to Answers Academy. When we are born, we don’t know about the Bible, Adam and Eve, the fall of man, the promise of the Savior, Noah’s flood, the gospel message, and so on. The job of parents is to be faithful and pour that biblical salt into them.

The job of parents is to be faithful and pour that biblical salt into them.

I also explained that as part of pouring in biblical salt, the students needed to be equipped with answers to the skeptical questions/attacks of our day against God’s Word as 1 Peter 3:15 instructs us, so they could defend the Christian faith. The word for this teaching is apologetics. As these students mature with this salt of biblical truth and apologetics, they will then be ready to be a witness in the world.

Sadly, most children from church homes have gone to the secular (anti-God) education system (even condoned by many pastors) and been indoctrinated in an anti-God worldview based on evolutionary naturalism—and given no defense! Most have walked away from the church. The results have been catastrophic because they were filled with contamination. Parents and the church need to wake up to this destructive impact on generations.

I told the students at Answers Academy that we did not want this to happen to them and so we partner with their parents to help raise them up as godly young people equipped to defend the Christian faith and be bold witnesses for the Lord. That’s also why we are very careful as to whom we allow into the school. We only allow students whose parents are very intentional about teaching their children a true biblical worldview. The Bible warns that “bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33 NIV), so we didn’t want such bad influences in the school to negatively affect them.

I ended my talk with 2 Timothy 3:15.

And that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (LSB)

I told them that Timothy was taught to acquire a taste for the Scriptures from when he was a child. I explained that we need to acquire a taste for the things of the Lord when we are young, as, because of our sinful natures, it’s very hard to acquire that taste when someone is older and has already been indoctrinated by the world.

To finish my talk, I used Australian Vegemite (which is a very salty yeast extract) to show how if people do not acquire a taste for Vegemite from a young age, then they usually think it tastes revolting when they try it later on. To illustrate my point, I had a teacher and two students come up front. One of those students was our granddaughter who had been given Vegemite since she was born. I gave her some, and she loved it. The other student and teacher had never tasted it, so when they took a spoon (with a decent amount of Vegemite to really make the point), they thought it was revolting and ran for the restrooms to spit it out!

I explained that our granddaughter had been given Vegemite from a young age to acquire a taste for it. I then said that’s why we partner with their parents to help fill them with biblical truth (salt), including apologetics, while they are young so they will always have that “taste” of the things of God.

After prayer, we gave each student an Australian cracker (Jatz) with butter and a little Vegemite on it to help them remember this point and have an opportunity to taste it themselves. Enjoy these photos from my “Vegemite Kids” chapel:

You can learn more about Answers Academy on our website.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.