Although most of us Christians would (hopefully) be quick to affirm that the Bible is indeed the sole rule of our faith and practice, there seems to be a frustrating natural tendency to mold what we read in the Bible to fit our own pre-conceived ideas of what’s “normal” or “reasonable.”
Take the instructions for handing down our faith as given in Deuteronomy 6 that we looked at in the last post. I think it’s a safe, nay, an obvious conclusion that we are to make the learning and applying of the Scriptures an all-encompassing way of life for our families. However, the frightening tendency among a great many Christian parents today is to assume that spending some time with their children in the morning, in the evening, and on weekends (provided there are no extra-curricular commitments to fulfill) as well as taking them to church and its related programs is all that is expected of them in “diligently” teaching their children the words and ways of God. The rest of the children’s education is generally acquired away from the family in a distinctly anti-Christian environment, at the hands of instructors who are either anti-Christian themselves, or, in the case of born-again teachers, not permitted to speak positively about the God of the Bible while in the school. How is it that we have bought into the idea that when the Bible says, essentially, “make learning His ways your life,” we take it to mean “whenever they’re not in school”?
I submit to you that were we not in the midst of a culture where, for generations now, nearly every child has been sent off to these learning-places, we Christians would never hand over our children for five to eight hours a day, five days a week, to people vocally opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It wouldn’t be considered as an option within biblical child-rearing. However, when most of the people we know are sending their kids to school, we ourselves perhaps went through public school, and even many within our churches expect us to send our kids to school, we just do like most everyone else does and attempt to mold the Bible’s commands to fit our “normal” lives. It should be the other way around.
The problem here goes deeper than the public school’s rejection of the gospel (as if that isn’t enough). Back when society was biblically literate, the Scriptures were held in high esteem, and prayer and Bible learning was a regular part of each school day, I believe that parents were still in error to send their children into government-run schools for the better part of their education. Take a look at the passages in Scripture that refer to the teaching of children. Besides Deuteronomy 6 and 11, there’s huge portions of Proverbs (if not all of it, since it is written from a father to his son), and Ephesians 6:4. Whom do these passages indicate is responsible for the teaching of the children? The parents, of course.
The weight of responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of parents to be their children’s primary educators in all areas of life, under the leadership of the father. Parents are to be the ones training up their children in the way they should go; and they, especially fathers, will have to answer one day for the worldview that they instilled–or allowed to be instilled–in their children. This doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong for parents to find someone outside the immediate family to teach their children the odd skill or subject (if mine ever want to take calculus, they won’t be learning it from me); it’s simply to say that parents are to be, far and away, the children’s foremost caregivers and instructors (and thus, worldview-molders).
God has established three institutions to function within society: the family, the church, and the civil government. He has also laid out the roles and responsibilities for each. The role of government according to the Word of God is a subject to be looked at more fully another time; for now, suffice it to say that educating or regulating the educations of the nation’s children in any way is not a part of that role. Any effort made by a government to step in and take charge where God has not authorized it to do so is a rejection of the boundaries set by God for the peoples’ good. The government usurping the role of the parent in education is no exception. When a public school system asks (or in some cases, demands) that parents hand over their children, it is trying to convince those parents to abdicate their God-given duty, and it’s to the weakening of their family that they comply.
Most of us have been led to believe that it’s our duty as responsible parents to let the “professionals” take over when the little ones hit about age four. I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it. My wife and I were entrusted with four boys who, to a great extent, are going to interpret everything they see in this world and everything that happens to them in this life through the “worldview lens” they acquire during their most formative years. It’s our responsibility to take the initiative and actively, prayerfully seek to mold their worldviews according to biblical truth in every area of learning. This is the bottom-line reason why we homeschool, and why I take the “narrow-minded” view that all Christian parents have an obligation to homeschool.
We should consider it a joy and a privilege to be able to honor the Lord by teaching His little ones (and His not-so-little-ones) to praise Him in all things. We can’t do that while they’re sitting in a classroom where they’re not allowed to give Him praise in anything.
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