Home Schooling: It’s God’s Idea

There are many excellent reasons for choosing to teach your children at home.

First, there is now incontestable evidence that, on average, children who are home schooled fare better academically than children of either public or private schools. This is not surprising since tutoring has always been recognized to be the best method of education.

Second, home educated children are spared the corrupting environment of the peer-oriented classroom and thus benefit socially. A common myth of our society is that children need to be with other children for extended periods of time to be properly socialized, but this is the exact opposite of the truth. Much time in a peer culture is damaging to children. Socialization is one of the best reasons to home school. Third, any home schooling family will tell you that one of the greatest benefits of the process is the way that family bonds are strengthened. Parents and children grow closer through the shared hours of each day. Siblings develop a new love and respect for one another as they live, learn, and work together day by day. These families can overcome the family-fragmenting forces of modern life.They have more time together, and love is spelled t-i-m-e.

Fourth, home educating families prosper spiritually. Parents are able to guide their charges in Godly paths as they protect
them from the immorality and falsehood so prevalent in public schools and teach them the Bible and its application to life.
The very process of disciplining one’s own child results in character growth in both the child and the parent.

As good as all these reasons are, however, the very best reason to choose home education has not been listed yet.The Scripture is our wholly sufficient guide for what to believe and how to live in ways that please God. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. 3:16,17). Or, put another way: According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue (2 Pet. 1:3). Or, finally: Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path (Ps. 119:105). In other words, in our Lord Jesus and His Word, the Bible, we have all we need for spiritual and moral decisions in life.

The best reason for choosing home education is that it is God’s revealed plan for raising our children.The Bible knows no other system of education. God did not prescribe schools for His people; they were invented by others. The pages of Scripture espouse, by precept and example, a process that closely resembles what we call home education.

The Teachers

Throughout the Word it is the parents who are assigned the role of teaching their own children.The primary responsibility rests on the father. God said of Abraham, For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him (Gen. 18:19). Paul gave this guidance under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration: And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

Of course, as the man’s helper (Gen. 2:20-23), his wife is also a teacher of the children. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother (Proverbs 1:8; Proverbs 6:20). Even the grandparents are to share in the teaching task: speaking of God’s commandments, Moses said to God’s people, ... but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons (Deut. 4:9).

The Method

God’s method of education is revealed in Deuteronomy 6:7- 9. Speaking of God’s commandments it says, And thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the
way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. True education occurs any place (“home and road”) and any time (“lie down and get up”).The parents are to be the constant companions of their children, teaching them God’s view of life at every opportunity. Every child of a Godly family will live unceasingly in an
environment that is saturated by God’s Word, and his parents will be creating that environment.

Since the purpose of education is to love God with the whole heart and to have His commandments lodged in the heart,
the method must be one which reaches the heart. Discipleship-along-the-road living with the two people to whom the child is closest (his parents) is God’s method for reaching the heart of the child.

Our educational method must reflect a Biblical understanding of truth and life. The Greek/Western worldview sees truth as ideas that can be reduced to printed pages and considered in abstraction in a classroom. In the Biblical/Hebrew worldview, truth is personal (Jesus said, “I am ...the truth.” John14:6); while it can be expressed in the statements of Scripture, it is always connected to life and conduct (...speaking the truth in love... Ephesians. 4:15).Truth is not only something we can know, it is also something we can and must “do” (1 John. 1:6). God’s truth is only communicated truly in the context of relationship. God did not just give us the written Word of truth, He gave us his Son and fills us with Himself (Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. 1 John. 4:15).

The Content

All education should focus upon the Lord God: who He is, what He has said, and what He has done. Fathers are instructed
concerning children to ... but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians. 6:4), not the instruction
of the world or of mere men, but “of the Lord.”

That is not the only use of the Scriptures. Psalm 119:105 presents one of the broader purposes of the Bible:Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” God’s Word is intended to illuminate the world we live in so that our walk is pleasing to God. The purpose of a light is to shine on an object so that it can be discerned more clearly. Similarly, the Bible is meant to “shine” on anything we encounter in the world so that we can understand it from God’s perspective. This means that beyond studying the Bible itself, we should use the Bible as our lens through which to view any other subject in life.

The second component of study in a Godly education is what Psalm 78 calls the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done (v. 4).To study these works of God we must, of course, begin with the Bible itself which reveals His mighty works of creation and redemption. This study will lead us beyond the pages of Scripture to the whole wide world that God made and sustains by His power. History, science, geography, law, art, music, mathematics, language— any subject area is a study of the works of God since it is He who created this world and guides the history of men in their scientific, cultural, and civil endeavors.

Each of these subject areas must be approached in the “light” of the Word, if it is to be properly understood. The Bible should not only be a subject in the curriculum; its truths should permeate every other area of study, providing God’s perspective on every subject.

That is why many home educators abandon the traditional school-subject approach to teaching in favor of a “unit study” approach which takes into account the inter-relationship of the disciplines. Children thus engage in academic study in the same manner in which they experience the rest of the world—encountering the connectedness of the various elements
of life. Such an approach not only respects the nature of the content of education, it also is most compatible with the discipleship method of teaching: learning from real life as it is encountered “along the road” every day.

The Goal

Education ought not to be seen as an end in itself. Nor should it be viewed in terms of mere academic or social preparation
for life. Knowledge, by itself, is nothing and leads only to pride (Knowledge puffeth up... 1 Cor. 8:1).We could give our children the very best academic preparation in the world, and only end up making them more effective instruments in the devil’s
hands. No, God has something higher in mind.

Understood in its broadest terms, education is character training. God is in the business of transforming people. He is creating a people who have a living relationship with Himself. The beginning of the process is simply to take God seriously in everything, or, as Scripture says: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge ... (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).The end of the process is mature people who know God; and who, knowing Him, love him; and who, loving Him, obey Him in all things.

The path of safety and blessing is always that which adheres most closely to the revealed will of God. Home education, as we practice today, falls short of the perfect pattern set forth in the Scriptures, but it is certainly a big step in the right direction—because home education is God’s idea. —Phil Lancaster, publisher of the Patriarch Magazine.