by David Sant

ALL EDUCATION IS RELIGIOUS AT HEART

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. -Deuteronomy 5:6-7

Most Americans think of education as a value-neutral arena in which children are taught the knowledge and skills they need to function as adults in society. As Christians, we must realize that education is inherently religious. What is education, if not teaching children about the way the world works?

Children are taught the rules of language and reason, the laws of mathematics, the laws of nature, and the laws of society. Education is the process of teaching children the laws of the God who created the universe, logic, language, and men. All education is indoctrination into a religious worldview, whether it be the true religion of Christianity, or any of the myriad false religions invented by men. All education is undergirded by presuppositions about the origin of the universe, the origin of man, the purpose of man, ethics governing relationships between men, and the continuing existence of the universe in an orderly and predictable manner. It is an inescapable fact that all of these basic assumptions are fundamentally religious. Therefore we must view the schoolroom as the place where children are indoctrinated into the religion of their society. The school is, in effect, a temple. The question which Christians in twentieth century America are late in asking is this: "Into what religion do the government schools educate our children?"

When God reaffirmed the covenant with Israel just before their entry into the Promised Land, He gave the Ten Commandments for the second time and then gave them the greatest commandment of all. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:5-9)

Here we find that God commands parents to educate their children in His Covenant This is to be done in every place (home and away) and at all times (from rising to retiring). Christian children must never be in a situation where God's commandments are not being taught.

Proverbs tells us that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge" (1:7) The whole of education from physics to spelling falls under this command to use all of life to teach children to know the Lord. The corollary to this is that we should use the knowledge of the Lord to teach children about all of life.

PUBLIC EDUCATION IS RELIGIOUS

Christians tend to be naïve in the ways of the world. What we are only beginning to realize at the end of the twentieth century, the Unitarians and humanists who designed and run the nation's public school system realized 150 years ago. Public education is fundamentally religious; and their intent was to use public education to remove children from the influence of Christian ideas. The public schools were designed to educate children out of Christianity into the secular religion of humanism. This may seem like a brash statement, until we look at actual writings of the supporters of the public school system.

C. F. Potter, a signer of the "Humanist Manifesto" (1933), self consciously saw public education as the means of educating Christian children into a new religion:

Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism and every American public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching? -Humanism, A New Religion (1930)

Lest you think this is an isolated example, there are ample proofs that the humanist establishment is still deliberately using the schools to destroy Christianity in the present era. John Dunphy writes in The Humanist (Jan/Feb 1983):

I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their roles as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever they teach, regardless of the educational level - preschool, day care, or large state university.

The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new - the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of Humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of love thy neighbor will finally be achieved.

Paul Blanchard notes what most Christians fail to see as one of the primary causes of adolescents turning away from the Christian faith in The Humanist (Mar/Apr 1976):

I think the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average high school child acquires a high school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history.

When I was one of the editors of The Nation in the twenties, I wrote an editorial explaining that golf and intelligence were the two primary reasons that men did not attend church. Perhaps today I would say golf and a high school diploma.

There is no doubt that the humanists recognize that the public school system is designed to destroy the Christian faith in children and replace it with another, faith in man. Why do Christians continue to blindly send their children to be taught in these temples of false religion?

STATE EDUCATION IS A VIOLATION OF THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

The religious nature of public education is readily apparent when we ask five simple questions and see how the schools would answer them:

1. How did the universe originate?

PUBLIC SCHOOL: The Universe originated in the Big Bang and is self-existing. Each religion of the world has a spiritual explanation for this, and all of them are subjectively true for those who believe them.

THE BIBLE: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1) "You shall have no other gods before me." (Deuteronomy 5:6,7)

2. How did we get here?

PUBLIC SCHOOL: Over 4 billion years life arose through random chance from the raw materials of the universe. Man is the highest evolved life form and came up from the animals. Man is no more than an animal. The cosmos is divine and biological life is the highest expression of divinity.

THE BIBLE: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image; according to Our likeness;'" (Genesis 1:26)

3. What is the purpose of man?

PUBLIC SCHOOL: To find individual happiness and self-fulfillment.

THE BIBLE: "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (Genesis 1:28)

4. How shall we relate to other people? What is right and wrong?

PUBLIC SCHOOL: There is no absolute right and wrong. Each society determines within itself what is acceptable behavior and what is not. Anything is acceptable as long as it does not violate someone else's right to happiness and self fulfillment. The only sin is intolerance of others who differ from yourself. Children need to be taught to accept themselves. Children should explore their sexual identities in their teen years. Homosexuality is a viable "alternative" lifestyle and must be tolerated, even praised.

THE BIBLE: God gave the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5) and the rest of Scripture to govern relationships between men and God, and men and other men. The God of the Bible holds all men accountable for their actions and is highly "intolerant" of those who disobey Him. He will sentence them to everlasting damnation.

5. What is the future of mankind and the universe?

PUBLIC SCHOOL: Man will continue to evolve into a higher and godlike being through survival of the fittest and social engineering. Man shall be saved from his problems through technology, centralized government planning, and education. The universe will continue for a few billion more years until the sun and stars burn out and everything is cold and dead. There is no ultimate meaning to life other than what the individual makes of it. After death men are either reincarnated or cease to exist.

THE BIBLE: "I was watching in the night visions And behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came up to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, And His kingdom which shall not be destroyed." (Daniel 7:13,14)

These questions bring out the clear distinction between the religion of the public schools and the religion of Christianity. Public schools are temples of a different god than the Christian God. Its teachers are the priests of this false religion called "humanism" which is merely a reincarnation of ancient paganism. Therefore, Christians who offer their children to the public schools to be educated are violating the first commandment "You shall have no other gods before me," by turning their children over to the priests of a false religion.

THE COVANENTAL NATURE OF HUMANISM

Christianity is the true Covenant between God and His people. All other religions are counterfeits. Because the counterfeits must be imitators of the real thing, false religions are covenantal as well.

In the Christian religion the sign of the covenant is baptism, and the periodic renewal of the covenant is the Lord's Supper. When we take Communion we are renewing our covenant vows to God. The terms of the Covenant are revealed in the Bible, the Word of God. The Covenantal meal of the Lord's Supper symbolizes God sustaining us and sanctifying us from sin. He is our God and we are His people.

The religion of Humanism is also covenantal, but it replaces God with the Welfare State. It promises to provide for its citizens from cradle to grave. It also claims "I will be your god and you shall be my people." When people place their children on the yellow school bus to send them off to be educated by the State they are renewing their covenantal vows to the god of Humanism. In return the State provides their children with a covenantal meal, the school lunch, and a "free" education. The god of the State requires obedience and taxes in return for a free education when we are young, college loans, unemployment checks, and social security when we are old. An example of the conscious nature of this covenant is found in a policy paper called "Public Schools and Citizenship" by The Center on Education Policy:

Historically, schools have prepared students to be good citizens in four ways: (1) teaching students about the role of government in the United States; (2) upholding civic values by teaching students to be good citizens and good neighbors; (3) equipping students with the civic skills they need to be effective participants in a representative democracy; and (4) promoting tolerance and respect for diverse peoples and different points of view.

In point number (4), tolerance is defined as acknowledging other religions and creeds as equally true. This is similar to the Roman government's licensing of all religions, provided that they acknowledge "Caesar is Lord" and tolerate the practice of other religions. This is polytheism in practice, also called "pluralism". Christian students who insist on openly holding to their faith of salvation through Jesus Christ alone as the standard for all people are attacked and degraded in the classroom for bigotry and intolerance. They must keep the claims of their faith private and merely personal in order to be tolerated.

THE CHURCH MUST TAKE A STAND

The public school in America is a tool designed to perpetuate the religion of the Welfare State. Christians who send their children to public school are covenant breakers. Every day the kids get on the yellow school bus they reaffirm their covenant with humanism. Families and churches who do this bring upon themselves the curses of disobedience.

How many Christian families have you heard of who sent their children to the public schools and their children either left the faith, became entangled with drugs, or conceived children out of wedlock? (A lot!) How many home-schooled families do you know who got those results? (Very few!) The fruit of disobedience is all around us, but the church as a whole refuses to recognize that the root of the problem is our schizophrenia in sending Christian children to public schools.

The time has come for Christians to recognize that sending their children to these humanist institutions is sinful and idolatrous. Churches should discipline members who insist on continuing in this sin. Public schooling is spiritual adultery and is every bit as serious as breaking the marriage vow. May God have mercy upon our nation and grant us repentance from this grievous sin!

COMMON OBJECTIONS ANSWERED

1. "We send our children to public school to evangelize the other children."

Answer: Change the words and see if it still sounds OK. "We send our children to be taught in the Buddhist temple so they can evangelize the other children." Or, "We send our daughters to work in a brothel so they can evangelize adulterous men and other prostitutes." Does that sound outrageous? By sending your children to public school there is a better than 50% probability they'll end up having sex with another student before they graduate. (If you send them to a public university the number who have sex before age 20 is 87%.) Evangelism does not require, or even allow, us to put our children under the covenant authority of pagan teachers. Not to mention, it doesn't work. A small minority of Christian kids who go to secular schools continue in the faith of their parents. The question is, Who is evangelizing whom? If you want to evangelize other children, then invite them to your house and present the gospel to them in the context of a Christian family.

2. "We spend time with our kids to help them filter what they are being taught in school."

Answer: By doing this you teach your children to be schizophrenic. If the public school teaches them falsehood, then why send them there to be taught at all? It is not possible to counter forty hours per week of indoctrination and peer pressure with a few hours of parental instruction. Remember what C.F. Potter wrote (above): "What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?"

3. "We want our kids to receive a quality education."

Answer: In his book, Strengths of Their Own, Dr. Brian Ray provides statistical research which shows that average standardized test scores for homeschooled children are in the 80th percentile, whereas the average of public school children's scores is the 50th percentile. Public schooling in the vast majority of cases offers an inferior education to homeschooling or private Christian schooling. Even if public school did offer a superior academic education, would academic proficiency be worth the price of a child's soul?

4. "I feel it would be wrong for me to send my children to public school, but it's OK for other people. Each family must do as the Lord leads them."

Answer: God has one standard of right and wrong: His revelation, the Bible. It is forbidden to teach your children to believe in other gods. The public schools do exactly that. This is not a subjective issue.

5. "The public school my kids go to has a lot of Christian teachers."

Answer: Really? Does it make a difference whether the teachers are Christian when the curriculum, the administration, and the other students are pagan? Your child's teachers may be closet Christians, but if they dared to say in the classroom "The God of the Bible is the only true God and Christianity is the only true religion," they would be fired. A Christian teacher who "keeps his light under a bushel" is worse than a teacher who is not Christian at all. He is an example of compromised Christianity.

Home Education: It’s God’s Idea

There are many excellent reasons for choosing to teach your own 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 are benefited 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 and learn and work together day by day. These families can overcome the family-fragmenting forces of modern life. They just plain 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 discipling 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. But to appreciate the force of this last reason you must first agree to a vitally important premise. So let me run that by you first.

The premise is simply this: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3;16,17). Or, put another way: "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness" (2 Pet. 1:3). Or, finally: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for 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 direction in life. The Scripture is our wholly sufficient guide for what to believe and how to live in ways that please God.

Do you believe that? Do you agree that what is written in the Bible is written to tell us how to live; that when the Word of God addresses any particular aspect of life, it is giving us wisdom to be followed carefully; and that God has good reason for all that he reveals in his Word? If you do, then you are ready to hear the final point.

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; these were invented by others. The pages of Scripture espouse, by precept and example, a process that closely resembles what we call home education.

To grasp God’s plan for the raising of children we need to consider what the Scripture says about four important elements of the educational process: the teachers, the method, the content, and the goal.

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, "I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him" (Gen. 18:19). Paul gave this guidance under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration: "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4).

Of course, as the man’s helper (Gen. 2:20-23), his wife is also a teacher of the children. "Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching" (Prov. 1:8; cf. 6:20). Even the grandparents are to share in the teaching task: speaking of God’s commandments, Moses said to God’s people, "Teach them to your children and to their children after them" (Deut. 4:9).

Home education by the parents is highlighted at the very apex of Old Testament revelation. Israel has just heard Moses pronounce the sacred Name: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deut. 6:4). This is followed immediately by the commandment which Jesus called the "greatest commandment" (Matt. 22:38): "Love the LORD your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deut. 6:5). Then comes the climactic charge to the people: "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up" (6:6,7). Parents have a solemn obligation to learn God’s Word and teach it to their children.

The mandate for parents to teach their offspring is a perpetual one. "He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children" (Ps. 78:5,6). Each generation should be raised with the expectation of teaching the next.

Beyond the parents, the priests and Levites had a teaching role in the holy community; but even they did not teach children directly apart from the parents. They taught "the men, women and others who could understand" when gathered as a group (Neh. 8:3,7,8).

The Bible, through command and example, presents the parents (and grandparents) as the only teachers of children. While it might seem at least possible, as an exercise of parental prerogative, to delegate the teaching responsibility to others, there is no instance of this in Scripture. (Gal. 4:2 speaks of a child being subject to "guardians and trustees until the time set by his father." This may have been the practice in the affluent strata of the pagan society which was the cultural backdrop of the Galatian converts. It is not presented as a positive practice in this context, a context which is not addressing how parents should raise children.) Although the bare teaching function might be delegated, the parent-child relationship cannot be delegated. No one can successfully replace the parents as the child's teacher because no one else is the parent, and it is this special relationship that is central to the success of the educational process—which leads us to the second element of that process.

The Method

Scripture does not even use the word "education" to describe the process of training children for adulthood. That word, as we use it, is freighted with connotations of schooling, academics, and training of the mind—a very narrow Greek/Western concept of training (rationalism views man’s mind as his primary faculty).

Those who are properly informed by a biblical/Hebrew perspective would say that true "education" is discipleship. It is a process of training the whole person, not just the mind. The goal is not a mind stuffed with facts; the goal is a changed person.

The heart is the most important part of a person "for it is the wellspring of life" (Prov. 4:23). The purpose of life is to love God with the whole heart (Deut. 6:5); and this purpose is realized in children as parents have God’s Word in their own hearts and then impress it on their children (6:6,7). Fathers are to say to their sons, "Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live" (Prov. 4:4).

God’s method of education is revealed in Deuteronomy 6:7-9. Speaking of God’s commandments it says, "Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your 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 children.

The method is seen also in Jesus’ relationship with the Twelve. He did not enroll them in a classroom course and address only their minds. He chose them "that they might be with him" (Mk. 3:14); and they talked, worked, walked, ate, and slept together for over three years. They were his apprentices. They learned by watching, listening, doing, as Jesus taught them about and modeled for them the life they were to live.

Jesus said, "A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher" (Lk. 6:40). That is the discipleship method: on-the-job, real-life training until the student is like the teacher. And that is the only method of education that results in the changed lives that God is seeking.

Biblical education/discipleship cannot be accomplished within the confines of a classroom. A small part of it could occur there, but it’s main features require involvement in the real world with real people doing real things. It requires doing work and ministry. It demands character training and learning life skills. It requires spontaneity as well as structure. Teaching can occur in a school, but discipleship can only occur in the context of real life.

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." Jn. 14:6); and while it can be expressed in the statements of Scripture, it is always connected to life and conduct ("speaking the truth in love," Eph. 4:15). Truth is not only something we can know, it is also something we can and must "do" (1 Jn. 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 ("If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God."—1 Jn. 4:15).

God wants truth to fill our children’s minds, but he wants much more. He wants the One whose name is Truth to fill their hearts and shape their lives. That is what discipleship is all about.

In a thoroughly biblical approach to education, the method is as important as the content.

The Content

Most discussions about education dwell upon the content of the curriculum; and whereas the importance of method is often minimized, we should not, in our attempt to balance the discussion, minimize content. It is absolutely critical. Truth has content, and part of education is passing on that content to our children.

What exactly is the content of education for Christian children? Psalm 78 puts it this way: "We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children..." (vv. 4,5). The Word of God and the works of God are the content of a godly education.

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 "bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4). Not the instruction of the world or of mere men, but "of the Lord."

Study of the Word of God itself is the foundation for all learning since the Word is the source of all wisdom. That is why parents are given the task of impressing God’s commandments on their children at every opportunity (Deut. 6:7-9). In the psalm quoted above, fathers are commanded to teach God’s "statutes" to their children, referring again to the written Word.

Obviously, the very words and passages of Scripture and the history and doctrine they contain must be taught diligently and systematically. The Book of books itself must be studied as a worthy object of attention in its own right.

But 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 to my feet and a light for my path." God’s Word is intended to illuminate the world we live in so that we can walk 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 praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has 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. But 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.

Also, each field of study must be viewed in relationship to the others since creation and history are a seamless fabric of overlapping influences—all under God’s sovereign control. Life in God’s world does not unfold in neat categories. The traditional approach to education which presents a student with a collection of unrelated disciplines is a caricature of the real world. All realms of study find their unity in our Creator and Savior. The best education will present any particular subject in its relationship to other subjects and to the God of truth who gives them all meaning.

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

Each of the other elements of the educational process—the teachers, the method, and the content—combine to achieve one essential end. God’s goal for us is to raise children who know, love, and obey Jesus Christ.

The aim of education is a part of the great aim of this age: to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19). For anyone who is a parent, the discipleship mandate begins in the home. He must make disciples of his own children.

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 puffs 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.

God did not say: "train a child in what he should know, and when he is old he will not forget it." He said, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it" (Prov. 22:6). Education is not just about what a child knows; it is primarily about how he lives.

Understood in its broadest terms, education is character training. God is in the business of transforming people; and 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 has it: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (Prov. 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.

Christian parents should desire for their children what Paul, imitating the Lord’s own yearnings, wanted for his children in the faith: "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you..." (Gal. 4:19). The great object of education must be Christ-like men and women.

All the elements of the Bible’s plan for child-training combine to achieve this goal; and each ingredient of the plan is crucial to the outcome.

Replace the parents with strangers or even godly fellow-believers as teachers, and you disrupt the parent-child bond which is God’s chosen channel of grace and influence.

If you choose a sterile classroom full of age peers instead of the rich home-based community environment with its natural variety of ages and conditions; if you choose mass teaching focused on the mind instead of face-to-face discipleship along the path of real life experiences—then you bypass God’s chosen means of reaching the heart of a child.

If you choose teaching which presents academic subject areas in isolation and without a biblical reference point instead of the unity of all truth based on the God of truth and his Word, then you eliminate the means of providing a coherent Christian worldview from which the child can engage the false ideas of the day.

Tamper with any of the facets of God’s revealed plan, and you decrease the prospects that your children will turn out to be godly men and women. Scripture gives us a promise in Proverbs 22:6: our children will not depart from God’s way if we faithfully raise them according to it. Modern Christians have come to doubt the truth of this verse because they are seeing their children fall off the path in such great numbers. But the problem is not God’s plan or his faithfulness. The problem is that we have abandoned his plan in so many ways.

We are back to our foundational premise: the Scripture is our wholly sufficient guide for how to live. Since, by precept and example, it presents a pattern for the process of raising our children, wisdom dictates that we follow that pattern.

The path of safety and blessing is always that which adheres most closely to the revealed will of God. Home education as we practice it 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.