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“Parents only get a few, precious years to educate, train, and equip their children for the life in front of them. If you are a Christian parent, I hope you will take to heart these biblical reasons for homeschooling yours. It might be hard, but as any good education teaches us, sometimes the hardest things in life are the ones most worth doing.”
–WILLIAM WOLFE
All across America thousands of families — sparked by the pandemic, the rise of wokeness, and radical gender ideology in the classroom — are taking control of their children’s education in new and significant ways. Many parents finally realized that their children weren’t being educated at their local public school, they were being indoctrinated.
According to the Foundation for Economic Education, “New Census Bureau data show that 11.1 percent of K-12 students are now being independently homeschooled. This is a large uptick from 5.4 percent at the start of the school shutdowns last spring, and 3.3 percent in the years preceding the pandemic.”
If you are a Christian parent, and you are thinking through the idea of homeschooling, it’s important to consider what the Bible has to say about education — specifically what your role as a Christian parent is in ensuring your children are educated in a God-honoring manner. Romans 12:1-2 commands Christians “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship,” and warns us: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
The choice of your children’s education is then 1) an act of worship and 2) a matter of helping your children resist following the world’s ungodly ways. In light of that truth, here are three Biblical reasons to consider homeschooling your children:
Children are a precious gift from God, given not to the government but to parents. In our technocratic society, many argue against things like “parental rights” and even go so far as to claim that children ultimately belong to society and the government. This is the product of a secular worldview.
The Bible clearly teaches that parents have authority over their children. This authority is represented in the symbol of the “rod.” We read in Proverbs 13:24 that “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”
At the end of the day, as a Christian parent, God will hold you responsible for whether or not your children learn the truth about Him, His Word, and His world — not the local school board. Proverbs 23:23 reminds us to “Buy the truth and do not sell it.” One way to do this for your children is to invest in their education by homeschooling.
One of the key books about education in the Bible is Proverbs. We know this because it says so!
Proverbs 1:2-4 tells us that the purpose of the Proverbs is for “gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to those who are simple, knowledge and discretion to the young.”
Further, Proverbs 1:7 tells us that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
True knowledge begins with the right knowledge of God, and it ends with knowing God better and using it to serve Him faithfully.
As the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it, the “chief end of man” is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The Bible makes it clear that instruction, that is, education, must be set in the context of the supreme goal of learning — knowing God better.
This is what Moses commanded the Israelites after they were delivered from Egypt. After he had given them the words of God’s law, he reminded them in Deuteronomy 6:6-7 of the critical importance of teaching the law of God to their children and future generations:
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
For God’s Old Covenant people, the Israelites, providing God-honoring education for their children wasn’t optional, it was a matter of obedience. While we live in the New Covenant, and God’s covenant people are now found in the Church, the same holds true for us today. Christian parents are still responsible before God to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
Given how anti-God much of our current culture is, it is almost impossible to guarantee that your children will be learning about God rightly if they attend public schools. Instead of God, your children is most likely learning about evolution, progressivism, Marxism, materialism, etc. There are, of course, the options of Christian schools and classical schools. But even some of those are compromised!
The bottom line is this: If you are living in an area where you can’t ensure that your children’s educational experience will help them know God rightly and know God better, you should consider homeschooling.
In Philippians 4:8 Paul instructs believers on how to think. He writes:
“…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Adults are responsible for protecting their own thoughts. But parents have a particular responsibility to safeguard what their children are thinking about, especially in an educational setting. The sad, hard truth is that the vast majority of educational environments today are inundated with Critical Race Theory (CRT) and radical gender ideology.
As countless news reports have revealed over the last few years, schoolchildren across our nation, from kindergarten through 12th grade, are being forced to think about all kinds of sinful perversions as part of their education. Pornographic books normalizing and encouraging homosexuality are included in public school libraries. Teachers are increasingly trying “to talk to” their students about concepts like “sexual orientation and gender identity.” Pride flags are flown in classrooms. Confused youth are encouraged to start “transitioning,” and teachers work with school counselors to keep it a secret from parents.
It’s not just sexual immorality that is present in public schools. A dangerous strain of reverse racism has also gripped our nation. The flags of Black Lives Matter (which is an anti-family Marxist organization) are flown in classrooms. Young white children are told to feel guilty for their “privilege.” History teachers tell American schoolchildren that the most important thing to know about our nation is that it is “founded on genocide and white supremacy” — not that it has been the greatest beacon of freedom and prosperity that perhaps the world has ever seen, despite our historical shortcomings like slavery, segregation, and now abortion.
Both of these issue areas — radical gender ideology and CRT — fail every single test that God’s Word gives on what we should think about. None of this is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. It’s the opposite. These are false, sinful, racist beliefs and sexual immoralities that will yield incalculable damage to the hearts, souls, and even the bodies of our young children. Christian parents cannot, in obedience before God, allow their children to be a part of such “education” and conversations.
While not every family can homeschool, there are probably more Christian families out there who could homeschool if they put their minds to it. I hope this article brings some biblical reasoning to considerations about bringing your children home for their education in 2023.
Remember, God commands parents to “Train up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6). How can Christian parents do this if they export their children’s education to the state? Given the fight against the culture, it would be unwise to assume that relying on a couple of hours a week of family devotions and 90 minutes of youth group on Sunday morning will suffice to counter 40-plus hours of brainwashing they will sit under in a public school classroom. A mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste and in no small measure because God commands us to love Him with all of our minds (Matthew 22:37).
Parents only get a few, precious years to educate, train, and equip their children for the life in front of them. If you are a Christian parent, I hope you will take to heart these biblical reasons for homeschooling yours. It might be hard, but as any good education teaches us, sometimes the hardest things in life are the ones most worth doing.
Follow William on Twitter! @William_E_Wolfe
Ready to dive deeper into the intersection of faith and policy? Head over to our Theology of Politics series page where we’ve published several long-form pieces that will help Christians navigate where their faith should direct them on political issues.
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