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Don't barter away the souls of your children by committing them into the hands of God's enemies.
March 11, 2025 - We constantly receive communications from Christian parents expressing many questions and concerns about homeschooling their children. They express these things in many different ways, but most of their questions and concerns revolve around four issues.
The first is quality: Is homeschooling really a better choice? Can my children obtain the same quality of education they would in the public schools?
The second is finances: If I homeschool I will still be paying taxes to finance the public government school system and I will receive no aid from the government. I (usually the mother) will need to give up my job in order to homeschool, and we are not sure we can make this work financially. And if financial aid from the government becomes available, should our family take advantage of it?
The third issue people often ask about is capabilities: I do not know if I can do homeschooling successfully. I wonder if my children will do well with it.
The fourth issue that parents raise is socialization: I am afraid that if I homeschool my children they will be stunted socially.
And here is the central question behind all of these questions: Is homeschooling really a better choice than public school? Consider these facts.
All education is spiritual education. All education has a theology behind it. In government school systems, the spiritual, theological component is there - but it is entirely humanistic and pagan, and it is taught, the vast majority of the time, by unbelievers. Authentic Christianity is excluded, because authentic Christians are not doing the teaching.
Today the government school agenda very openly and defiantly includes two things that Scripture condemns specifically in Romans chapter one: the denial of God as the creator of mankind and thus as the sovereign, holy Lord to whom all must give account, and the "normalizing" or at least the tolerance of sexual perversion. The government education system has now produced multiple generations of pagan souls who have no idea what it means to have been made in God's image. And because of that great void in their thinking, most people who came through the government school systems see no reason to subject themselves to any kind of "morality" except perhaps some form of situation ethics.
In the last twenty years, public schools have become increasingly dangerous places. Of course the rise in the number of school shootings receives the most media attention. But student-on-student violence has become far more common and is truly pandemic. The authorities' efforts to create "drug-free zones" around public school campuses are a consistent and tragic failure.
And, as we saw in our last webcast, the government school environment has become "big brother". Children's behaviors and beliefs are being monitored, massive amounts of data about them are being accumulated, and there is no effective control over how that data will be used - or by whom.
All of these evils in government-run school environment stem from its inherent paganism.
How should Christian parents view these things? Let me answer that by pointing you to the words of the Lord Jesus:
When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel's will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8:34-38).
"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).
"What will a man give in exchange for his soul?" The sense of Jesus' question is this: "What will a man barter away as the price of his soul?" Let me submit to you that the same question applies to parents in relation to the children God has entrusted to you. What will you barter away as the price of your children's souls?
Furthermore, Jesus condemns the parent - or anyone else - who "causes any of these little ones who believe in Me to sin." The sense in the original language is to place a spiritual stumbling block in front of a child, to cause a child to begin to distrust and to desert the one whom he ought to trust and obey - on a human level, the child's parents; on a spiritual level, the God of the Bible.
Dear Christian parent, do not barter away the souls of your children by committing them into the hands of the enemies of God, those who "take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, 'Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords [i.e., restraints] from us' " (Psalm 2:2-3). We must always remember that we are in a warfare:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:12-13).
You must take up the armor of God yourself, and you must see to it that your children are equipped with it. This is not something you can merely subcontract to pastors or Sunday school teachers; you must build the foundation at home.
Now, you may agree with these exhortations, but you may wonder how you can possibly implement Biblical homeschooling in your own household. Dear friend, you can do it. You can provide a quality education for your children. We shall examine that aspect of the homeschooling question in our next webcast.
We invite you to visit our website for more information and to access our free Bible Knowledgebase.
We greatly value your prayers for this work, and we appreciate your financial support.
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