Encouragement to Homeschool Your Children

By Dr. Paul M. Elliott

Part one of a series

For Christian parents to not take personal responsibility for educating their children is to barter away their souls.

August 2019 – We receive many communications from Christian parents asking about homeschooling their children. They phrase their questions and concerns in many different ways, but most of them revolve around these four issues:

Quality: Is homeschooling really a better choice? Can my children obtain the same quality of education they would in the public schools?

Finances: If I homeschool I will still be paying taxes to finance the public school system and 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.

Capabilities: I do not know if I can do it. I wonder if my children will do well with it.

Socialization: I am afraid that if I homeschool my children they will be stunted socially.

At this time of year when many parents are considering whether to begin or continue homeschooling, let me briefly address each concern in a series of articles.

The Realities of Public Education

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 the public school system, the spiritual, theological component is entirely humanistic and pagan. Christianity is excluded.

The public school environment is not only self-consciously secular, it is openly and often maliciously anti-Christian. Children are bombarded with the God-denying, God-opposing thinking that the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul describes in Romans chapter one as the reason that the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all of humanity apart from Christ. Today the public school agenda very openly and defiantly includes two things that Scripture condemns specifically in that chapter: 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” of the sexual perversion which that chapter describes in detail. The public education system has now produced more than a full generation of pagan souls who have no idea what it means to have been made in God’s image, and who see no reason to subject themselves to any “morality” except 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. Educators’ and law enforcement’s efforts to create “drug-free zones” around public school campuses would be laughable if they were not such a consistent and tragic failure.

We could cite many more evils of the public school system, but they all stem from its inherent paganism.

We Must Not Barter Away Our Children’s Souls

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 them. 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 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 a responsibility you can merely “subcontract” to pastors or Sunday school teachers; you must build the foundation at home.

You may agree with these exhortations, but wonder how you can implement Biblical homeschooling in your own household. Dear friend, you can. We shall examine that aspect of the homeschooling question as we continue.

Relocate

Relocate items throughout the house, putting everything back in its place. If the box contains items you rarely need, but these items are important when you do need them, simply label a box and put it in the basement or a closet so it can be easily located when you do need it.

Dr. Paul M. Elliott is a founder and president of TeachingTheWord Ministries, and the regular speaker on The Scripture-Driven Church broadcast.

Raised in a Christian home, Dr. Elliott came to personal saving faith in Christ at an early age in the 1960s. He was a manager and consultant in the business world before God called him to the ministry. A frequent conference, seminar, and pulpit speaker, he holds a doctorate in Biblical interpretation, and has written six full-length books and hundreds of articles and booklets.

Founded in 1998, TeachingTheWord is committed to the task of evangelizing the world and edifying the saints, which is Christ’s Great Commission. TTW seeks to support individual believers and the local church by carefully communicating Biblical truth, and addressing critical issues confronting individual Christians, families, and churches.

TTW’s ministry is based on the proposition that Christ’s church must be the Scripture-driven church; God’s inspired, inerrant Word must be our sole authority, and our infallible critic, in every area of life and ministry.

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