Jesus said, “Everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.”  Therefore, if you homeschool your children, they will become like you.  If you send them to a Christian school, they will become like the curriculum taught at that school.  If you send them to a Muslim school, they will become Muslims.  If you send them to a secular school, they will become secular.  To expect otherwise is to call Jesus a liar. 

In the previous article, we explored what the Bible states about the education of children.  We discovered the following biblical principles.  (1) The goal of education is to help a child become a good thinker, reasoning and behaving in a way that is consistent with the character of God (Proverbs 22:15; Isaiah 55:7-8), and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).  A child trained in the way he should go will become an adult that does not depart from that path (Proverbs 22:6).  Biblically, the goal of education is to inculcate thinking and behavior that aligns with the character of God.  (2) Education should be for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).  Thus, when a pupil is fully trained, he should be a person who loves God and loves his neighbor (Luke 10:27), he should have a biblical worldview with a deep commitment to the Scriptures (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).  Thus, his teacher(s) must also be that way, because a pupil will become like his teacher (Luke 6:40).  (3) Parents have the responsibility of educating their own children, ensuring that their child’s education is “in the way that he should go” (Ephesians 6:4).  God therefore holds parents responsible for their child’s education.  God has not given the state the authority to teach children or to regulate education.

Delegating Responsibly

Given that God authorizes parents to bring up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, parents have a responsibility to ensure that their child’s education is Christ-centered and God-honoring.  Homeschooling is biblically sanctioned and encouraged.  Yet, many parents feel inadequate to teach their own children and prefer to delegate.[1]  Since there is apparently no Scripture forbidding this, such delegation appears to be permitted as long as the child is trained “in the way that he should go” (Proverbs 22:6), and brought up in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).  Parents therefore have a responsibility to ensure that whoever teaches their children fits these biblical criteria.  Some delegation is permitted; abdication is not.

What we now call “homeschooling” has always been the primary method by which God expects children to be educated – as we saw in the previous article.  But we do have biblical precedent for parents delegating education to godly teachers.  Hannah dedicated her first son to the Lord, and placed him under the care and tutelage of the priest Eli (1 Samuel 1).  Samuel was instructed in the ways of God (e.g. 1 Samuel 3:8-10, 19) and became a faithful priest, prophet, and judge over Israel.

In that same spirit, many churches have homeschool co-op options where various families share the responsibilities of educating their children.  Providing the teachers are faithful men and women who make God’s Word central in their curriculum, this seems a biblically-allowed option.  Other parents choose to place their students in a Christian school.  This is potentially a good option as well.  However, caution is warranted.  Many Christian schools are Christian in name only.  Many give lip service to God but teach a secular curriculum.  Therefore, parents interested in Christian schooling for their children need to carefully investigate the curriculum and teachers to ensure that such an environment will train the child in the way he should go.  The curriculum is primarily what determines the worldview being taught to the student, as will be shown below.

Public Education

The United States of America offers free education from kindergarten through 12^th grade for its citizens.[2]  The curriculum is determined by the government and teachers’ unions, and is entirely secular.  In the previous article, we found that the Bible does not authorize the government to educate children, and that such overreach is a violation of God’s role for government (e.g. Romans 13:1-7).  Nonetheless, would it be wrong to take advantage of the system since it is already in place?  Is there any violation of biblical principles to send children to a government school to be educated?

Biblically, parents are responsible to ensure that their child’s education is Christ-focused with the goal of learning to reason and behave rightly (in a way that is consistent with God’s character) for the glory of God (Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:4; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Psalm 78:3-7).  A biblically-sanctioned education must have the goal of producing graduates with a biblical worldview, faith in Christ, love of God, and a deep conviction for the truth of Scripture.  Is this the goal of public education?  If we are honest about it, we must admit that government schools do not seek any of these things.  They have nothing to do with right-reasoning to the glory of God – the very purpose of education!

“Above all, in schools of all kinds the chief and most common lesson should be the Scriptures…  I greatly fear the high schools are nothing but great gates of hell, unless they diligently study the Holy Scriptures and teach them to the young people.” – Martin Luther[3]

Neutrality

Some will say, “Ah, but public schools are at least not anti-Christian.  They are neutral.  They teach the raw facts: the mechanics of reading, writing, and arithmetic.  At home and in church, we teach our children about God.”  This undoubtedly is the attitude of many professing Christians.  But it is horribly unbiblical.  Nothing in this universe is neutral with respect to God.  God rightly deserves our allegiance in all things, not our indifference.  To fail to acknowledge God in all things is therefore high treason.  Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matthew 12:30).  Jesus did not allow the possibility of a neutral position that is neither for Christ nor against Him.  Therefore, that which is not for Christ is against Christ.

So we must ask, “Are public schools for Christ?  Do they acknowledge Him as Lord over all?”  If not, then they are against Christ according to His own words.  They are in open rebellion against Him.  Is the curriculum of government schools gathering people to Christ?  If not, then it is scattering people away.  A curriculum that does not honor God as the supreme authority and source of all knowledge in all areas is wicked and untruthful because God is the supreme authority and source of all knowledge in all areas (Proverbs 1:7; Colossians 2:3).

Israel Wayne correctly states, “Parents who have grown up with a modernist mindset wrongly assume that their children will simply be taught a values-free set of facts and dates in schools, from which the children can determine what they believe. Nothing could be further from the truth.”[4] [emphasis added]

Some might respond, “But wait!  Some things are neutral.  After all, what do topics like mathematics, American history, or science have to do with God?”  Of course, a biblically-minded Christian has the answer: everything!  None of these topics are neutral or make any sense apart from the biblical God.  It is only because people have been thoroughly indoctrinated into secular humanism that anyone could think that such topics are neutral toward a sovereign God.  Neutrality is a secular, anti-biblical concept.

Consider mathematics.  What exactly is mathematics?  Mathematics is the way God thinks about numbers (concepts of quantity).  How have humans come to discover some mathematical truths?  This is because God has revealed Himself to us; He has given us some of His thoughts.  He made humans in His own image, including our mind’s ability to reason about abstract things.  Why is mathematics so useful in the physical world?  This is because God’s mind (the same mind that determines mathematical truths) controls the physical universe.  Why is mathematics so self-consistent?  The answer is because God is.  Why do mathematical principles work at all times, in all locations, without exception?  This is because God is unchanging, omni-present, and sovereign over everything.  God rules over every aspect of mathematics.  It is not neutral!

Apart from the Christian worldview, none of those questions are answerable or really even meaningful.  Public schools may teach the mechanics of mathematics.  But stripped from its biblical context, the topic reduces to mere rules and relations that we need to memorize for some reason, and that have nothing to do with God.  No wonder so many children hate mathematics.  But what if they learned that in studying math properly, they were getting a small glimpse into the infinite mind of God?  What if they realized that in studying mathematics from a biblical perspective, they were training their mind to think more like the mind of Christ?

Likewise, is the study of history merely a bunch of dates and names of people that died long ago?  In a secular universe, history is just memorizing what certain chemical accidents did to other chemical accidents.  What could be more boring?  There is no importance, no purpose, and therefore no relevance in a chance universe.  But in the Christian worldview, history is the execution of God’s sovereignty over human affairs.  We see how God has rewarded the obedience of some nations and punished the wickedness of others.  We see numerous instances of divine justice and divine mercy spanning millennia!  We even see God using human wickedness to bring about good, all for His glory.

Science is presented from a thoroughly secular and corrupt perspective in nearly all public schools.  Students are taught that science has replaced silly religions like Christianity.  Rather than correctly learning how biblical principles are the basis for what makes science possible, students are taught that science disproves the Bible from the first verse.  Indeed, the secular origins story (including the big bang, Darwinian evolution, and deep time) is taught as if it were science, and well-established.[5]  Nothing could be further from the truth.  But children are not taught principles of logical reasoning by which they might recognize obvious falsehoods in the secular curriculum.

As R.J. Rushdoony put it, “It is a serious mistake to assume, first of all, that there is any neutral subject which can be taught in the same way by both Christian Schools and humanistic schools. To believe so is to deny God’s total sovereignty over all things. It means that areas exist where man, not God, is the Lord. There is no area of neutrality in all of creation. What we believe determines our perspective in mathematics, history, biology, geology, art, physical education, and everything else. The triune God is totally the creator of all things and thus totally their Lord and determiner. All subjects are either taught from a Biblical, a theistic perspective, or they are taught from a humanistic, a man-centered perspective.”[6]

Yet, many Christians are fooled into thinking that some subjects in school are neutral.  Why is this?  Could it be that many Christians have a secular worldview because they had a secular education?  We live as practical atheists, thinking about God only on Sunday morning or during our daily prayer.  We don’t recognize the sovereignty of God in all areas of life because we were educated in a system that teaches that God is irrelevant to all areas of life.  We don’t see the importance of teaching all subjects from a biblical worldview for God’s glory because we don’t have a biblical worldview and do not truly live for God’s glory.  We have been secularized.

By carefully excluding God from every area of study, the secular curriculum teaches students that God is utterly irrelevant.  Students learn in public schools that God is irrelevant to history, God is irrelevant to science, God is irrelevant to language, God is irrelevant to art, God is irrelevant to music, and God is irrelevant to mathematics.  Such an education is thoroughly anti-biblical.  Biblically, everything exists by God’s decree and for His glory.  And knowledge begins with God (Proverbs 9:10).

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