By Geoffrey Botkin, posted on 14 October, 2009

Is there a difference between schooling and education? If so, what is real education and how can Christians know if they are discharging all their duties and responsibilities to bring up their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?” This article summarizes seven principles that appear in scripture as commands. The good news is that these commands are not burdensome, but can restore families, communities and even civilizations. Education is that important, and it has been put into the hands of parents for reasons parents must understand. These principles hold the key to changing a culture of forced government schooling into a flourishing culture of Christian discipleship.

For most American parents, schooling is something done by the government for the sake of the parent. Schooling is something done to children who are being prepared to serve the government’s planned economy. Parents participate in schooling by giving their children to the government, and schooling takes place as the dominant activity in the lives of the children, community, and local economy.

Unfortunately, in this world of schooling, education does not happen, and some children know it does not happen.

This is partly why young American school children are hateful toward grown-ups. They know the culture of schooling is an artificial and dishonest culture of exploitation, indoctrination, political folly, and institutionalized deception. They don’t want to go along with this but are made captives to these empty traditions of men. They are given no alternatives in our disintegrating culture but mindless compliance or surly rebellion. This is why many young people are ashamed, angry and dangerous, and why American homes are unhappy, fragmented places of confused conflict. Families don’t function well in the artificial, dishonest world of total government control.

Fathers need to face up to this crisis by putting their homes in order and putting their entire civilization in order. There is a blunt command given to fathers in Ephesians 6:4 which is directly pertinent to the present American dilemma. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

The command is simple enough. If fathers would bring up their children properly, there would be none of the low intensity conflict that is found in every home that is part of the culture of government schooling. Why is this simple command not simply obeyed?

This command is not obeyed because parents are misled, generation after generation, about what it means to have a Christian home and what it means to raise Christian children. The schooling process suggests that nurture and admonition are processes that must be left to licensed government experts, and not even attempted by parents. These traditions of men are then passed on by the entire community. Local pastors and local schools are participants in a culture of government schooling, but not a culture of true education.

Until these traditions are replaced with a worldview that is carefully Biblical, America will repeat the sin described by Isaiah, “with their lips they do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men” (Isaiah 29:13).^[1]

What should parents be doing to reverse this situation? If they would begin getting their advice on parenting from scripture, they would find the guidance and courage they need to boldly withdraw from a destructive culture that imperils their children. They would be able to establish homes that would reverse today’s cultural decline.

There are seven clear commands given by God in scripture to comfort parents, to strengthen parents, to embolden parents and to encourage parents in their duties and responsibilities of education.

In the last thirty years, millions of parents in North America have discovered that these commands are not impossible to obey, are applicable to the modern world, the modern economy and the modern family. Obedience, however, is always costly. But God supplies the grace and means by which the obedient follow Him in victorious living. These millions of parents have discovered that these commands are most thoroughly obeyed by creating cultures of education in their homes. This has come to be known as home-schooling.

The culture and practice of home-schooling is different in every home and parents should not look primarily to the exploding home-school industry for formulas of successful schooling. Home-schooling is not about schooling. It is about recovering the lost Biblical practices of real education, which occur best in homes that develop very close parent-child and sibling-sibling relationships.

Obedience to the following seven general commands opens up a new world of freedom for parents and children; a happy and stimulating environment with parent-child unity. Best of all, that unity is based on the important activities of the Christian life that help children become mature leaders in the reformation of culture that has become artificially retarded because schooling replaced real education.

The following commands represent the foundations of family life that honor the family institution as God created it.

1. The command to deep parental involvement in nurturing through intimate, consistent instruction
2. The command to protect the souls, minds, and bodies of children
3. The command to find and practice God’s methods of nurturing
4. The command to diligently teach a simple curriculum written and designed by God
5. The command to abide in Christ as central and necessary to intellectual growth
6. The command to impart character and discipline as part of our multigenerational duty
7. The command to defend the faith through intellectual warfare

The first command is represented in Ephesians 6.

Ephesians 6:1-4 — Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with a promise;)

That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Parents begin the obedience process by training their children to obey their immediate authority, which is Mom and Dad. Education cannot begin without a relationship of honor, and real education never ends. Parents honor the disciplines that must be taught by teaching those disciplines carefully. Children honor the teachers by listening respectfully. Children will begin to learn this as they see their parents turn seriously to the instruction of God’s word.

Children are nurtured as they are admonished, bringing every aspect of their lives under the disciplines of the Christian faith. This takes time, but children respond well to loving parents who make the sacrifices necessary to admonish consistently. Children learn to love and respect their parents for doing what is right, because they see that their parents are self-consciously choosing to do what is right.

The next command is referenced at the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New.

Luke 1:17 — And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

When fathers turn their hearts to their children, they begin to see ways they’ve been duped by popular culture to disobey God. When we consciously turn our hearts to our children, we come to value them and their souls as gifts from God which must be carefully nurtured as part of our multigenerational duty, responsibility and stewardship.^[2]

Psalm 127:3-5 — Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Scripture shows us that there are enemies out there. Our children have enemies who would harm their minds, souls and bodies. Enemies exist because most men walk in foolish antagonism to God and strike out at his people.

Nurturing our children means leading them in the wisdom to recognize the conflict that exists between the obedient and the disobedient. Parents are to teach children that life is a moral battleground, not a playground. We train them how to triumph morally. One goal in nurturing is to bring up leaders who can look their enemies in the eye without any fear of man and without any compromise with those enemies. No child is ready for life in the real world until he conquers his own personal temptations to give in to moral compromise. Part of real education is interpreting a world of good and evil to our children when they are young. Children who grow up with this kind of real-world education are the best protected, best socialized, most mature and most secure young people of this generation.^[3] Over the last twenty years, home-schooled youth have proven themselves to be confident and successful reformers of a misguided culture. Because of this, their natural enemies are growing more hateful. This means parents need to be especially protective and vigilant.

Parents must be vigilant with every influence their children encounter or are likely to encounter. Parents can provide opportunities to get away from bad company and to be exposed to great men and visionary leaders. Bad company may not simply be wastrels and delinquents, but fools who are devoted to counterfeit or delusionary academic pursuits. Proverbs 13:20 says, “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.^[4]”

1 Timothy 6:20-21 — O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge,"

for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.

Luke 6:40 — The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.^[5]

Students who spend time with intellectuals who hold arrogant or anti-Christian ideas will become like those teachers morally. There are consequences to foolish living and learning which can include straying and even destruction. The destruction might be so severe as to last several generations.^[6] Parents can structure their home and community life to be in fellowship with like-minded people who are serious about finding wisdom.

Thankfully, there are also serious consequences for serious obedience, in the form of active and lasting blessings from God himself. The third command leads us into those blessings as we find God’s ways and God’s methods of education.

Psalm 128:1-4 — Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways.

For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD… Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.

One of the blessings of obedience is family and children. God rewards the faithful with children who can be educated for His kingdom purposes. Thus it is not surprising that God’s enemies hold an antagonism to the family. Scripture addresses the ways we actively strengthen our children against antagonistic rival faiths.^[7]

One of God’s primary ways:

Deuteronomy 6:5-9 — You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

This parental instruction is centered in daily activity in the home and in the tight relationships that develop as this method is practiced. Specific moral instruction is happening constantly and consistently in all times and places as students learn to delight in the law of God, which is the foundation of all academic learning. This brings us to the command to teach a specific curriculum.

Psalm 1:1-2 — How blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

…in contrast to people who are drawn away by the laws of men and rival sovereigns. ^[8]

Deuteronomy 32:46 — And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life…

All the words of scripture are profitable for instruction, and not just in an academic sense, but in building a complete world and life view for a lifetime of profitable obedience. No education is complete without teaching the whole counsel of God to children. This means theology and history. The bad news is that this takes commitment. The good news is that there is grace sufficient for any parent to be committed. The even better news: young children can grasp highly complex aspects of systematic theology. Older children can apply these lessons to real life battles. As they do this they begin to appreciate the great wisdom of God. This increases their respect of God, which in turns leads them into even more wisdom, which takes us to the fifth principle.

We are commanded to apply our minds and every aspect of our being to an active, obedient love of Christ.

Matthew 22:37-38 — Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

John 14:21 — He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

In the education of our children many powerful truths are discovered or rediscovered as Christ actively participates in the education process with us. He manifests himself to our children as they seek Him and His wisdom. Because he himself is the very Word of God, he educates us in the meaning of his very design of creation, the purposes of history, the role of man in general, the meaning of life, the battles of our generation, and where each of us fit.

Those who turn their minds to study these matters willingly and diligently discover that we are made in God’s image to study, interpret, and enculturate the earth.^[9]

This mandate was given to our first parents to pass on to their children. Together this first family was to subdue the creation on God’s terms.

But the rebellion of our first parents resulted in a curse on mankind^[10] which is spiritual^[11] and intellectual.^[12] Our understanding of true education must take this curse into account.

Romans 1:18 — For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

This is the source of the conflict between rebels and those who belong to the Savior. The conflict is fierce and ongoing, but it is not outside of God’s intention or control. Genesis 3.15 informs us that we will be dealing with this battle continually. Armed with this knowledge, we teach and train our children accordingly. This conflict will make education difficult and civilization-building difficult. So we lean even more dependently on God.

Genuine knowledge begins with faith, reverence, submission, and obedience^[13] and not with friendship with the world^[14] and its false knowledge and philosophy and empty deception.

Therefore education is part of the mandate to bring culture and obedience to a hostile world by the humility (character) that precedes knowledge.

The sixth principle charges us to be Christ-like in our character and discipline.

Christians are called and appointed by Christ to be educators of those given to our charge. As parents educate children God’s way, they are prepared to be educators of the entire world. Christians are commanded to make bring entire nations under the disciplines of God’s word in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20. This impossible task should not cause us to shrink away from our duty, but to accept it with faith and humility. We and our children are in more desperate need than we ever realized to apprehend God’s wisdom and Christ’s character as we embrace and observe Christ’s commandments^[15], which include the insistence on high standards of personal, cultural and national character. We have to teach these before we teach all the other things an ignorant culture needs to learn.

The last principle commands us to fight spiritually and intellectually for the triumph of the Faith and of Christ’s rights as the Sovereign authority over the earth.

Judah 1:3 — Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

2 Corinthians 10:5 — Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Romans 12:2 — And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Colossians 2:8 — Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

As we engage ourselves and our children in this battle, we will discover traditions of men and rudiments of the world that have taken our homes, churches and national government captive. Our minds have been conformed to the theologies of a rival faith. Compulsory state-ordered education is just one defeat that must be reversed.

Our anti-Christian government curriculum is hostile to the law of God and the Ten Commandments for this reason: believers who obey these commands carefully would never permit or tolerate unconstitutional, compulsory, public education. Free people are not schooled by their leaders.

We have been badly deceived. The federalized curriculum has deceived us to think that the state is a higher sovereign authority than God.^[16] The schooling culture has taught us to abandon our duties before Christ and to let our children believe that education is a morally neutral pursuit, and that secularism is not religious. Our children need to know that Christ disagrees^[17], and that it is time to side with Christ. It is time to introduce our children to the blessings that come with siding with Christ and the joys of true education.