BJU Press Blog

Shaping Worldview

You homeschool because your child’s faith is important to you. We want to support you in training up your child. These blog posts show how to give your child a biblical worldview of each subject.
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Love Your Neighbor by Going to School

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When I was young, the only neighbors I had were at school. Our family lived near a seven-lane road and the closest houses were near a very unsafe apartment complex several hundred yards away. We spent most of our time at our Christian school, so I wouldn’t have met my neighbors anyway. When a preacher would talk about loving our neighbors, I always thought of the girl with perfect handwriting who sat in front of me and the boy with the messy desk who sat beside me. I was thinking of loving my neighbors at school.

But what does it mean to love your neighbors by going to school? What Christians have discovered through the years is that going to school not only equips a student to obey Genesis 1:28 and work with the world God has placed us in but it also equips students to show love to their neighbors in tangible ways. In other words, how can a student  love his neighbor if he cannot add, communicate, or solve problems?

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Let’s consider an example. Suppose you wanted to show love to your sister by buying her a present for her birthday. But suppose you’ve never learned any math because  you don’t like it. One day you go to the store and find something nice to get her. You don’t know it costs $45 because you can’t read the price tag. At the register you hand the lady all the cash you have because you can’t count it. She looks it over and says that it’s not enough. You try your credit card, but it’s rejected because you’ve already exceeded your credit limit. A kind bystander gives you the five dollars you need to cover the cost of the item, and you go on your way. You take the gift home and stick it in a gift bag and go over to your sister’s house. She’s not home because she works until 5:00 everyday, and it’s only 3:00 now (but you can’t tell time). So you wait. When she arrives you give her the gift. She’s grateful and very surprised, especially since her birthday is two months away. Seven, nine—they’re basically the same, right?

Why do you tell students they have to come to school? One of the most important reasons for going to school is to learn how to better love our neighbors. Do your students know that?

Family Devotions: Using Scripture (Part 2)

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In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the importance of family devotions. Now we will consider how you can implement family worship in your home. My husband and I picked up some ideas last year at a family worship workshop at our church, and this encouragement and instruction reignited our own time of family devotions. Reading scripture is a crucial element to effective family devotional times.

Image of a family having devotions

Each family has freedom on how to structure their worship time since there is no biblical mandate, but here are three elements you’ll probably want to include.

  1. Reading
  2. Praying
  3. Singing
What to Read—Scripture

What should you read? All kinds of devotional books are available, but it’s best to focus on the actual Word of God—from Genesis to Revelation. Telling your kids to trust God and treasure His Word, but then only reading children’s story Bibles or never reading more than the Proverbs or New Testament sends a conflicting message. How can they know God if their knowledge of Him is limited?

Why to Read Scripture—Some Reasons

The Bible has no parallel because no other book is inspired by God Himself (2 Timothy 3:16). No other book “is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit” (Hebrews 4:12 NKJV). The Scriptures are life-giving, pointing to Christ: “From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15 NKJV).

Teach children that God’s Word is to be trusted and man’s word doubted. Even our own hearts are deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). We should always measure what we think, read, or hear by the Bible. Our children should expect us to back up what we say with well-interpreted Scripture (2 Timothy 2:15). When we ask them questions during Bible time, we occasionally follow up on their answers with, “How did you get that from the text?” In this way, we’re sharpening a biblical worldview and proper Bible interpretation.

How to Read Scripture—Some Suggestions

One family in our church had the goal of reading through the entire Bible. They made a timeline chart with a reward promised at the end. The kids would check off passages as they went, reminding each other if they were getting behind. When they successfully finished after about eighteen months, they had an ice cream party to celebrate, but everybody agreed that reading the Word all the way through would have been reward enough. Now this family is reading at a slower pace, picking different Old and New Testament books to study in depth.

Our family has been going through a reading plan called “100 Essential Bible Passages.”  Since our children are younger, we’ve enjoyed hitting these highlights, and we plan to read them again in more detail at a later time.

At some point you may decide to go beyond reading and introduce your children to the three basic steps of biblical hermeneutics: observation, interpretation, and application. Help your children observe the text by asking questions about the “Five Ws” (who, what, when, where, and  why). Their interpretation of a passage should not be based on “What does this text mean to me?” but “What does it mean?” Study with them so that they learn to discern what the writer was communicating to the original audience. Especially consider the context and relevant cross-references to compare Scripture with Scripture. For the application step, ask questions like, “How does this passage apply to our lives today?”

In Part 3, we will continue with the other two main aspects of family worship (praying and singing).

What have you found helpful when teaching your children about worship? How do you help them apply Scripture to their lives?

Family Devotions (Part 1)

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The Most Important Subject to Teach in Your Homeschool—Family Devotions

image of a family sitting around having devotions

As we begin this new year of 2015, let’s make a resolution that can bring eternal dividends: commit to regular family devotions with our children. My children’s ACT® scores and future career opportunities matter little in comparison with the condition of their hearts and the place they will spend eternity. We tend to get so focused on the “three Rs” that we only have leftover time for instruction from God’s Word.

Of all the great books and classical works to introduce our children to, one book will endure forever—the Bible. It has been burned, confiscated, criticized, and disbelieved, yet its prophecies have never failed to come to pass, and its testimonies have proven true. Do we treasure it? Do we attentively sit under the preaching of it? Do we regularly read it?

Scot Chadwick defines family worship as “the regular practice of devotion to God in Scripture reading, praying, and singing, for the purpose of glorifying God and growing in His grace.” The time together as a family, worshiping God and learning from His Word, can go by many names, such as family devotions, Bible time, or family worship.

God has given parents the responsibility of raising their children “in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4 NKJV). The MacArthur Study Bible interprets this passage as calling for “systematic discipline and instruction, which brings children to respect the commands of the Lord as the foundation of all of life, godliness, and blessing.” It requires day-in-and-day-out teaching, correcting, and modeling.

Most of this diligent teaching will probably happen during the day-to-day activities of life: “when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7 NKJV). And while we should seize these opportune moments, it is helpful to schedule a regular daily time to open God’s Word and systematically teach our children “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27 NKJV). Before they leave our home, my husband and I want our children to know God’s Word, particularly the redemptive storyline that runs throughout Scripture.

So how can we as parents implement family devotions? My local church recently held a workshop about how to have family devotions, and I look forward to sharing in Part 2 what we learned.

Works Cited

Scot Chadwick, “Family Worship: Teaching Our Children God’s Word,” Answers in Genesis, September 24, 2013, https://answersingenesis.org/train-up-a-child/family-worship-teaching-our-children-gods-word/.

John MacArthur. The MacArthur Study Bible, note on 1 Peter 3:6. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007.

Little House and the Big Omission (Part 2)

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black and white drawing of Hiram Bell Farmstead in the 19th century
Hiram Bell Farmstead/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

In Part 1, we made the case for how the Little House series portrays a cultural Christianity that contains moral teaching, positive character traits, a good work ethic, and traditional family values yet is bankrupt of the saving gospel of Christ. It portrays a religion of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. We must train our children to be discerning, always doubting man’s word and comparing it to God’s inspired, perfect Word. Now we will continue our survey of relevant Little House passages that give us the opportunity to teach our children how to recognize cultural Christianity—which still exists in America, though weaker and more secular than ever—and combat it with biblical truth.

Response to Trials

In By the Shores of Silver Lake (217–19), Ma recounted the illness that took Mary’s sight and how she patiently endured the trial. Reverend Alden responded, “We must remember that whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and a brave spirit will turn all our afflictions to good.” Later he prayed, beseeching God, “Who knew their hearts and their secret thoughts, to look down on them there, and to forgive their sins and help them to do right.” After the pastor prayed, Laura felt a peace and resolve about giving up her own desires so that Mary could go to the college for the blind.

Discussion Questions

  • Do we know for certain that Mary’s blindness was a result of God’s chastening? (Luke 13:1–5; John 9:3; Hebrews 12:5–11)
  • For whom does God work all things together for good? (Romans 8:28)
  • Whose likeness are Christians to be conformed to? (Romans 8:29)
  • When the reverend prayed for forgiveness, how was it disconnected from the gospel? (Acts 4:12; Ephesians 1:7)

Mary and the Goodness of God

In Little Town on the Prairie (11–13), Laura was relishing her friendship with her sister now that they were grown up. But she confided that when they were little, she’d often want to slap Mary for being so good all the time. Mary explained that a lot of her “goodness” was showing off, and she referred to the Bible’s teaching about people’s wicked hearts. Then Mary said, “I don’t believe we ought to think so much about ourselves, about whether we are bad or good. . . . It isn’t so much thinking, as—as just knowing. Just being sure of the goodness of God.”

Discussion Questions

  • Is being sure of the goodness of God enough to save a person? (Romans 2:4; Titus 3:4–7)
  • When the rich young man called Jesus “good,” how did Christ respond to demonstrate He was God in the flesh? (Mark 10:17–18)
  • What did Jesus tell the religious leader Nicodemus must happen to a person before he can see the kingdom of God (John 3:1–8)?

Raucous Revival Meeting

In Little Town on the Prairie (276–79), the Ingalls family listened quietly while fiery Reverend Brown worked up the rest of the crowd into an emotional frenzy, crying, “Repent ye, repent ye while yet there is time, time to be saved from damnation!”

Discussion Questions

  • How can emotional altar calls manipulate an audience to short-lived responses? (Joel 2:13; Luke 8:11–15; 14:25–33)
  • What was missing from Laura’s description of Reverend Brown’s altar call? (Acts 20:21; 1 Corinthians 2:2)
  • How can a person know that he has eternal life? (1 John 5:13)

Removing “Obey” from Wedding Vows

In These Happy Golden Years (269–70), Laura discussed wedding vows with her fiancé and said, “I am not going to say I will obey you.” She explained, “I do not think I could obey anybody against my better judgment.”

Discussion Questions

  • Whose judgment are we to trust? (Proverbs 3:5–7; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 8:7; 1 Corinthians 1:25; 2 Timothy 3:16)
  • Can you think of a Bible passage that speaks of a wife obeying her husband as an example for other wives to follow? (1 Peter 3:6; 1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22–24)
  • If a husband were to ask his wife to do something that involved disobeying God’s Word, whom should she obey? (Acts 5:29)
  • What “great mystery” is shown when a husband loves his wife as Christ loved the church and when a wife submits to her husband “just as the church is subject to Christ”? (Ephesians 5:22–33 )

Works Cited

Laura Ingalls Wilder. By the Shores of Silver Lake. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

———. Little Town on the Prairie. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

———. These Happy Golden Years. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

My Gifts

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When we consider the greatness of the gifts God has given us in Christ, any offering we could make in return seems rather paltry. But in looking at the men and women of the Christmas story, we find models of gift-giving that any believer can imitate. Though simple, their gifts were given out of hearts of love, gratitude, and joy.