BJU Press Blog

Christian education

Creation and education: Who am I and why am I here?

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As homeschool parents, God has given us a special job to do—to give our children a thoroughly Christian education. I know from experience that making education Christian can become superficial. But the good thing is that the Bible’s story of creation, fall, and redemption can transform our teaching.

Let’s take some time to meditate on the first part of that story, the creation account. There is so much relevant truth in the first two chapters of Genesis. But our focus today will be on how this account changes our Christian homeschooling. So while the record of the first five days of creation tells us a great deal about God and His Word’s power and faithfulness, we’re going to move quickly to the sixth day and the creation of man.

The Image of God in Man

Understanding the image of God in man is critical to our children’s education. They must know that they are special because they bear the image of God. Even after the fall we continue to bear His image (Genesis 9:6).

As a mirror reflects the image of its subject, so we finite beings can reflect God’s infinite glory in our lives. We might have been cracked by the fall, but we still reflect God’s attributes—though imperfectly.

This view of our humanity should alter the way we look at the academic subjects we’re teaching in our homeschools. For example:

  • In science, humans are not a part of the kingdom Animalia. In fact, we rule over the animals.
  • In history, all people groups are made in God’s image. That should shape the way we view institutions such as slavery.
  • In writing, human communication is significant because communicating with another image-bearer always reflects on God the Master Communicator.

The Creation Blessing

In Genesis 1:28, God blessed humans by calling us to fill the earth and to rule over it. God restated this blessing after the Flood (Genesis 9:1-7). This makes sense for God’s image-bearers. We should multiply so that we can reflect His glory all over His creation.

And as God’s special creation, we should have dominion. Dominion came before the fall, so we don’t need to associate it with cruelty. Rather, exercising dominion over God’s creation means wisely making the earth useful for people to live in.

The two aspects of this double blessing (filling and ruling over the earth) are inseparable. We cannot care for our growing families without pressing God’s creation towards its most useful state.

This blessing is so important in educating our children. How can we care for our families without mastering math? How can we interact with our neighbors without mastering language arts? When our children realize that all the effort they put into mastering science and math or studying literature and history is to fulfill God’s place for them in life, it won’t be a bore; it will be the blessing God intended it to be. That also means that we as parents need to show them the usefulness of this education with real-life learning.

Learning has meaning when we know who we are and why we’re here. God gave us a precious answer to these questions when He said, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26).

The sad fact is that humans sinned. Even though we still possess the image of God and we’re still blessed to fill and rule the earth, things in this world are broken. The fall also changes the way we teach our children. But that’s for another post.

World Studies Textbook for 7th Grade

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Personally, I love history. It was my favorite subject when I was homeschooled. That’s why I’m so excited about our new seventh-grade World Studies book for 2017. This history book is gorgeous and is written in an engaging narrative style. But most importantly, it treats the subject from a biblical worldview.

What’s Covered

World Studies completes what our Heritage Studies 6 (world history textbook) began. After catching students up on ancient history, it covers the Middle Ages through the modern period. It focuses on the contrasting cultures, economics, and governments of major civilizations during those time periods.

This book tells the fascinating tale of the nations from a biblical worldview. Students learn to think biblically about justice, power, citizenship, and the environment as they watch the peoples of the world grapple with these same issues.

For example, your student will learn about the Spanish conquest and colonization of Latin America. This narrative is riddled with abuse of power and failures of justice such as the denial of citizenship to Creoles. On page 136, students are challenged to apply Scripture in evaluating Spain’s treatment of Creoles. So your homeschool student will not only learn about the stuff of world history, but he will also learn to think correctly about world history.

How It’s Covered

The narrative text carries the book. Throughout the book, engaging photographs, maps, and timelines help to tell the story. The margins include guiding questions and definitions to lead the reader to identify key ideas. And sidebars, especially the ones called “Historical Perspectives,” help students develop critical thinking skills from a biblical worldview.

The text is engaging, the layout is gorgeous, the perspective is biblical. I hope you’ll take a look at a sample of the World Studies Student Text by visiting the product page and clicking on the “Look Inside the Book” icon. I’ve also recorded an overview video of this new textbook for our BJU Press Homeschool YouTube channel. Take a look below.

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Stories Make a Worldview of Difference

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Homeschooling is an extraordinary experience. We have our children at home all the time. As Christian parents, we get to instill our values in them in a Deuteronomy 6:7 sort of way. In fact, that scriptural  command is why we want to give our children a Christian education. To do that we have to base everything we teach on a biblical worldview.

But what is a worldview? One online dictionary says that a worldview is a “collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group,” but that’s a little generic. Consider this definition from Merriam-Webster for English Language Learners: “The way someone thinks about the world.” Again, not very specific, especially when we’re trying to construct a solid foundation for our children’s education.

Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, uses a metaphor that I really like. He talks about worldview as a pair of glasses. This illustration resonates with me because it brings the concept of worldview from the philosophical realm into everyday experience.

Ken talks about how two equally intelligent scientists can look at the exact same evidence (say, the Grand Canyon) and come to two completely different conclusions. It’s because they’re viewing it through different lenses. One scientist looks at the Grand Canyon through biblical glasses and sees evidence of Noah’s Flood. The other looks at the Grand Canyon through uniformitarian glasses (the idea that all geological events happen in “uniform” ways) and sees evidence of millions of years. The conclusion each scientist comes to is based on his or her worldview, which determines how he or she views the evidence.

Understanding Worldview

A worldview answers several crucial questions for those who hold it, including where we came from and why we are here. A worldview defines what it means to be human. So we can distinguish one worldview from another by its answers to those questions.

However, most of us don’t think in terms of these grand questions as we go about our everyday lives. But our worldview is still there, shaping the way we see the world.

A simpler way to understand worldview is to think of it as a story—or better yet, a big story. For most people, the answers to life’s most challenging questions fit into a story. This is helpful since small children routinely use stories to interpret their world. But it’s not just for children, adults also think about the world through the lens of the stories they believe.

Telling Different Stories

Seeing worldviews as stories helps Christians understand our own worldview. The Bible is, among other things, a big story. It tells us that God created the universe but His good creation was thrown into disorder by human sin. It also tells us how God is working to redeem humankind from that sin.

Secular humanists tell a different story. They tell a tale of great human progress taking place without God’s involvement. They tell stories about how religion often stops human progress. Their heroes are people who stand up against the church. And scientists like Bill Nye look to education to “save” people apart from God.

Getting the Narrative Right

The stories told by secular humanism dominate public education. That’s why so many Christians have opted for homeschooling. When we homeschool our children, we can tell them the Bible’s true account of creation, fall, and redemption every day of the week.

But there’s a potential problem—if we use curriculum shaped by the secular humanists’ stories then those educational materials will argue for secular humanism. And we can’t change the core argument of secular education by adding devotionals on top—like icing on a cake. We have to teach from a biblical worldview perspective from the get-go.

Science, history, math, and literature must be based on the narrative of creation, fall, and redemption. This true story changes the way we view everything, including education.

Think of ways the Bible’s story changes the way we view subjects such as literature and history.

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Is Bible the Icing on the Cake?

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Icing on the cake. We use this phrase to indicate that something good has been added to something that is already good. There’s no change to the thing being added to, but it makes the thing extra nice.

In her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey uses this metaphor to describe a mistake that many Christian educators make. They’re trying to change the educational cake to make it Christian by adding the icing of prayer and devotionals, but the core of the material covered doesn’t change. It’s the same secular education that public schools peddle.

So often Christians take something that is fundamentally secular and spread the Bible on it like icing on a cake. But it isn’t a good cake to start with; it’s poison.

When we decide to educate our children at home, we may do it because we want them to have a wholesome atmosphere. Or we want to personally teach them the gospel and challenge them to walk according to God’s Word. But what about the academic education we’re giving them? Is it a biblical cake? Or have we merely added icing to the secular cake?

Christianity on the Surface

As Christian homeschool families, we should try to make sure the education our children receive is Bible based. We don’t teach evolution as science, which is very important. But beyond observing that God created all things, is our teaching different from what they would hear in a public school classroom?

Here are some attempts at making teaching Christian that I’ve observed. As you read through them, ask yourself if they’re using a new recipe or only adding a devotional layer to the teaching.

  • “The plus sign looks like a cross, so every time we do addition we can think about Jesus dying on the cross for us.”
  • “We have to have consistency in verb tense. Remember that we should be consistent in our Christian lives.”
  • “Caterpillars go through a process called metamorphosis to become butterflies. Just like caterpillars, Christians are transformed at salvation.”

In each of these examples, the academic subject is used as an opportunity to consider something Christian. It’s not that such analogies related to math, grammar, and science are bad or wrong. The problem is that they’re merely icing on the cake. The subject matter is still the same; we’ve just added something on the surface that is biblical.

Beneath the Surface

What will happen if we fail to remake the teaching of a subject? What if we only make analogies when we stop talking about history or language arts to talk about the Bible? If we continue to teach coursework in a similar way to the public school down the road, we’ve failed to approach all learning from a biblical starting point. We’re adding Christian icing to the secular cake. And if you start with a poisonous cake, good frosting isn’t going to fix it.

As our children get older, they’ll recognize that the icing can be removed and they’ll still have the same secular cake. Math, language arts, science, and history all work without the icing that we spread on top of the subjects. Perceptive children will see that they can drop God’s authority in their lives and still use math, science, and other subjects.

Take math as an example. Our children must learn that our use of math is subject to God. If not, they may believe that they can use math without submitting themselves to the Lord, using it fraudulently instead of lovingly. They need to understand that we use tools like math to follow God’s commands to rule over God’s good creation in ways that are in keeping with His law.

That’s why we need to go beyond just adding icing onto the cake. We need to use a new recipe for a new cake—that is, learning transformed by the Word of God.

Worldview Shaping 

We transform learning through biblical worldview shaping. In future posts, I’ll explore what worldviews are and provide a model that helps us use the Bible to transform our children’s education.

In the meantime, think about your children’s education at home. Are you using a new recipe for their cake or putting icing on a secular cake?

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My Wife’s Teacher’s Aide

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My wife is doing a tremendous job in her first year of homeschooling. She is a fantastic planner and with some regularity is able to get our family ahead in covering the material. But homeschool is a family effort. So instead of just providing funds for the curriculum materials, I have decided to be my wife’s teacher’s aide.

My Wife's Teacher's Aide

In a traditional school setting, a teacher’s aide does menial tasks for the teacher. Lots of tasks—like stuffing papers into folders and grading worksheets—are things anyone can do and don’t require much evaluation. They just take time.

I’ve tried to support my wife by doing these types of tasks for her. When she had to organize manipulatives for the math program, I pitched in. Also, I usually do the daily grading of my daughter’s worksheets. It takes about ten to fifteen minutes of my time. Each of these tasks is small, but the reasons I do them are important.

Here are three motivations I have for choosing to serve as my wife’s teacher’s aide.

  • Loving my wife: The Lord commands me to love my wife as I love myself. Pitching in at the end of the day is one small way for me to show her I love her. I don’t want her to have to stay up fifteen minutes later or give up some personal time to grade these papers. When it comes down to it, I wish I could do more for her.
  • Seeing my child’s progress: It’s great to see how my daughter is progressing and what she’s learning. When she does great work, I have the opportunity to praise her. Sometimes, when she’s careless, I can challenge her to do better. I’ve seen her respond to praise and my challenges to do better. Her work keeps getting better.
  • Supporting our homeschool: Homeschooling allows our family to provide our children a Christian education, which is one of the most important gifts we can give them. I don’t want to stand on the sidelines of this journey of learning my children are on. Being my wife’s teacher’s aide allows me to actively support homeschooling on an everyday basis.

I enjoy being a teacher’s aide because of the ways it enables me to support my wife and children. I would encourage homeschool dads to consider similar ways they could get involved in the day-to-day homeschooling routine.

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