Deuteronomy 6

Redemptive Homeschooling

May 11, 2017 by Ben

“Daddy!” My five-year-old will routinely exclaim before telling me about something her little sister has broken. I explain that toddlers break things. Then I try to fix whatever toy or block creation has been destroyed. When I do, my five-year-old expects the restoration to match the pre-broken condition. I wish I could do that for her every time, but I can’t.

Recently, I wrote on how the fall twists education in ways that we as Christian homeschool parents need to be aware of. But that raises two questions for us: Can it be straightened out? Do we as parents have a role in straightening it out? We find answers to these questions in the story of redemption and its implications for Christian homeschooling.

God’s Plan for Redemption

Immediately after Adam’s reluctant disclosure of sin, God began the work of redemption. He told Satan: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

In this first promise of redemption (sometimes called the protoevangelium), a promised seed defeats the evil seed. Let’s explore three aspects of this redemptive plan that can shape the way we view our children’s education.

Redemption Involves Conflict

There is enmity between Satan and Christ. Throughout redemptive history, Satan attacked God’s people in an attempt to stop the coming Messiah. When Christ came, the devil tried to take His life and was able to “bruise his heel.” But the cross inflicted the mortal wound, and ultimately Christ will cast the evil one into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).

All of life is a series of skirmishes in this cosmic battle. Satan cannot create anything, so he takes God’s good creation and twists it into weapons against its Maker. So math, reading, science, and history aren’t creations of the devil, but he will seek to use them against the Lord.

Redemption Leads to Restoration

Even though our sinful hearts are eager to cooperate with the evil one in twisting every good part of creation, God intends to straighten it out. Take cities as an example. We’re tempted to think cities are evil at the core. The first city was built by a murderer (Genesis 4:17), and throughout history cities have been centers of all kinds of vice.

But cities were part of God’s creational plan; it was sin that twisted them for evil purposes. In the original creation, God gave humans a mandate to rule over creation and filled the Garden of Eden with all the raw materials needed to develop cities.

In the final chapters of the Bible, we see the culmination of redemption coming in a city. God’s work of redemption pushes cities to their creational purpose.

God created an order for all things. The Fall pushes everything away from that creational purpose, and redemption pushes it toward its creational design.

Redemption Is Comprehensive

Sometimes we’re guilty of thinking redemption only applies to individuals, but it’s as comprehensive as the Fall. Scripture promises a new heaven and a new earth where lions return to their creational design and eat straw like oxen (Isaiah 65:25). Even human use of metals is redeemed as the people of the nations beat their swords into plows (Isaiah 2:4).

Much of this comprehensive redemptive work comes after a final judgement of evil. As long as there is sin, things will be twisted.

Our Role in God’s Plan for Redemption

God’s plan for redemption is confrontational and restorative. It is as comprehensive as the Fall. So what role does homeschooling our children play in His plan?

Redemption in Our Minds

There is a New Testament expectation that we engage in this redemptive confrontation in our minds. Paul instructs us that “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds [and] 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” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).

A critical part of redemption is waged in our minds. Every thought must be pushed back to its created order—obedience to Christ. That includes thoughts about math, science, literature, and history. Wherever we encounter thinking that is contrary to Scripture, we must refute it and then replace it with redemptive thinking.

Redemption in Our Homeschooling

As parents, we play a critical role in shaping our children’s thinking in all areas of life including when we’re teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Deuteronomy 6:7 tells us to diligently teach them God’s ways on every subject in every circumstance all the time. We shouldn’t be surprised to find that evil twists every part of our lives, but we must prepare ourselves to confront disobedient thoughts in the subjects we’re teaching. And we should respond by pushing that thinking toward Christ.

Read about how a biblical worldview shapes Christian homeschooling on our blog.

Stories Make a Worldview of Difference

February 9, 2017 by Ben

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.

Image Source: glasses, island

How to Apply Deuteronomy 6

June 9, 2015 by Karin

In a six-part series, we explored family devotions—the importance of it as well as ways to structure the time, to overcome obstacles, and to keep the gospel central. A regular family devotions time enables us to systematically disciple our children in “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27 NKJV). But God’s Word should so permeate our hearts and minds that we naturally talk about it throughout the day with our children (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

God’s command to the Israelites to teach their children His words is reiterated to believers in the New Testament. After instructing children to obey and honor their parents as taught in the Ten Commandments, the apostle Paul admonished parents, “Do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4 NKJV).

In order to diligently teach God’s Word to our children, we must first treasure it in our own hearts (Deuteronomy 6:6). When we are deepening our love for the Lord and saturating our minds with His Word, talking to our children about the things of the Lord will be a regular overflow. In an effort to be more intentional, for a few months I kept a journal about opportunities I had to point my children to the Lord during normal events of the day.

Here are some entries from my journal. These moments are not intended to be replicated but to be examples of implementing Deuteronomy 6 teaching in day-to-day life. Many of my journal entries include analogies (tying a life event or an item in creation to a spiritual truth). As you share, seek to be gospel-centered.

Journal of Deuteronomy 6 Teachable Moments

Tuesday: My young children got scared and ran to me when there was a loud series of fire alarm tests in our apartment building. When we are afraid, we run to someone stronger, and that should ultimately be the Lord. I reminded the kids that God is in control and that He is with us. We talked about how a fire alarm is good because it warns us of a fire so we can escape. God’s Word has fire alarms, warning us about the lake of fire and how to escape the punishment for our sins through trusting in Jesus.
Wednesday: My child confessed doing something wrong while I wasn’t watching. We talked about how God always sees us, even when Mommy isn’t looking. We can’t get away with secret sin. Through a song, we’ve learned this verse: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3 NKJV).
Thursday: We were playing in a room where the curtains were closed. We talked about how there was a curtain in the temple separating the holy place from the most holy place. When Jesus died, that curtain was torn in two (at that point, we flung open the curtains), symbolizing the access we have to the Father because the flesh of Jesus was torn on the cross for our sins (Matthew 27:51; Hebrews 10:19–22).

I no longer keep a journal of my Deuteronomy 6 opportunities, but perhaps I’ll begin writing them down again if I find myself falling into complacency. Teaching my children diligently must spring from a heart that is captivated with the glory and grace of the Lord and saturated with a personal knowledge of His Word.

May the Lord bless you with wisdom as you seize the opportune, fleeting moments to teach your children along the way. “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).

Family Devotions (Part 6)

April 6, 2015 by Karin

As we teach our children the Scripture during family devotions, we must not miss the main point, which is the gospel, the good news of God’s redeeming plan through Christ. The Bible isn’t merely a book of character-building stories to orient a child’s moral compass; rather, it uncovers our spiritual bankruptcy before a holy God and reveals our wonderful Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.

While the gospel is central, there’s a reason the Bible isn’t a four-point salvation presentation in tract form. We ought not to ignore any of God-breathed Scripture, all of which is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17, ESV). Even the genealogies, long and tedious as they can be, show the authenticity of the Bible’s history and the faithfulness of God in preserving the line of Christ.

Law, history, poetry, and prophecy in the Old Testament also serve a purpose.

Law

Passages on the law of God point our children to God’s perfection, our inability to meet God’s righteous demands, and the Lamb of God, who perfectly fulfilled the law and shed His blood for our sin “that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24 NKJV). God gives new hearts so believers have the power to obey the imperatives given in the New Testament (1 John 2:3–4, 3:9).

History

The historical books in the Bible dramatically tell our children the story line of redemption, as each character and every event bring us closer to the climax of Christ’s coming. The New Testament writers demonstrated how the Old Testament characters showed our need for Jesus and salvation by faith:

Adam and Eve: Romans 5:12–21
Cain and Abel: Hebrews 11:4
Noah: Hebrews 11:7
Abraham: Galatians 3
Moses: Romans 10:5–10
David: Acts 2:25–36

Poetry

The Bible’s unsurpassed poetry reveals God’s character and works. The worshipful psalms and instructive proverbs teach our children the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10). Such reverence should drive them to be reconciled with God through the cross. On the cross, the sinless Christ bore our sin and then rose from the dead in victory over sin and death, granting eternal life to all who turn to Him in repentance and faith.

Prophecy

Reading the books of prophecy with our children reveals man’s stony heart and need for God to give a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). This regeneration was made possible through the perfect life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah. Detailed prophecies pinpointed the person and work of Christ, hundreds of years before He fulfilled them.

As we engage our children in family devotions, we must remember that our children aren’t born with neutral hard drives that simply need to be programmed with the right software. They’re born with the deadly virus of a sin nature passed on from our first father Adam. That’s why Jesus said we must be born again (John 3:3–8).

We can’t cause this change of heart in our children, so that they repent and believe in the Lord Jesus. But we can be faithful to pray for them and teach them through family devotions, so that they when they’re grown, we can remind them of their biblical heritage (2 Timothy 3:14–15).

May the Lord grant us grace in the task of family discipleship. What a privilege we parents have to lead our little ones to the Savior!

Read the previous family devotions posts.

Family Devotions (Part 5)

March 24, 2015 by Karin

Here are my previous posts in this series on family devotions:

Let’s look at some additional obstacles to having regular family worship and consider ways to overcome them.

Bad Attitudes

Set an example of a thankful attitude—we get to worship God; it’s not something we have to do. As parents, we must quickly recognize when we have a bad attitude ourselves and repent of it before the family. Perhaps my bad attitude is even a reaction to my child’s bad attitude, but that doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to walk in the Spirit and bear His fruit (Galatians 5:16–26).

When dealing with a bad attitude, ask yourself questions like the following, and encourage your children to do the same.

“Do I have a right to be upset?” (Genesis 4:6–7; Jonah 4:9).
“If God were here (and He is), would I want to be acting this way in front of Him?”
“Am I trusting the sovereignty of God, knowing that He is in control of how things are going today?”
“Is there a sin in my attitude or response that I need to repent of?”
“How can I rejoice, pray, and give thanks in this situation?” (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18).

From the Old Testament stories of complaining Israelites in the wilderness and God’s promise to replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh to the New Testament epistles with instruction for Christian living, Scripture addresses wrong attitudes head-on. Simply reading through the Bible will give plenty of opportunities to teach about how to receive a new heart through salvation and how to maintain a pleasing attitude toward the Lord.

Disinterest

Have realistic expectations regarding attention spans. A toddler sitting for ten minutes is impressive. If the older children are ready for a twenty-minute family time, perhaps you can give the toddler a book or some toys to play with quietly in the same room.

Be creative in keeping the children interested in devotions, perhaps occasionally livening things up with pictures, puppets, skits, object lessons, or coloring. The Bible communicates truth creatively (think of Christ’s parables), and so can we. Encourage the older children to think of ways to capture the interest of the younger ones. Involve older children in the reading, and challenge them through lively discussions.

Help Needed

The wife can be her husband’s helpmeet as he shepherds the family spiritually by being his cheerleader and giving words or notes of encouragement. She can ask her husband for specific ways she can help. By managing the household well, she can ensure that family devotions aren’t crowded out by the hectic pace of life (Titus 2:4–5).

Since the mother generally spends more time with the children than the father does, she can reinforce the family devotions by Deuteronomy 6 teaching at opportune moments. She can also help the little ones get up to speed for family Bible reading by telling them Bible stories with pictures.

If a godly father isn’t present to lead the family spiritually, God can still use her alone, as He did Timothy’s mother and grandmother, to teach the life-giving Scriptures, which lead to salvation through faith in Christ (Acts 16:1; 2 Timothy 1:5; 3:14–15).

Stay tuned for the final post in this series. We’ll talk about how to not miss the main point in family devotions.