"School is Discipleship"
by Nate Marquardt, 11.19.2024
Discipleship of children is a topic that my wife and I are very passionate about. One thing that many Christians do not understand is the spiritual significance of their children’s academic schooling. To put it briefly, all schooling is discipleship (public, government, private, or homeschool). The question is this: “Who is discipling your child Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 3:30 PM?” I wrote an academic paper three years ago for in one of my D.Min. seminars and I researched the state of the Church in America, which was and is significantly declining. We are losing the youth at an accelerated rate. My paper also showed that the majority of children with Christian parents were attending public government school. This means that the majority of the Church’s offspring are being indoctrinated five days a week, seven to eight hours a day for most of the year by a secular (non-Christian) institution and the curriculum which the government has put into place. In this section, l will address some of the reasons why many Christians think it’s ok to put children into public/ secular school and I will offer wisdom from God’s word which shows why there is no good reason to do this. There are many reasons, but none that are good.
First, many Christians think that secular can be neutral. This is just not true! Secularism is humanistic. It’s man’s word over God’s word. It’s man-centered and not God-glorifying. Jesus said “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Matt. 12:30). If it’s not for Jesus, it’s from the enemy who wants you to think it’s not a big deal. Satan wants Christians to think that subjects like Math, Science, and Music are neutral. After all, those are just numbers, facts, and notes. But, Mathematics, Science, and Music should be to the praise of the Creator who made all things. Literature, History, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Art, English, and any other school subject all should be based in a Biblical worldview with the goal of revealing God’s glory and bringing praise to Him. Not only that, but American “Science” tries to remove the need for God in the Creation by calling everything a big cosmic accident and using evolution as the mode to get “from cosmic goo, to the zoo, and finally to you.” It completely contradicts God’s word (Genesis 1-11) with the idea of millions and billions of years and by denying the worldwide Flood. It denies the true Science (empirical) that corroborates the Bible (eg. finding soft tissue and blood in dinosaur fossils which proves that dinosaurs are not millions of years old). If government/ secular school is not neutral, but is an enemy of Jesus, why would we send our children to these institutions? Instead, our children should be taught to the glory of God.
Another reason Christians give for why the don’t give their children a Biblical (Christian) education is that it’s not possible or practical. The cost of Christian private school, the need for both parents to have incomes, and the inability of the parent(s) to homeschool are some of the rationale behind it. Christian schooling is expensive, but how much are our children’s souls worth? When I was saved, I vowed to God I would never put my kids into government school because I knew how badly it had affected my spiritual journey. If it costs too much, homeschool them. It’s the best option anyway. Or, downsize and move into an apartment.
Some mothers believe they’re not equipped or qualified to educate their children. First, God has qualified them. Many mothers think they’re not smart enough and don’t want to hold their children back. If our children become the most successful adults in the world, but they don’t know Jesus, we have failed. If we raise our children to know and follow Christ, we have succeeded even if they aren’t the smartest! But actually there are so many resources today and so many options that this is just not true. In fact, the opposite is true; homeschool is the best option for the academic success of your child, statistically. You can do it and you can have a community who will help (Christian co-ops, Facebook groups, homeschool conferences, etc.)! Not only has God qualified and equipped mothers, but He has also commissioned them. The Bible teaches that the wife’s role in the family is at home caring for her family (Tit. 2:4-5; Pro. 14:1; Pro. 31) and the husband is to lead and provide for his family (1 Tim. 5:8; Eph. 5:23). This is only controversial because the world and culture says otherwise, but the truth is that it works the best because God designed it that way. And what “career” is more important than raising the next generation? What could be more important than fulfilling God’s calling on your life? The Bible says “the wise woman builds her house” (Pro. 14:1) and therefore will disciple them in the Lord. It is also the duty of the father to raise the child in the “instruction and discipline of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4), and therefore it is the parents’ responsibility to ensure that they receive a Biblical Christian education.
I believe homeschool is the best and the most Biblical way to educate our children. There are a lot of objections for homeschool, but the objections just don’t add up, and statistics disagree with these objections. One objection is that children won’t be “socialized,” and often the cite the “weird” homeschool family they knew as a reason. This kind of anecdotal evidence doesn’t hold up to statistics, logic, or my anecdotal evidence (my children). Homeschool children must interact with children of a wide range of ages along with biblical counsel from the parent for conflict resolution. Who is better to teach a child how to communicate and interact: the Christian parent or the 20-30 kids of the same age in their classroom? Because of this, homeschool children also communicate well with other adults. I notice that my children are able to carry conversations with adults at my friends homes. I also notice other children who are a bit like a deer in the headlights when an adult asks them a question. And regardless, there are homeschool co-ops that allow children to learn with other homeschool children (from families with the same values) on a regular basis. And with extra curricular activities and sports, homeschool children interact with a wide range of children from different backgrounds.
This brings up another set of objections. Some people imagine homeschoolers as if they keep their children in a protective bubble. They worry that one day, the child will have to go to the “real world” and wont be ready because they have lived their whole life being protected from things like pornography and sexual immorality, drugs and alcohol, etc. This makes me think of the analogy of teaching a child how to cross the street. I don’t just tell my kids to go play in the street so they can learn about its many dangers. I teach them according to their ability and understanding. First I carry them. Then I walk with them hand in hand. Then I walk next to them. Then as I see that they understand the dangers and can handle themselves, I allow them to walk across with supervision and eventually I trust they can do it on their own. We must protect and train our kids so they can protect themselves and eventually protect and train their own families. Sending a child to the government school at a young age before they have been discipled is like sending them to play in the street without having shown them how to do it.
Along the same lines, some Christian parents believe our children should be missionary students in the public school system. First, this is in contradiction to the Biblical mandate to train and teach our children in the Lord. Second, imagine if the Israelites in the Old Testament sent their children to the Philistines as missionary students 5 days a week. How do you think it would have worked for them? No, our children are a precious reward from the Lord and we need to be faithful to educate them/ disciple them to follow Jesus. Do not pass off your privilege and responsibility to educate your child to a secular government school system!
In summary, God has commanded us as parents to make disciples of our children. He showed us the way to make disciples by doing life with His disciples. He has given us commands and examples in the Bible of what discipleship of children should look like. God has equipped parents with the Holy Spirit and has given us so many resources to do so in America. If God is with us, if He lives in us, and He has commanded us, then we can trust that He will work in and through us to equip our children to be the people He intends them to be. If you would like to read the paper I wrote and see the statistics of the state of the Church in America and on the academic success of homeschoolers, you can copy and paste this link in your browser and download the PDF version:
Here is a quote from the paper...
“Parents should not define success the same way the world does. Success is training up your child to know and walk with Jesus. Not only this, but Brian Ray discloses empirical evidence that homeschool is better than “public and private institutional schooling” in “academic performance, social and emotional development, performance in college,” and finally in the “real world.” Most importantly, his research reveals that the children grow up and hold onto the worldview of their parents better than in traditional school.” (Nate Marquardt, “Raising Healthy Children in the Ministry Fishbowl,” 9-10.)
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