And a great sermon by John MacArthur on Santa, he makes many of the points I have held for for years about Santa, tonight was the first time I read this sermon, and I just found he articulated so much better than I could, but of course he is John MacArthur after all.
BTW. In the last post I when talking about Christmas Trees I posted a statement from Jeremiah, I don't necessarily think that Christmas Trees fall into being idol worship, I quite agree with Dr. McMahon in the first article I posted, this year we are not having a tree for convenience as much as anything else, but the passage in Jeremiah is something to think about.
Well Heather over at Stepping Heavenward posted the link to this quiz. I'm wondering if it is my conviction to exclusive Psalmody? I had a great deal of issues with this question
You are an Old School Presbyterian. You don't compromise when it comes from Ecclesiology, and you may resent the fact that you've been classified as an Evangelical. You believe that the church's mission is to preach the gospel, and that it shouldn't be distracted by social ministires.
This was meant to be a comment to article on Why We HomeSchool by blessmomof3 but I realized it was becoming to long to just be a comment so I am posting it as a full article.
I can relate. My wife and I do not come from Christian Families so they have a hard time seeing why we do anything God has commanded. Homeschooling is just one of many issues, but it's a big one, homeschooling and why we keep teh sabbath. Most people in my own church unfortunately do not homeschool, which makes it hard, luckily the 2 previous churches we attened, (we're on our 3rd in 10 years because of work related moves) were almost exclusively comprised of homeschoolers so we had a lot of support even before we adopted and were able to homeschool.
R.C. Sproul Jr. has a great little test to see if you are qualified to Homeschool in his book When You Rise Up. It goes something like this;
Wait until it gets dark then sneak a peak in each bedroom of your home, check to see if there are children sleeping, now if there are are they your children? Now if there are children sleeping and they are your children, then God has equipped you to HomeSchool.
I believe like you that God has called us to Homeschool, but I also believe he has called every christian to Homeschool, there are many examples in Scripture that command us to teach our children in the ways of God, but the part of Scripture that has convicted me is looking at the 10 Commandements specifically the 1st and 5th.
The 1st Commandment
"You shall have no other gods before Me."
Ok you're asking how does this commandment command us to homeschool.
It's very simple if you think about it. In Public School the God that is taught and worshipped is the State God Humanism now don't be fooled Humanism is not a philosophy but a Theology. And every day you send your kids to school you are sending them to the Church of Hummanism. Consider these facts.
Did you know that a child spends 35 hours a week for 13 years (kindergarten through 12th grade) in school? For some, that means 16,380 hours of secular humanist indoctrination. The average church-going, Sunday School- attending Christian child, during these same years, will have a total of 676 hours of Biblical instruction. That's a whopping 4% of the amount of time spent learning the Bible, and 96% of the time learning secular humanism, the official doctrine of non-Christian schools. Is church and Sunday School alone enough to counteract the overwhelming influence of humanism on our children's minds? The answer in emphatically, "No!"
"Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school's meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?" (Charles F. Potter, "Humanism: A New Religion," 1930)
In 1983 John Dunphy another Humanist wrote an essay in which he contended
"The battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: A religion of humanity -- utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to carry humanist values into wherever they teach. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new -- the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism."
So if teachers are suppose to be the evangelists of this "new faith" then guess who they are evangelizing. Much like I wouldn't send my Children to a Satanic Mass, or or a Mormon Temple, A Mosque, or A Scientology audit, or any other false religion's place of worship so why would I want to send them to the place of worship of the fastest spreading most infectous false religion? I would be leading my children to break the 1st Commandment, the commandment that is the very foundation of all the rest
The 5th Commandment
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
My children need to honour and obey me, so long as I am honouring and obeying God, but if I am dishonoring God and causing them to dishonour God, by making them break the 1st commandment (see above) then I am not worthy of that honour. I am neglecting my duties as a parent.
These are the reasons why we homeschool.
BTW though mine and my wife's family still don't see eye to eye with us as they see how our children are fuctioning normally, polite, well mannered, well behaved, and able to interact with other children their arguments seem to be less and less
The only christian "holiday" or rather Holy-day we are commanded to Celebrate in the Bible. I have seen the Sabbath fall in to disrepute amongst Christians, many christians see it as something that doesn't pertain to them. I had one American Christian friend who explained to me that "of course she goes out to a restaurant on Sunday, she's American" it seems silly and you Canadiansare probably laughing saying to yourself another example of "american arrogance" but how many Canadians "Christians" go out to eat on Sunday, look in any town or city and you will probably see that following church services are some of the times family restaurants are most crowded. I'm sure it is not just in Canada and the but is wide spread through western Christedom.
Last Time I counted There were 10 Commandemnts not 9
For some reason if I was to suggest that it was OK to kill somebody or stealing isn't really bad of an activity for a Christian to be doing you would probably jump up and down and say how could I suggest such a thing, you know you aren't suppose to kill or steal, the Commandments tell you this. Well you're right, and I suppose you would say the same thing if I said I'm thinking of having an affair, you would surely point me to the commandments again, but what if I said I think it would be nice to go out for a nice brunch after Church on Sunday, or maybe I have to go watch my kid's Hockey game, what would you say? Would you point me towards the commandments, or would you reccommend a place to eat and would I see you at the rink with your son as well? What makes the 4th Commandment any less than the other nine that we as Christians disregard it?
How can we keep the Sabbath Holy?
Preparing yourself the night before by getting a good sleep
Making sure you have enough gas in your car for going to and from Church on Saturday night
Making sure you attend church both in the morning and evening during the Sabbath
Being hospitable and having fellow christians over is good, so prepare for it the night before
If you are travelling on Sunday make sure you bring along sandwiches or whatever so you don't have to eat out
Do what you need to do around the house on Saturday so you aren't fretting about all day Sunday or tempted to do it
If your work requires you to work on Sundays and they won't compromise get another job
Don't get the Sunday paper, take a break from worrying about the world around you
Don't sit down in front of the TV, cover it over if that helps
Enjoy the world God has made by taking a walk out doors
Use this time to catch up on that Theological book you've been meaning to read put aside the novel, reports from work, the internet or whatever until Monday
The Danger of Legalism
In sabbath keeping there is the danger of Legalism much like the Pharisees, now while I suggested to get Gas on the Saturrday, there might be a circumstance where you ran out of Gas or on Saturday night you were coming back from travels late after the Gas Station closed etc. but these are rare, and of course there are the works of necessity and mercy, Doctors, Nurses, Policemen, etc. need to work on the Sabbath at times, they should try and trade shifts but they might not be able to and they are doing a necessary work, a farmer will need to milk his cows, but Sunday is not a day to plant new crops. The important thing is to do activities which are truly necessary and try not to make others violate the Sabbath by making them work unnecessarily.
Somethings you might be unsure of such as playing a game, games can be a great time of fellowship, but maybe playing an adversarial type one wouldn't be the best way of showing Christian love. Remember the focus of teh Day should be on Christ so keep your activities Christ centred.
I'm a former resident of Nova Scotia, Canada, I relocated to PEI in 2005. I'm married and have 2 adopted children. I am a Reformed Presbyterian and attend the Free Church of Scotland.
I live in Middleton, Prince Edward Island, where my wife and I homeschool our 2 children. I run an Online Christian Bookstore.
I was raised Roman Catholic, when I was in University I was challenged in my faith over the next few I read Paul's Epistle to the Romans which convicted me enough to know I was on the wrong path, in 1996 I hooked up with Rev. John Shearouse who I had met when I was student and he was part of a student ministry. He had just come back to Halifax, to plant a new Reformed church and I started to attend and made a profession of faith.
I have been very active in Federal, Provincial and Municipal Politics, have managed many campaigns and having run as a provincial candidate in 1998.
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The Lord's Day