First and foremost, it
is important to recognize that home education is not our idea, but the
Lord's. The family is the first institution God set up to further
His plan, even before the Church. As parents, we must know God's
word and practice it in our daily lives, seeking first to be a model
and second to be a teacher.
Deu
6:1 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the
judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye
might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it:
Then comes the instruction to teach, continually and in the home:
Deu
6:7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and
shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou
walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Teach the laws of the Lord diligently, meaning carefully, with intent,
in your house and teaching the ways of God in all subjects. How
is this done? Knowing, understanding and reasoning from the
scriptures.
To truly understand a subject, you must first know
its rudiments, also called seeds. This comes from looking closely
at the definition of the subject as provided by the Webster's 1828
dictionary. Look up geography, arithmetic, history and economics
and see if you can find two main ideas from each definition. The
following are the seeds given by Ms. Dang:
Geography---> Geography of Nature and Goegraphy of Man
Arithmetic----> Science of Numbers and Computation
History---> Nations and Events
Economics--->Household Economy and Political Economy
So, to begin, we will look at History, since this is a very imporant area in the Principle Approach.
Define the subject using Webster's 1828 dictionary:
1.
An account of facts, particularly of facts respecting nations or
states; a narration of events in the order in which they happened,with
their causes and effects.
Reasoning from the definition, we can see the seeds of the subject. There are two for each subject. Here we see nations and events.
You then search out the biblical origin. Two to pay close
attention to are Genesis 1:1 (In the beginning, God...) and Revelation
1:8 (I am the Alpha and Omega...). God has had a hand in history
since the beginning, and will forever. The definition my 6yo and
I came up with for history after doing this kind of a study together
was "History is His plan for the nations, told through events."
A biblical purpose must then be established. A good start for a
biblical purpose would be Psalm 78:2-8, highlighting verse 7.
Psa 78:7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:
Remembering that the focal point of history is Jesus Christ, establish
purpose for each seed. What is God's plan for the nations?
See Acts 26-27; Matthew 28:19. And for events? See
Ecclesiastes 3:1, Galtatians 4:4.
History is universal...it
carries the story of God's plan for ALL the nations, expressed through
events. See also John 1:3; Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 3:27; 2
Corinthians 5:17; Matthew 28:19; Psalm 65:9.
Throught this study, we begind to develop a biblical view of God seen in the details of Universal History.
* God overseeing and subduing the temporal to serve eternal purposes.
* The power of Christ within the individual overcoming the world.
"Come and see the works of God: He is terrible in his doing toward the children of men." Psalm 66:5
* Seeing One God working.
* Seeing the Hand of God overrul in ALL the affairs of men and nations.
Look carefully at Isaiah 9:7. This is a prophecy of the kingdom of Christ, and what promise does it hold for us?
Isa 9:7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall
be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it,
and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even
for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. The
following is my best attempt to reproduce a graphic illustration of
these points:
One God Working
Superintending
Overseeing
Disposing
Overruling
All Men and Nations
Universal History
One
Plan
One Savior
One Goal
advance of the
gospel Christ, focal
point
liberty of the individual
of history
Gen 3:15
Gal 4:4
John 3:16
4,000BC-------------------+--------------------2,000 AD
------------> <--------------
Christ is the focal point of history.
Universal History is one God, one plan, one savior, one goal for all men and nations.
Pre-Christ is the Pagan Era. Post-Christ is the Christian Era.
The Pagan Era is characterized by Law without Liberty. Christ
introduced the Law of Liberty. After His crucifixion, we
experienced Liberty in Conflict with Law. The Christian founding
of our nation saw Law and Liberty Reconciled. The capitalized
parts above represent key ideas, or general themes, in history to
emphasize.
God works: Individually, Internally, Invisibly, Imperceptibly, Incomprehensibly
This is primarily governmental. More on that later, but the
definition of government includes direction, regulation, control and
restraint. Each sphere restricts liberty more. The ideal is:
Government of God through Christ indwelling the individual leading to
local self-government of the church and then state leading to local
self government with voluntary union under a Conditional Federal
Republic.
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Sep. 17, 2005 - What a great post!