I got a chance to watch Ken Hamm’s DVD, Raising Godly Children in an Ungodly World.  It was so encouraging and affirming.  I would encourage you all to watch it with your family and loan it to others who are considering homeschooling.  Ken Hamm has a way of cutting right to the point with amazing clarity.

He talked a lot about “why” we should homeschool.  Although homeschooling is a wonderful educational option and can be far more beneficial academically than public or private school, he points us back to Scripture to what God has to say about family and who should teach our children.  God ordained family as the first and most fundamental institution in society way back in Genesis with Adam and Eve.  Then God deals with “who” should be teaching our children in Deuteronomy 6:7.  And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. 

As homeschoolers we are so blessed to have time with our children.  Maybe we sometimes even take all of that time for granted.  But God has a purpose planned for that time and He has made it clear in His Word.

Many of us have heard the argument that Christian children should be in the public schools so that they can be salt and light to the unbelievers.  Interestingly enough, Ken Hamm pointed out Matthew 5:13.  You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. 

Wow!  How had I missed the second part of that verse all of these years?  When children are placed in the public schools will they really be salt or will they just lose their own saltiness?  Seems to me, like Satan would really like for us all to send our children to the schools under the guise of them helping others.   Never mind that they could lose their own saltiness and, according to God, would be no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

Ken Hamm emphasized that we must give our children a firm foundation in the Scripture so that they will start with Scripture to interpret the world, rather than learning the world’s ways and using them to interpret Scripture.  I know that I had many questions growing up since what I was being taught didn’t always agree with Scripture.  I went to public school and many times my teachers would preface a lesson on cavemen, millions of years or evolution with “These are not my personal beliefs, but I have to teach them to you.”  They wouldn’t go into what their personal beliefs were, but we all knew that they were Christians and that what they were teaching didn’t line up with the Bible. 

So once I became a Christian years later, I started trying to figure out how what I was taught in school could mesh with what I was learning from the Bible.  It was downright confusing.  Ken Hamm explains that problem well.  He says that you can’t Christianize from the top down if your foundation is wrong.  That’s why I had so much trouble.  I was trying to make the Bible fit into my education rather than having the Bible as my way of interpreting the world around me.  I am so glad that God has led me to homeschooling.  I’m learning many things about Creation and history correctly for the first time now.  My children are already developing a Christian Worldview and will have that as the foundation for their education and will be able to defend it.  We have a wonderful opportunity with our children to affect how the next generation thinks about Creation and other historical events. 

So that just brings us back to “why” we homeschool.  Yes we want our children to be able to read.  Yes we want them to learn our beliefs and why we believe them.  Yes we want to equip them to do what God calls them to as adults.  But none of that matters unless they know and understand God. 

“This is what the LORD says, ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength, or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts, boast about this – that he understands and knows me”  Jeremiah 9:23-24 

So let’s commit ourselves this year to raising Godly children in an ungodly world so that our dear children will know and understand God.