Education: "Sitting at the feet of . . . [who]?!?!"

"Should a family set their children at the feet of the wrong teachers, they will destroy the faith within a generation or two" (Kevin Swanson, Apostate: The Men Who Destroyed the Christian West, 6).

It sounds alarmist and hyperbolic, but it is true.

Parenting Like God

We should strive for holiness, but holiness is a flood, not an absence. Are you the kind of parent who can create joys for your children that they never imagined wanting? Does your sun shine, warming the faces of others? Does your rain green the world around you? Do you end your days with anything resembling a sunset? Do you begin with a dawn?   -- N.D. Wilson (from "God the Merrymaker" from CT, April 2014)

Teaching Children About Sermons

"Teach your children that every sermon counts for eternity. Salvation comes through faith, and faith comes through hearing God's Word (Rom. 10:13-16). So every sermon is a matter of life and death (Deut. 32:47; 2 Cor. 2:15-16). The preached gospel will either lift us up to heaven or cast us down to hell. It will advance our salvation or aggravate our condemnation" (Joel R. Beeke, The Family at Church: Listening to Sermons and Attending Prayer Meetings, 11-12).

Parenting

"I shelter my children. I would sooner have my children left out in a tornado than placed in the hands of a professional priest of the religion of the state, a government school teacher" (R.C. Sproul Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 23).

And government school teachers are professional priests of the religion of the state; fifty years ago this book demonstrated that function of American Education.

Parenting

"Children need to be sheltered, to be protected. They need to be protected from themselves, and from those who would lead them astray. They are not ready to reason out the will of God in all circumstances; far less are they ready to defeat temptation in whatever form it comes. While God certainly can and does use sin for god, just as He can use a storm, we cannot sin that providential grace might abound all the more" (R.C. Sproul Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 23).

Parenting

"Some argue against homeschooling on the grounds that such is sheltering children. I always reply, "What are you going to accuse us of next--feeding and clothing our children?" This parenting philosophy, that we must throw our lambs to the wolves so that they might become brave, is thinly veiled folly" (R.C. Sproul Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 22).

Parenting

"My children, like all children, are sinners; they were born that way. But that doesn't mean they need to become experts in sin. Wise, yes--jaded, no. While they are by no means innocent before the throne of God in themselves, I still want to maintain their 'innocence' as long as possible" (R.C. Sproul Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 23).

Christian Teaching

"Doctrine must be taught formally in the home, but it is also caught while hearing stories and receiving instruction at the table and the bedside. Christian teaching must be a life style not an event. Diligence is paramount if any success is to be expected" (Donald W. Schanzenbach, Faithful Parents - Faithful Children: Why We Homeschool, 6).

The same could be said regarding the Lord's Service: doctrine must be formally taught by the Liturgy and through sermonizing, but it is also "caught" at the Table. Liturgy is a life style, not a bare fact or event.

Do Not Tithe Your Children

"The first and basic premise of paganism, socialism, and Molech worship is its claim that the state owns the child. The basic premise of the public schools is this claim of ownership, a fact some parents are encountering in the courts. It is the essence of paganism to claim first the lives of the children, then the properties of the people." (Excerpt from reprint from R. J. Rushdoony's The Roots of Reconstruction, 9-10.)

 

John Piper on Justification and Prodigal Children

John Piper's thoughtful reflection on Justification and prodigal children: the former shall always be a refuge of hope for the parents of the latter.

". . . I mentioned in the first sentence of this chapter, "a personal concern for wayward children." I do not believe that even perfect parenting could prevent all wilderness wanderings of our children. Mainly because of what God said in Isaiah 1:2: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: 'Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me'" (ESV). But how do you survive and press on when a child has left the fold of God? What truth keeps you on your face in hope-full prayers and on your way to minister to others with needs as great as your own? No truth other than "the justification of the ungodly" gives as much hope for parents of a prodigal. Not only because our son or daughter may yet awaken to the hope that Christ is willing to be his or her righteousness -- no matter what he or she has done -- but also because the viperous guilt of failed parenting is defanged by the justification of the ungodly. Dad and Mom find a way to press on because their perfection is [CCS, emphasis added] Christ (Counted Righteous in Christ, 31).