Guest Post provided by:

Greg Stockton
Assistant National  Director
Classical Christian Community
gstockton@classicalconversations.com

www.ClassicalConversations.com
www.ClassicalConversationsBooks.com
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The top reason parents gave in 2007 for homeschooling their children was to provide religious or moral instruction (36 percent) according to the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES. In my own interactions with families, I’ve found that the data reported above should be fairly accurate as to the reasons for homeschooling. Most homeschooling families are very cognizant of the instructions in Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6, Psalms 78, 2 Corinthians 10:5…etc. to proactively educate our children and teach them to know God. We are also well aware of the limitations to practice Christianity in public schools and, many times, the outright proactive hostility against God in the schools. What I’m left wondering however, is how we provide religious and moral instruction. Do we proactively integrate God into our homes? I’m sure that we have devotions, prayer and maybe a Bible study, but are we teaching our children to really know God and His word as it applies to all of life?

Homeschooling parents, as a whole, are fantastic at taking everyday experience and making it an educational adventure. Whether we’re doing a quick math or economics lesson at the grocery store, or a grammar and language arts lesson with the sermon outline and notes from church, we take advantage of the learning moments that come to us each day. As we take advantage of these moments for academic lessons, we can also take advantage of the academic lessons for spiritual lessons.

Arthur Holmes, a former professor of philosophy at Wheaton College wrote a book entitled, The Idea of a Christian College. While I attended Evangel College (now Evangel University), in Springfield, MO, all new incoming students were required to read this book. The main concept that was lovingly driven into our minds from this book is, “All truth is God’s truth, wherever it may be found”. When we believe that, it changes the way we approach all education, and life. As homeschool teachers, we realize that no matter what we are learning, we are learning about God and we can know Him more through the study of His creation. As we study, we can be moved to worship Him, whether we’re studying Biology, music, Algebra or anything else. Each area of study reveals more about Him, His nature and character. Not only do we learn about God and how to know Him more in each subject, but we find that just as God has not created a fragmented multiverse, but has created a universe. There is so much integration of all of the subjects that it’s difficult to do science well without studying the history and math that goes with it, or to study the Bible without knowing grammar, literature and history. Do we then skip direct Bible study and prayer knowing that we study God through all of our other studies? No, we still need intentional Bible study and prayer, we still need to memorize the 10 Commandments and other key scriptures, but we also delight in seeing God in everything that we study, while providing a full religious, moral and academic education for our children, and ourselves.