On Educating Children

4"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to 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. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)

Tonight my wife and I sat with a younger couple in our church discussing children and school. I insist that it is the parent’s responsibility to educate their children. However, I believe that parents can educate their children in accord with God’s will in or out of the home. Therefore, when I am seeking to counsel parents in this regard I encourage them to educate their children for the glory of God in whatever way, in or out of the home, he leads them. My wife and I educate our children in our home. But there have been years where our children have been entrusted to other adults in school settings to assist us in the education of our children. However, even in those settings we were their primary teachers and held ourselves responsible for their education in the Lord as he relates to all education.

But in the course of our conversation tonight I had a wonderful opportunity to realize the education our children are getting. While my wife and I sat listening and counseling this couple in the Lord’s wisdom our two teenage young men sat with us. They listened to this couple with us, hearing their questions and concerns, watching us ask questions and listen, and seeing us seeking to give them Godly counsel for the glory of God. They even at times participated by sharing their experiences and thoughts. The joy I experienced tonight was seeing the grace of God in the context of counsel and in the grace and knowledge of Christ growing in the young men in our home. They were with us walking by the way in seeking to love the Lord and teaching them to love Him in all that we were doing.

Educating our children in everything that the Lord has commanded us (Deuteronomy 6:6,7; Matthew 28:20) takes time and participation. It takes time invested in their lives whether you send them to school or keep them home. If they are home the time is intensive and if they come home from school the time will be intensive. But in either situation the time is given to parents as the children are given to parents for stewardship. And this stewardship of time in the context of educating children is for the raising up of Godly seed for the glory of God. Parents must be diligent in the use of time to teach their children to love the Lord their God in all of life. It also takes participation of parents in the lives of the children. The children of Godly parents need to participate with parents in the way of Godly living. Children will grow up into love with the Lord and a love that walks after him in all his ways when parents make them participate in talking in the house, walking in the way, lying down under the stars, and rising up with the sun and the mercies of God that are new every morning. Children need to sit with other adults while their parents are with other adults more than they need to sit with their peers in a separate room with the X Box or the latest DVD. Children need to be with adults when they talk and listen, teach and serve, walk and pray, in the context of other adults in the church and community.