Homeschool News & Views

Issue 65, April 6, 2008

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

By Dan L. White

Listen to this article.

There are two great positive movements in the world today, the Messianic movement and the Christian homeschool movement. It is very encouraging to see this, in a world that is full of discouraging things for Christians.

Discouraging things such as --

It was announced this week that British scientists took a cow egg, removed its nucleus and replaced that with human DNA. From that they created a living animal-human hybrid, which managed to live for three days.

I suppose that in all of human history, that is one of the weirdest things that humans have ever done.

That reminds me of where the Bible said:

Gen 11:1-7, World English Bible:

(1) The whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

(2) It happened, as they traveled east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they lived there.

(3) They said one to another, "Come, let's make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.

(4) They said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth."

(5) Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.

(6) Yahweh said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do.

(7) Come, let's go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.”

Computers have reversed what happened at Babel. The language multiplication held humans back from what they intended to do. After the confusion at Babel, humans could not wholly combine their efforts to destroy what God created. They were fragmented and fractious, and their learning curve was slow. The wheel didn’t even come to the American continents until several hundred years ago.

Now with the information power of computers, humans can combine their collective efforts. Without the spirit of God to guide them, that always ultimately leads downward.

And now humans have created a cow person. Supermarket tabloids have had headlines like that for years. It turns out they were right.

As if that wasn’t weird enough –

In Georgia, nine third graders got together in a plan to attack their teacher. They planned to cover the windows and then knock the teacher unconscious with a crystal paperweight. They would bind her with some toy handcuffs and duct tape, then they would stab her with a steak knife.

The plot was uncovered when another student reported that a girl had brought a broken steak knife to school. School officials then discovered that these students had brought all these items to carry out their plan to attack their teacher.

The children were from ages 8 to 10. It seems they were mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair. School officials said that the students definitely planned to carry out their attack. They were not just bluffing.

Each of us can think back to when we were in third grade. My teacher was Mrs. Asbury. I thought she was wonderful. She let me sit on the school porch railing when none of the other kids could. I fell off. Then I understood why kids weren’t supposed to sit on the porch railing.

Mrs. Asbury was attacked fairly often, as kids swarmed her to compete to give and get hugs. Remembering Mrs. Asbury, to think of a swarm of third graders planning to stab their teacher is just about beyond belief.

Such are the times we live in. Full of discouraging things.

Christ said,

Mat 5:4

(4) Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Luk 6:21

(21) …Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

Why would a follower of Christ mourn? Why would a believer weep?

Rom 8:21-23

(21) that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.

(22) For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

(23) Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body.

God’s creation is groaning in pain, with people creating cow kids and real little kids trying to stab their teacher. Any disciple of Christ will mourn over that.

In the face of all this spiritual destruction, I have noted the two areas which seem to be going against that trend. Those are the Messianic movement and the Christian homeschool movement.

It would seem that with these two movements, among the Jews and among the Christians, Christ is seeking to draw some out to come closer to Him.

Yet these movements, while having great numerical growth, need great spiritual growth.

We have noticed over the years among our many Christian homeschool comrades that often they do not really know the Bible very well. They know about the Bible. They believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. They respect the Bible and they carry the Bible with them to church. But they do not know the Bible well.

A Christian who can name off the Ten Commandments in the briefest form is rare indeed. Less than ten percent of the most dedicated category of evangelical Christians have family Bible study once a week. Christians do not often spend hours each and every week in daily study of the Bible. They do not fast regularly, with a real, afflicting fast to seek greater understanding as Daniel did. They simply cannot conceive of taking off a few weeks from work each year just to worship God.

Too many get too wrapped up in the little things of life to spend much time on the big things of life. We are all caught in this big bind. We want to serve God. We want to give Him our time, and we want to serve others. At the same time, we have to work to stay alive. We have to build our nest and take care of it. What usually happens is that we spend so much time on our own nests that God gets left out in the cold.

To leave God out in the cold is to leave ourselves out in the cold. We have mentioned about what happened to the public schools when they left God out. In 1948 the teachers’ biggest problems were such things as chewing gum and running in the halls. A half century later the teachers’ problems were drugs, sex and violence – sometimes being assaulted by their own students.

To know that Christ is the Messiah is not enough. He must be our daily leader and companion, just as He led the earliest church in all its doings.

In these weird, warped times, a Christian family must never make the mistake of the public schools and leave God out. Fifteen minute devotionals will not equip you spiritually for times such as these. The Kingdom of God must take precedence over our own little earthly kingdoms. We must take the time to help build that. We must study longer, pray harder and fast more often.