Tenet 16, and a thoroughly Christian education

16. Education is not a neutral enterprise. Christian parents must provide their children with a thoroughly Christian education, one that teaches the Bible and a biblical view of God and the world. Christians should not send their children to public schools since education is not a God-ordained function of civil government and since these schools are sub-Christian at best and anti-Christian at worst. (Deut. 4:9; 6:6-9; Rom. 13:3-5; Eph. 6:4; 2 Tim. 3:15)

Deut. 4:9 – Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren,

This is a command to the Israelites to teach their children what they saw. This is no command to teach children reading, counting, or even of the meaning of the death of Christ. Those are not among the things we saw. It could either mean: “Israel, teach the children and grandchildren of your nation” or “each Israelite parent, teach your own children and grandchildren.”

Deut. 6:6-9 – And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

This is a command to diligently teach the laws of Deuteronomy. How do you pick and choose what you take from there? Do you still bind a frontlet between their eyes? Do you do a genealogy check on people before they become part of your group, to insist that no bastard (someone born from illicit intercourse) may become part of the group, even if the illicit act was by the grandmother’s grandfather’s great-grandparents?(Deut. 23:2)

Rom. 13:3-5 – For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.

We must do good, so we do not have to fear the government. How does this relate to educating our children? Could “he (the authority) is God’s minister to you for good” be used to mean that the authority ministers for good by providing public schools? Or does this relate to being willing to let authorities test your home-schooled children, as you have nothing to fear?

Eph. 6:4 – And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Notice that fathers are not asked to potty-train their children, or teach them chemical science or bicycle riding or self-defense or how to make a living. These things could be taught by other people, and the father who trains his children about Christian living and understanding the things of God would still obey Eph. 6:4.

TBP use this verse to refer to fathers, and not mothers, in tenets on authority. (See tenet 5 and 12) Now that it comes to the actual work of educating children (closer than authority to the real meaning of this verse) they say fathers should do it with mothers!

Why do they use this for a father’s authority to train children without using Deut 4:9, Deut 6:6-9 and 2 Tim 3:15 for a mother’s authority to train them? The question here is about consistency: If they use verses on teaching children to prove male parental authority, they should also use them for female parental authority. If they believe that verses on teaching children prove no authority, they should scrap Eph. 6:4 from tenets 5 and 12.

2 Tim 3:15 – and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Timothy knew the Scriptures from childhood. His mother and grandmother taught him. It shows mothers could teach their children about God. The Scriptures he knew would have been only the Old Testament and perhaps a few of the first apostolic letters. It would not be the whole New Testament as little of it was written by the time Paul wrote to Timothy.

16a) Education is not a neutral enterprise.

It makes sense, but it was not defended from the Bible.

b) Christian parents must provide their children with a thoroughly Christian education,

It depends. Education has a very wide meaning range. It includes everything that the child learn, from chewing solids through potty training, counting to ten, manners, swimming, algebra, the Bible, using a weapon, healthy eating habits or how to relate to the opposite sex.

Educating babies on how to chew solids pretty much entail the same things whether you are a devout believer, an atheist or a Hindu. The same with bicycle balance, mathematics, preparing a meal, entrepreneurial skills, or a myriad of other things. And the Lord never commands it should be parents who teach children these things.

Bringing children up in the training and admonition of the Lord certainly mean they should be taught to do what they do as if for him. (Col 3:23) In that sense, they do need Christianity to permeate everything in their education. For that reason, and because Eph. 6:4 could refer to both parents (Heb 11:23 use the same Greek word to refer to both), this point gets a pass.  

But patriarchists use Eph. 6:4, about the training and admonition of the Lord, to refer only to fathers and not both parents. (See tenets 5 and 7) As such, they have no scriptural command here to let mothers partake in Christian teaching, or home schooling. (2 Tim. 3:15 is no command, and Deuteronomy don’t speak of Christianity.)

Nothing in scripture say parents should be a child’s sole teachers. Or that they should be the ones to teach much beyond religious belief itself.

That said, a child who is taught by wise Christian parents in many ways, will most likely be better brought up in the training and admonition of the Lord than children who spend most of their time away from parents, or children with unwise parents. For example, the Tenets of Biblical patriarchy provably contain much unbiblical material. (The evidence is all over this blog.) Any parents who believe these tenets prove that they are not wise enough to be solely responsible for teaching their children in the ways of the Lord.

c) one that teaches the Bible and a biblical view of God and the world.

As far as “training and admonition of the Lord” overlaps with Bible teaching, this is biblical. However, to believe this refers to both parents, you must reject the way Eph. 6:4 is used in tenet 5 and 12.

d) Christians should not send their children to public schools

There is no Biblical defense for this view in TBP.

d) since education is not a God-ordained function of civil government and

Nor is education – except for training children about God – a God-ordained function of parents. (Not by the literal words of the Bible, anyway.) If you demand a Bible verse that tell government to teach young ones reading and writing and ‘rithmetic before condoning public school, you should also demand one that tells parents to do so, before condoning home schooling.

e) since these schools are sub-Christian at best and anti-Christian at worst.

The Bible says nothing of government schools. As such, this point cannot be Biblical. However, American teachers are not allowed to talk of God to children in school hours. Therefore, I would concede these schools are sub-Christian at best.

Other ways Christians understand this:

Christians believe that children should be brought up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Most Christians, however, have no problem with teaching children whose parents are not Christians, because Christ tells us to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. In several spots, the New Testament talks to children. As such, it seems that children were taught not just by their parents, but by the church as well.

Many Christians emphasize that bringing up children in the training and admonition of the Lord does not mean teaching them the right outward attitudes. A parent should help them find Christ, and testify Christ to them in word and deed. To have Christian attitudes outside while not having Christ inside (right behaviour can be beaten into a child, but Christ cannot), is futile. In fact, it could just bring the child under a false impression of having salvation when he/ she does not.

Summing it up

How reliable is this tenet? I will use a color code:

      The color code:

      This is adequately Biblically defended
      This is a partial truth. (The other part of the truth, that together make it Biblical, will be added in brackets.)

      This is not Biblically defended

      This was not defended from the Bible, but I’ll concede it for rational reasons.

16. Education is not a neutral enterprise. Christian parents must provide their children with a thoroughly Christian education, one that teaches the Bible and a biblical view of God and the world. Christians should not send their children to public schools since education is not a God-ordained function of civil government (nor of parents, beyond the training and admonition of the Lord) and since these schools are sub-Christian at best and anti-Christian at worst.

Tenet 18: Biblical educational methodology

18. Educational methodology is not neutral. The Christian should build his educational methodology from the word of God and reject methodologies derived from humanism, evolutionism, and other unbiblical systems of thought. Biblical education is discipleship, a process designed to reach the heart. The aim is a transformed person who exhibits godly character and a trained mind, both of which arise from faith. The parents are crucial and ordinarily irreplaceable in this heart-level, relational process. (Deut. 6:5-7; Lk. 6:40; 1 Thess. 2:7-12; 2 Tim. 1:5; 2 Pet. 1:5-8)

6:5-7 – You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Once again, this is a command to the Israelites, to teach Deuteronomy ("the words I teach you today" refer to those written down in Deuteronomy) all the time.

Lk. 6:40 – A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.

That is a great reason why to be careful who you allow to teach your children. It is also a reason why parents should really not teach alone: We are not perfect. I do not want my children to be a mere copy of me, who lacks a few of my strengths. (Where their talents differ from ours, they would not be able to develop strengths.) I want them to develop all their talents, even those I don't share. I want them to have right beliefs where I have wrong ones, and good qualities where my bad ones are.

1 Thess. 2:7-12 – But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

2 Tim. 1:5 – when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.

They set a good example: They preached the message of God.

These people did not spend time exclusively with the congregation day and night, but taught part time and worked part time not to be a (financial) burden. This example would be the equivalent of working parents lovingly teaching children about God in the evenings after work, and even in lunchtime or when the kids pop in at their job, but the children learned everything else about life from elsewhere before the parents started teaching the gospel.

Sometimes, children follow what the parents taught. This is a good example of why we should model faith to our children - not only if our spouse agree. (Timothy's father or grandfather were seemingly not a part of it.)

2 Pet. 1:5-8 – But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

At least some forms of knowledge depend on having faith and virtue first. Obviously, that cannot refer to all forms of knowledge. A non-virtuous student could know her algebra as well as a virtuous one. A student with faith in God may know less history than another who does not.

18a) Educational methodology is not neutral.

I believe this, but it is not in the Bible, and thus not a Biblical tenet.

b) The Christian should build his educational methodology from the word of God, and should reject methodologies derived from humanism, evolutionism, and other unbiblical systems of thought.

Methodology refers to things like learning from books, learning from observation (from seeing how their parents treat each other, they learn how to treat a spouse, for example), learning by repetition (the only way to learn something like multiplication tables), and learning by experiment. I know of no educational methodology derived from humanism or evolutionism. However, some educational philosophies could come from humanism or evolutionism. 

I don't think that the Word of God contains a proper manual for all the ways in which we could learn, and thus disagree that we could build an educational methodology from the word of God. The methodology for some things (like teaching a child how to brush his teeth, or preparing a delicious casserole, or teaching children to count) are not in the Bible.

c) Biblical education is discipleship, a process designed to reach the heart. The aim is a transformed person who exhibits godly character and a trained mind, both of which arise from faith.

Yes. And people need that. But they also need, in order to function in the real world, a solid education in reading and maths and basic knowledge of, for example, how to work with money and how to nurture babies. The Bible does not say how or by whom that part of education should be imparted. And the aim of that kind of education is different, and not taught in these texts.

d) The parents are crucial and ordinarily irreplaceable in this heart-level, relational process.

Crucial and irreplacable? Many a greatly succesful Christian develop a relationship with God, and a knowledge of Him, even though their parents were not Christians. Many children of Christian parents do not become disciples.

Important, yes. Very important. That is why God instructs Israelite parents and grandparents to teach the law in Deuteronomy, and why He tells parents/ fathers to bring children up in the training and admonition of God (Eph 6:4). But important is not synonymous with crucial, and the provided texts do not teach it is crucial.

Other ways Christians understand this:

(No extra notes this time)

Summing it up

How reliable is this tenet? I will use a color code:

      The color code:

      This is adequately Biblically defended

      This is not Biblically defended

18. Educational methodology is not neutral. The Christian should build his educational methodology from the word of God and reject methodologies derived from humanism, evolutionism, and other unbiblical systems of thought. Biblical education is discipleship, a process designed to reach the heart. The aim is a transformed person who exhibits godly character and a trained mind, both of which arise from faith. The parents are crucial and ordinarily irreplaceable in this heart-level, relational process.

Tenet 19: Delegating parts of the education process

Their Conversion

19. Since the educational mandate belongs to parents and they are commanded personally to walk beside and train their children, they ought not to transfer responsibility for the educational process to others. However, they have the liberty to delegate components of that process. While they should exercise great caution and reserve in doing this, and the more so the less mature the child, it is prudent to take advantage of the diversity of gifts within the body of Christ and enjoy the help and support that comes with being part of a larger community with a common purpose. (1 Cor. 12:14ff.; Gal. 4:1,2; 6:2; Eph. 4:16)

1Cor. 12:14 – For in fact the body is not one member but many.

This touches on using the gifts of others in the body of Christ to help.

Gal. 4:1,2 – Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.

This passage is about the relationship between the law and Christianity, and uses the example of an underage heir and the child's guardians to explain why there was a law. A child having guardians and stewards (tutors, child-minders) would relate to delegating things to others, but it would seem to be an example against home-schooling and even against mothers looking after their own children too.

Gal. 6:2 – Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Eph. 4:16 – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

It is good if the body works together.

19a) Their conversion

Since the educational mandate belongs to parents

Is this educational mandate a mandate for the child's total education - academic, physical, moral, spiritual, social, emotional and practical? When TBP talks of the educational mandate, it tries to convince people that all aspects of teaching were mandated to parents. The verses provided, however, speak of spiritual education, of teaching children about God. There is nothing in these verses to say the mandate for an intellectual education - reading and mathematics and the rest - belongs to parents.

b) and they are commanded personally to walk beside and train their children,

Only from Eph. 6:4 can that reasonably be concluded - if the verse refers to both parents. You can keep this point by dropping "the father’s authority to lead" (Tenet 5, 6, 7, 11, etc.), which depend on a different interpretation of that verse. I believe it refers to both parents, and thus find the points on paternal authority half-truths. (Fathers and mothers have authority to lead their children, in my view.)

Even then, it needs a qualifier: Parents are commanded to train their children in the ways of the Lord, not to train their children in all practical ways in which a child may need training. The rest could probably be taught by someone else, who do not walk beside them in that manner.

c) they ought not to transfer responsibility for the educational process to others.

As no biblical support were given that the educational mandate belonging to parents (beyond religious education) they could probably transfer responsibility for other forms of education.

d) However, they have the liberty to delegate components of that process.

As no verse stops them from delegating the responsibility, I would agree. However, this was not directly defended from the Bible.

e) While they should exercise great caution and reserve in doing this, and the more so the less mature the child,

It makes sense, but no verses were given for this either.

f) it is prudent to take advantage of the diversity of gifts within the body of Christ and enjoy the help and support that comes with being part of a larger community with a common purpose.

As this passage start with "It is prudent", I could forgive the lack of a specific verse that states we should enjoy the gifts for this particular purpose. God gave us gifts to help each other. That would probably include helping with each other's children, for instance teaching them about God. This is adequately defended from the Bible.

Other ways Christians understand this:

Many Christian parents believe they and the church should teach their children about God, but believe they could leave the intellectual part of education to others.

Summing it up

How reliable is this tenet? I will use a color code:

      The color code:

      This is adequately biblically defended

      This is defended biblically, but another view could also be defended biblically

      This is a partial truth. (The other part of the truth, that together make it Biblical, will be added in brackets.)

      This is not biblically defended

      This was not defended from the Bible, but I’ll concede it for rational reasons.

19. Since the educational mandate belongs to parents and they are commanded personally to walk beside and train their children (in Christianity), they ought not to transfer responsibility for the educational process to others. However, they have the liberty to delegate components of that process. While they should exercise great caution and reserve in doing this, and the more so the less mature the child, it is prudent to take advantage of the diversity of gifts within the body of Christ and enjoy the help and support that comes with being part of a larger community with a common purpose.