Today we will look at the final three areas of doctrinal concern in regard to what I have chosen to call the “Radical Homeschool Movement.” I will also give a very brief overview of the Bible’s call to discernment in all areas, and present a brief proposal for how churches should respond.

3. Extra-biblical view of education

While most in the RHM would state that homeschooling is one of several options, in practice and through pressure, it soon becomes obvious that anything but homeschooling is considered unbiblical. The most commonly used passage for this is:

Dt 6:6-9 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

These verses speak of the importance of parents providing spiritual instruction at all times, a principle which is sorely lacking in most churches and families today. However, Deut 6:4-6 can in no way be expanded to exclude the importance of spiritual instruction from other sources, or to include the mandate for the parent to personally provide every facet of education, including subjects like math and science.

While homeschooling can be an excellent option and a good tool, it is not mandated by God’s Word. There are a variety of educational options available to Christian parents. To arbitrarily limit this leads to a focus on method over principle - thus to ungodly legalism.

4. Confusion of Hebrew culture with biblical mandate

The RHM tends to see the Hebrew pattern of society as somehow inherently more spiritual than Greek or other types of society. Thus, much of their thinking on how to structure the church, family, and education is from Hebrew cultural example rather than direct Biblical principle. This is in essence, a confusion of the church with Israel. The vast majority of RHM references to the behavior of the family and the church are found in the Old Testament, in contexts that primarily deal with the Israelite theocracy. There is no call in the New Testament to go back to Israelite cultural ideals. Rather we are commanded to apply NT truth in any and every culture - shaping the people to look like Christ, not OT Israel.

In contrast to the elevation of Hebrew culture, New Testament Christianity was designed to function in any culture and brings with it unique mandates within that culture. In fact, much of the confusion and turmoil in the early church was the attempt to import Hebrew culture, enmeshed as it was with OT civil and ceremonial laws, into Gentile settings. The early apostles made it clear that was unacceptable and ungodly.

Col 2:16-17 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day- things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

Additionally, we do not live in Bible times and thus particular cultural functions are not necessarily appropriate or mandatory.

A simple example would be driving a car. The decision making and mechanical skills necessary to drive a car at 60 miles an hour in rush hour traffic are far different than riding a horse to school or to town for that matter. Thus the common cry from the RHM that society should remove restrictions upon what parents can allow their children to do at particular ages (with an appeal to OT Israel) is, in many cases, simply unwise.

If something is commanded in Scripture, then parents must train their children to do it, regardless of society. Other matters must be informed by the practical realities of the world and culture in which we live.

5. Unbiblical definition of the authority of the father

There is a disturbing trend on the edges of the RHM to enact an extreme view of the father as sovereign over his household. This is known as “biblical patriarchy,” and expressed in the following quote from the Vision Forum website: “Fathers are sovereign over the training of their children and, with their wives, are the children’s chief teachers.”

Thankfully, the website goes on to state that the father is responsible to come under authority of God and the church. However, this does not validate the unbiblical nature of the above quote. The father is not sovereign over anything. God is. Extreme statements like this are neither helpful, nor Biblical, and tend to lead to arrogance and heavy-handedness on the part of the father.

Of particular interest is the increasingly referred to role of the father as the “high priest” of the home. Nowhere in the OT or NT is the father referred to in this role. The father being the spiritual head of the home, does not translate into Hebrew cultural views of the father as the patriarch or the high priest.

The father cannot “offer up sacrifices” for his children (there are no more sacrifices), nor can he bring them under a “covenantal blessing” if they are unbelievers. The father is not the mediator of spiritual blessing to his wife or to his children. Each believer in the family has the privilege and responsibility to go to God directly through Christ as the only mediator between God and man.

1 Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

C. Biblical Response

The proper biblical response to the problems in the radical homeschool movement is not to engage in name calling or to encourage detrimental polarization, but to graciously deal with error or excess in a godly fashion.

First, we must exercise Godly discernment in analyzing our personal conduct, schooling our children, and building the church. To do this we must prayer for wisdom.

Col 1:9-10 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

As part of the prayer we must ask God to search our hearts.

Ps 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.

To be discerning, however, we must move from prayer to alert obedience.

Eph 5:8-11 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;

We don’t need to understand the times so that we can cater to our culture’s whims, but so that we don’t get destroyed by the sins and false doctrines of both secular and evangelical culture.

Next, as God reveals to us our sinful thinking, and as we interact with our cultures ideas, we must compare everything with Scripture. This mandate is revealed in the book of Titus:

Tit 1:9 holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.

Finally, we need to determine the best Biblical response to what we have learned. We should glean what is appropriate, reject what in error, and warn against all that is unbiblical.

D. A proposal: Don’t “family integrate” the church, instead, “church integrate” the family (and everyone else as well!).

As relates to the family, by all means let us integrate the family into the church. Because we do not want to get sucked into the extreme fringes of the family centric movement, does not mean that we do not intentionally guard and protect our families. We do this by fulfilling the biblical mandate of the church - calling families to be integrated into the life of the church in order to equip the saints for the works of service. This will leave room to encourage parents and children to minister and worship together, as well as have opportunity for age appropriate ministry and instruction.

By all means let us structure the ministries of the church so that they do not demand improper allegiance or foster ungodly attitudes. We must certainly remove a man-centered, worldly approach which encourages discord or competition between any members of the church - husbands/wives, children/parents, single/married, elderly/young. In Christ we are one, and should function as such.

The life and spiritual walk of your family is important - but so is the spiritual vitality of every other individual in the congregation. Let us teach fathers and husbands how to love, lead, and shepherd. Let us implore moms and wives to help, submit, and manage. Let us exhort children to obey, honor, and serve. Let us call singles to be patient, content, and sacrificial. Let us encourage the elderly to stay faithful, committed, and concerned - all within the context of self-sacrificing service in and through the local church.

Eph 4:11-13 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

How are you and your family integrating into the life of your church?