Your Home: God’s Design for Your Child’s Education

Editors’ Note: While this article comes from the WCFS archive, it still expresses the heart and priority of Wellspring.

Families need to understand God's design for the home in order for them to make the most of it. What is God's design? The home is the Creator’s first ‘school’ for teaching children. A biblical philosophy of home education must include an understanding of God's design for marriage, children, and the "Dominion Mandate" wherein mother, father, and children work together to rule over their small world, given to them by God.

The Significance of the Home

What is so special about your home? It is God’s choice haven for the eternal souls He has placed in it to learn how they might love Him, trust Him and obey His plan with a joyful vision. “God sets the solitary in families, and brings out those who are bound by chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land” (Psalm 68:6). God made your family to be a haven in which He satisfies and nurtures each member for this life and in the next.

God’s authority rests on every home but the rebellious reject that authority and live instead in a barren waste land. Is it not strange that the world condones and cultivates rebellion? Rebellion is living life on your own terms, and that leaves you solitary, all alone.

If you reject what God has to offer, you reject His authority over your life and push away His reward. (The rebel is always under authority--he can’t escape, he just can’t see God in his condition of a dry and thirsty land!)

The home is the first place where authority can be learned in such a fashion that it brings nurture as well as admonition. This is God's design. Your children will receive an inheritance from the Lord through your home. The encouraging thing is that much of the benefit of your home will be given to you and your children without you understanding how God’s design works! God gives you His promises to receive by faith. As you honor and submit to the Lord, let Him be your God and ruler in every individual circumstance.

Relationships in Education

Regarding education, the home works this way: Dad focuses on the long-term objectives (skills/academics); Mom focuses on family relationships. You can have an excellent curriculum with high academic standards, but if relationships are askew there will be no peace in the home. This is one of the blessings about God's design of uniting two individuals as one and setting them over the societal unit of family. Because of this duality, the home is the best place for relationship-based teaching: cultivating skills, structure, and knowledge so that the whole man is nurtured and trained.

Relationships above performance! “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him: (Genesis 2:20). Adam had successfully named all of the animals, which would require the gift of organization and some level of skill. However, something was missing -- he was alone. The missing element was his wife. Family cultivates learning in the context of relationship and is the most powerful influence in training up a child. This is what you possess in your home. God has given you this powerful influence of relationship and love for your home.

The Process: Treasure God’s Design for Your Family

Treasuring God’s design for the family is a philosophy of education embodied in a way of life that brings heaven into the home and prepares its members for heaven! Home education means using your home as God's choice place to nurture and train your children, as opposed to the home being a housing project and a transportation depot, supporting every conceivable activity outside the home. Yes, the home involves learning (that is what education is all about!), but it uses you, the parent, and your sovereignly unique home that God designed.

Has God called you to teach your children at home? Consider this: what does your home have to offer? Maybe you look at your home and think, "Wow, this house is falling apart at the seams just keeping up with daily life--adding school to this mess would blow me out of the water!”

Not Equipped? Maybe you think, "Oh, that homeschooling stuff is only for those people who have an education degree--I'm an engineer with zero patience or teaching skills." However, if you know in your heart that God is calling you to homeschool your children, do you think God would call you to something He has not equipped you to do? “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Corinthians 2:12)

A big challenge you face is comparing yourself to others, wishing to have what someone else has, seeing your lack as a deficiency. Pay attention to the unique way God has designed your home (not the Jones' or the Smiths') and what He has given you to offer. Make sure you are offering what you have! If your home lacks anything, and you strive for it, you are competing with God’s wise judgment. You are undermining and possibly bypassing the opportunity and provision that God has for you. Your home will provide God's intended benefits when you receive them as His best choice for you and incorporate them into your way of life--this is how you treasure His design.

Design--Think of it this way: a roof sheds water. True. Does the roof actively think about how it sheds water? Does it understand the process or know how it works? No! The roof was designed to do what it does, and it does it. One of the first baby steps of home education is understanding that if it was not for the great God who designed your home, your home would not be a safe place for your children! You have to realize that in God's design, He has something in mind, heavenly goals for your home and your family. You might not comprehend it all, but you can embrace it and treasure it because God has designed it: it is His gift to you!

Much of God's design is inherent; your home will work the way God created it to work. However, you don't want to sit on your hands and say, "Oh, it will all work out." You want to cooperate and use your gifts and reflect and pray. It takes faith to discover God's ways and to walk after those ways. God will give you the ability to walk by faith if you but ask Him with all your heart. Beware of the negative view our culture has towards God's design. The things of God are scoffed at and over-looked -- especially regarding the home, but remember, this world is passing away, so hope in God and follow Him!