The Biblical Basis for Homeschooling Christian Children ~ Pt. VI ~ The Money Pit/Conclusion

**This is the final entry of a 6-part series ~ although each entry can stand alone, it is best read in order. Please scroll down and begin reading Part 1**

The Money Pit

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’ And they were amazed at Him.” (Mark 12:17)
As with all things, someone has to finance the whole endeavor. The social elitists are not going to do it. That burden is left to you and me – the cogs of the system, the pawns in the game; whether we benefit from it or not. And more than likely we will not.

One of the tricks of the trade is to require that all citizens of each and every school district – even if you have no children using that school district – must pay for the (failing) schools. At a local school district meeting that I attended (along with the Superintendent, the School district’s Treasurer, eleven senior citizens and two other school moms), the superintendent proceeded to expound on the need for a coming levy (read: TAXES). After he described how the parking lot needed new black top and parking lines, I asked the Superintendent how much combined money (federal, state and local property taxes) are allotted toward each student in our district. The thirteen residents who attended that meeting with me, while we alone represented the five thousand of our village, were simply astonished to hear that $8,000.00 was the total amount designated! Then the shocking revelation that depending upon whether your child is a special needs child or “merely” a traditional student – only the pittance of three to twenty percent was parsed out to each lucky child. Translated, that is a mere $240.00 to $1,600.00 goes to each child per year out of the $8,000.00. Your tax dollars at work.

Imagine if each homeschool family could spend $8,000.00 on each of their children. While it sounds so lovely and causes the imagination to wander into the area of turning vacations to Europe into extended field trips, a Christian homeschool family would probably turn the bulk of that money away. It would not be good stewardship. Any homeschool family who has homeschooled for more than one or two years will find that they become more and more eclectic. In doing so, any homeschool family who has homeschooled for more than one or two years will tell you that they can very successfully educate multiple children and teens on the tidy sum of five hundred to eight hundred dollars per year. Our household is a shining example of that statistic.

Just as Jesus multiplied the fish and loaves and fed more than five thousand people, so He can multiply the resources in the Christian homeschool. Not every textbook or workbook has to be new, resources from older children can be handed down to younger siblings. The role of the homeschool community is that of Prov. 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Families in the homeschool community are the hands and feet of Jesus.

As a writer for The Old Schoolhouse homeschool magazine, and as a speaker, I have the opportunity to meet and speak with many diverse homeschool parents. It is nearly universal that Christian homeschool families take seriously the responsibility to help each other in the Name of Jesus. There are always families who are willing to tutor a child, mothers willing to give up their time once a week to teach a co-op class or to drive a group to a field trip or to a community service project.

The commonality of many homeschool families, other than raising their children as arrows for the Kingdom of God, is that the majority of families live on one income. Because of this, homeschool families are forced to count the cost of choosing to homeschool. Jesus advised us by saying, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?” (Luke 14:28) By being watchful of sales and shrewd with the internet, a homeschool family can be very successful in the stewardship of their meager income. It seems to me that the treasurers of the public schools would do well to learn how to spend as wisely as a homeschool family.

CONCLUSION

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
As Christian homeschool parents, the above Scripture is a basic guideline. It points us to God’s attitude, methods, and principles.

“The words train up are not framed as a mere suggestion. They are a command…In the original Hebrew, train up means ‘to touch the palate.’…Hebrew mothers would feed their children by first chewing their own food very carefully and, then, touching a little of it to their child’s palate. With that intimate sharing, the mother would instill in her child a taste for the very same foods she enjoyed…To translate the metaphor educationally: parents are to instill in their children a taste for their own delights by enjoying things together with their children. By working together, studying together, playing together, and simply living the Christian life together, our children develop…a deep inner yearning, an appetite…These tastes will form the basis for their lifetime of joyful obedience to the Lord.”[1]

Gregg Harris goes on to explain that “in the way he should go” describes that the kind of training our children are to get is training in righteousness. No public, government-funded school will allow that. It doesn’t fit the “I’m OK, you’re OK” lie. Unfortunately, when someone lies someone has to be wrong – whether it hurts the feelings of another or not. Hell is far more to worry about than hurt feelings. By understanding that there is a right and a wrong – again, which public schools are loath to teach – it may be the difference between eternal hell and separation from God forever or salvation through a saving knowledge regarding the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.

And it seems that this train of thought brings us back to the favorite verse among homeschoolers, Deut. 6:4-7, in reminding us to teach God’s truths as we talk to our children in the home, and as we are walking along the way, and as we lay down at night telling stories, saying prayers and having wonderful bed-time conversation…only to rise up the next morning to start the whole cycle of teaching and demonstrating God’s truths as life is lived.

Homeschooling is a calling of God, for the training up of our children. It is a commandment of God, as we are with our children nearly every hour of the day. It is a revival of God, in that a remnant has been called to breathe fresh wind on a spark and watch it fan into flame across the land. It is the truth of God, in an educational system dying from lies and deceit. It is the tie that binds, when so many in the educational system are trying to divide children from parents. It is a battleground, in the fight for our families and the minds and souls of our children and teens. It is exercising good stewardship as we wisely and frugally use the abundance of resources God has given us to educate our children & teens. It is touching the palate, to taste and see that the Lord is good.[1] Gregg Harris, The Christian Home School (Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1988), 63, 64