To train up a child

"I really admire your family. I love to see how God is blessing each of your children and am amazed at what they are doing. You are one of the few homeschooling families I know of who have children who are mature in their faith and are also intelligent and socially adept. I know much of that comes from God's grace and family genes."

I just received this from a friend asking for advice on homeschooling material. It echoes what I heard from another friend last week. And I can not keep quiet about it. My boast is in the Lord.

All of it comes from God's grace. I deny that family genes has anything to do with it, except in that even family genes are part of God's grace. Obviously my children are going to know more about logic and the fine arts and theology because they are our children and hence, influenced by those things which are our interests.

I will advise my friend on the curriculum that we have used. But that is fairly incidental. I don't even think we did homeschooling as well as it could/should have been done. And the curricula for homeschooling is abounding more and more, some of it very good.

What does matter, and what is the root of our success, can be summed up in these three scriptures:

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16

"Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 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. Then it shall come about when the LORD your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself, that you do not forget the LORD who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall fear only the LORD your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for the LORD your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth. Deuteronomy 6:1-15

I attribute the sweet success we have had in crafting our children simply to the Word of God being set before them daily: in the preaching, in daily worship, by precept and example. God has blessed us with faithful pastors and we have put our children, and not only ourselves, under their teaching. We have sought to follow the LORD our God and not the gods of this world. I commend to you an article which Cal wrote last fall that will give better insight called Evangelizing Our Children.