Oh How I Love Thy Law!!!

Life appears to be full of unanswerable questions: Why would a person go on a rampage and kill people he didn't know? Why do apparently rational people continue to pursue behaviors that are detrimental to themselves and their families? Why do people raised in the faith turn from it after years of evidence of God's blessings for obedience? And the list could go on and on.

Psalm 119 (the longest psalm in the Bible) gives us the proper focus and foundation as we face these unanswerables: the law of God. God's law is to be our starting point as we ponder the whys and wherefores of unexplainable events and behaviors. If God's law is not our starting point, we will be as unstable and doubleminded as unbelievers. In fact, it is safe to say that this psalm makes the benchmark of faithfulness to God synonymous with faithfulness to His law-word. An honest, careful study of this psalm establishes that the law of God is the delight of the believer and that he meditates in it day and night. Thus, the major emphasis of every Christian homeschool should be knowing, learning, and meditating on God's law and judging all things in terms of it. This constitutes the "righteous judgments" we are told to exercise in John 7:24:

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

By the time a person is ready to assume his role as an adult, the law of God should be so hidden in his heart that his actions, decisions, and perspectives reflect faithfulness to God's holy Word. Moreover, when called upon to give a reason for the hope that is within him, he should be able to render an answer in terms of the law-word of God. This includes being able to comment on and judge any situation or circumstance with Thus sayeth the Lord....

Be wary of persons or teachings that elevate man's law above God's law where the two are in disagreement (capital punishment, abortion, human sexuality). Likewise, be wary of those who place their own personal opinions -- their likes and dislikes -- above the clear pronouncements of Scripture and justify their positions based on an "everybody knows" mentality. For example, homeschooling parents often outsource music and art instruction, along with athletic training. In cases where the parent isn't present for the lesson, it is important to "debrief" the child so that any subversive attitude or perspective does not enter in to your family unawares. Switching instructors might be in order should it become obvious that God's ways are despised or disdained.

By what standard should a godly education be judged? By ensuring that learning is taking place under the instruction of persons or a curriculum which reveres, respects, and obeys God's law and teaches others to follow it in all areas of life and thought. Of course, this means that homeschooling parents need to steep themselves in the Scriptures so that they are qualified to impart a biblical world and life view, and be able to confidently counter other perspectives that attempt to supplant and replace it. Then, when conflicts arise with modern cultural ways of thinking (and they will), and clear doctrines of the Bible are challenged by secular "truths," the words of Romans 3:3-4 will be in the forefront:

For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.