Homeschooling Part II

*Note- Today I focus on some of the history of the public school system patterned after the ancient Greek civilization. Many parents do not question the origins of the current public school system. This is not to say that homeschooling is a savior. Jesus is our savior. I do believe homeschooling children from hard places is best for them- I will expound at a later date in the series.

“And these words which I am commanding you this day shall [first] be in your own minds and hearts; [then] You shall whet and sharpen them so as to make them penetrate, and teach and impress them diligently upon the [minds and hearts] of your children and you 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.”- Deuteronomy 6:6,7

These instructions were give to the Israelites after their captivity in Egypt and were to be followed in the promised land. Some of nation educated their children as God instructed until the Assyrians, the Babylonians and then the Greek Hellenistic civilization came on the scene, the book of I Maccabees records:

“[S]ome of the people eagerly went to the king. He authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles. So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according to Gentile custom, and removed the marks of circumcision, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil.”

God had given strict instructions for the nation of Israel not to intermingle with the current social system, nor to follow their customs or their gods.

The gymnasium was the center of athletic and intellectual life. It became the Greek custom to send children away from the home to be educated in order to be useful to the state (see the works of Aristotle). The Jews ignored the directive of the Lord to teach their children when they walked, talked, lie down, rose up, and instead sent them to the government’s Greek schools where they learned the Greek customs.

When the children entered the government-run schools, their hearts turned away from their parents. The Father’s hearts turned against them. The family, the foundational unit of society broke.

God’s closed the final chapter of the Old Testament with:

And he shall turn and reconcile the hearts of the [estranged] fathers to the [ungodly] children, and the hearts of the [rebellious] children to [the piety of] their fathers [a reconciliation produced by repentance of the ungodly], lest I come and smite the land with a curse and a ban of utter destruction. Malachi 4:6