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 touching the palate, to taste and see that the Lord is good.