Parents Should Personally Teach Their Children at Home

God’s word is like electricity. There is nothing you cannot do with electricity at hand. With electricity, you can turn on lights, and keep warm or cool down all at the same time. Electricity can move objects or help it float. Almost anything is possible. However, if electricity has one problem, it is the fact that electricity cannot be stored in its pure form; it needs to be transformed into something else beforehand. For example, electricity can be chemically transformed and stored in a battery, or physically stored as water in a hydroelectric power station and be transformed back to plain electricity anytime when needed. The teaching of God’s word is no different.

It is impossible to teach God’s word like you teach at school. Nowadays, many people believe that spiritual education is merely about understanding and memorizing hundreds of Bible verses, like school education. This is not to say that memorizing Bible verses is bad; it simply is not very effective or practical. Trying to absorb God’s word simply through Bible verses is unrealistic just like trying to store electricity in its pure form. Just as electricity is stored in a different form, God’s word has to be stored as “transformed minds and lives” in order for it to have any effectiveness or meaning, and such transformation needs to happen in the family; there is no other way.

God’s word must be stored in our minds and the bodies. That is to say, abiding by God’s word, having a biblical view of life, having biblical values, having a biblical world view, having a biblical mind set, biblical goals in life, having a good character through the Holy Spirit, building faith through spiritual life experiences, loving through actions and serving others, experiencing “agape” love in the family, having hope of triumphing over darkness and hardships with brothers and sisters in Christ, understanding holiness by understanding God’s Word, having pride as a citizen of heaven, doing good, and acknowledging God’s grace and having a thankful attitude are ways to store God’s word in us. In other words, even if one memorized a tremendous amount of bible verses and fully understood every single event and story in the Bible, it is no use if one does not have faith or values based on God’s word. For Biblical habits, Biblical mind set, and Biblical character to be fostered, the God’s word has to be taught in the family. It’s a very simple matter. Who else, other than, the parents, follow their children around, minding their words, thoughts, attitudes, and goals, while giving them courage and strength? Because the education of God’s word is accomplished only when it makes a change in one’s life, the church cannot dare say that they’ll take care of children’s Biblical education, or persist stubbornly on the matter.

To maintain a biblical lifestyle, the God’s word must be taught in the family. Short-lived faith that you once had, has no meaning; at the very least, it has to be sustained. This is the reason why God gave us two institutions to maintain our spiritual way of life; the family and the church. However, many people nowadays have a strong tendency to rely on special events like revivals or retreats rather than periodic family and church life in order to carry on their biblical lifestyle. For example, if you attend a retreat like “Tres Dias,” you change, because it is like a heavenly place on Earth, just like the Mount of Transfiguration was, during Jesus’ time. Unless your soul is not especially stubborn or hardened, you are bound to be strongly touched. However, Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell of the event that took place on the Mount of Transfiguration. The first reason may have been that there is not a place on this Earth that has such a special environment. Essentially, we can see that the changes that happen at a special retreat like Tres Dias doesn’t last even for a few days, because the situation is completely different when we come back to real the world. However, the change that happens in a family environment through parents’ words is made in real life. Therefore, the change is not only maintained for the rest of your life, but as time goes by, that change grows more mature and deeper.

In addition, because you learn much more through teaching than through learning, parents who teach their children also benefit from educating their children, so that the whole family is blessed. Parents maintain and grow in their faith by teaching, while children maintain their faith and mature by learning. Furthermore, God gave us churches to help families to continue to grow in faith through teaching and learning. Therefore, the family serves the church, the church supports, teaches, protects and guides the family so that they receive blessings continuously. These families gather to form a blessed church, and the children educated in a family who belonged to that church serve and guide the church righteously so that the church is continually revived.

The education of God’s word and religious upbringing has to take place in the family. The church or a church-hosted program can help families with Biblical education, but cannot be a substitute for the family. This is why God commanded only the parents to take full responsibility for the Biblical upbringing of their children. We need to restore the family to its original form. Biblical education and worship has to be done in the family. This is the only way to maintain and advance the spiritual life; both for ourselves and for future generations to come.