WHERE WE AGREE

My friend Matthew Ndiritu Gathuo recently wrote a thoughtful post asking whether God mandates a specific way to school our kids. I read it severally, and I want to respond publicly because I think the question deserves a public conversation, not because I want to win an argument. He is a brother I respect, and much of what he wrote is right.

He is right that Scripture gives parents a non-negotiable command: raise children "in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). He is right that this responsibility belongs to parents and cannot be handed off to any institution. And he is right that Scripture never hands us a single institutional blueprint for schooling. Turning one model into a test of orthodoxy is legalism, and I want no part of it.

So on the one-size-fits-all point, we agree. My disagreement is with what he builds on top of it. The end does not justify the means, and I think his post treats the means of education as far more neutral than Scripture allows.

THE MEANS SHAPE THE END!

His post closes by asking us to agree on the goal and hold our methods "with open, pragmatic hands." That sounds humble. But education is not a delivery system that carries neutral information to a child. It forms the child.

Jesus said it plainly: "a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40). Paul warns that "bad company ruins good morals" (1 Corinthians 15:33). Whoever teaches our children, and whatever worldview frames that teaching, is shaping who they become. The method is not separate from the discipleship. It is part of it.

Here is the tension I can't get past. My friend starts from the Reformed conviction that Christ claims every square inch. I share that conviction. But the square inch where a child spends 35 to 40 hours a week ends up in the open-handed, pragmatic category. If Christ is Lord of that square inch, then the means of schooling come under His Word, not under pragmatism.

A WISDOM ISSUE IS NOT A NEUTRAL ISSUE!

I agree that schooling is a matter of wisdom and Christian liberty. But we need to be careful with what follows from that. Christian liberty means Scripture has not legislated one option. It does not mean every option is equally wise.

Wisdom in the Bible is never vague. Proverbs is full of concrete judgments about companions, teachers, and influences. Wisdom asks hard questions: Who is teaching my child? What does the curriculum assume about God, truth, and human nature? Who is shaping my child's loves and loyalties during the hours I am not there?

Calling schooling a "wisdom issue" should open that conversation, not close it. When it becomes a way of saying "let's not judge each other's choices," it slides from Christian liberty into indifference.

MOSES AND DANIEL ARE NOT SCHOOLIGG MODELS KAKA!!😁

The post points to Moses and Daniel, both educated in pagan systems, as evidence that Scripture leaves the method open. I love both stories, but I don't think they carry that weight!

Neither Moses' nor Daniel's education was a choice their parents made. Moses ended up in Pharaoh's household because of a decree to kill Hebrew baby boys. Daniel was taken to Babylon as a captive when Jerusalem fell. These are not stories about parents weighing schooling options. They are stories about God keeping His people faithful in circumstances they did not choose.

Notice too that both arrived ALREADY formed. Moses was nursed and raised in his early years by his OWN MOTHER (Exodus 2:7–10). Daniel came to Babylon with CONVICTIONS DEEP ENOUGH to refuse the king's food (Daniel 1:8). Their faithfulness came from what was planted before the pagan system got hold of them.

The one example in the post where faithful parents were actually choosing is Timothy, who was taught the Scriptures from childhood by his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5; 3:15). That example points somewhere quite specific.

THE RESPONSIBILITY CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED,BUT THE HOURS CAN

He mentions in his post that spiritual discipleship "can never be outsourced to any school." Amen. But that conviction has to be taken seriously in practice, not just affirmed in principle.

He suggests that a child in public school is still being Christianly educated if parents debrief culture and teach theology at the dinner table. That can happen, and some families do it well. But we should be honest about the arithmetic. An hour of conversation in the evening is a small counterweight to seven hours a day, five days a week, for twelve or more years.

Deuteronomy 6 describes teaching "when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." That is a picture of formation woven through the whole of life. If the responsibility truly stays with parents, then parents must think very carefully about who has their children for most of their waking hours.

CONVICTION IS NOT LEGALISM

The post warns against "rigid dogmatism," and the target is clearly families who are firmly committed to homeschooling or Christian education. But we need to be fair about what legalism actually is.

Legalism is binding a conscience where God has not bound it, or making a practice a condition of salvation or fellowship. Holding a strong conviction and making a reasoned case for it is something else. Most homeschooling and Christian-education parents I know are doing the second, not the first. They are not questioning anyone's salvation. They are making an argument about wisdom, which is exactly the conversation the post says we should be having.

Mr Nderitu also frames the choice as "preparation over pure isolation." I think that is a false choice. Children are not prepared for a pluralistic world by early, constant exposure to it. They are prepared by deep roots first, then gradual, guided engagement. A seedling in a greenhouse is not being hidden from the world. It is being made strong enough to survive it. Daniel could stand in Babylon because of what was planted in Jerusalem.

OPEN HANDS,BUT NOT EMPTY

I am grateful He wrote this, because the christian and the church at large needs this conversation. I agree ,that we should extend charity to every parent who is trying to be faithful: the homeschooling parent, the Christian-school parent, and the public-school parent. None of us should treat our choice as a badge of superior faith.

But charity should not keep us from saying what Scripture implies: some means serve the biblical goal better than others . Holding our methods with open hands is good. Holding them with empty hands, as if nothing much is at stake, is not.

The goal is godly, resilient children who love the Lord. Because that goal matters so much, the road we choose to get there matters too.