DIY Homeschooler

As a new year begins, we find ourselves very involved.  New books, new schedules, and new routines all demand our attention and we find ourselves finding our way … and losing our focus.

Keeping the first thing the first thing will smooth out even the most uneven days.  When we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, all the rest will be added unto us.

With that in mind, it becomes ever so important to remember the framework on which we are to build.  We are training hearts, not just minds.  And as we have been born again through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:23), it is that Word that we must make a priority.

In the words of others…

This unrivaled tutor used as His class-book the best of books. Although able to reveal fresh truth, He preferred to expound the old. He knew by His omniscience what was the most instructive way of teaching, and by turning at once to Moses and the prophets, He showed us that the surest road to wisdom is not speculation, reasoning, or reading human books, but meditation upon the Word of God. [emphasis mine]

C. H. Spurgeon

Making Scripture study a priority reflects our appreciation that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7) and our obedience to His directives in training our children.

If true religion is to beam upon us, our principle must be, that it is necessary to begin with heavenly teaching, and that it is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine without being a disciple of Scripture. Hence the first step in true knowledge is taken, when we reverently embrace the testimony which God has been pleased therein to give of himself. For not only does faith, full and perfect faith, but all correct knowledge of God, originate in obedience….

For if we reflect how prone the human mind is to lapse into forgetfulness of God, how readily inclined to every kind of error, how bent every now and then on devising new and fictitious religions, it will be easy to understand how necessary it was to make such a depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing by the neglect, vanishing away amid the errors, or being corrupted by the presumptuous audacity of men.

John Calvin

Making Scripture study a priority reflects our understanding of our stewardship role in preparing our children for His purposes.

Let thy religion begin at home. Many tradesmen export their best commodities—the Christian should not. He should have all his conversation everywhere of the best savour; but let him have a care to put forth the sweetest fruit of spiritual life and testimony in his own family….

Ah! dear friend, you little know the possibilities which are in you. You may but speak a word to a child, and in that child there may be slumbering a noble heart which shall stir the Christian church in years to come.

Charles Spurgeon

Making Scripture study a priority reflects our understanding that the reward is an eternal one.

There is no inheritance which the richest parent can bequeath to a child that can compare for one moment with the influence and blessing of a truly godly home. It gives to the whole trend of the life, away into the eternal years, such a direction and such an impulse that no after-influence, no false teachings, no terrific temptation, no darkening calamity, can ever altogether turn it away from its course. For a time it may be drawn aside by some mighty power of evil, but if the work in the home has been true and deep, permeating the whole nature, the deviation from rectitude will be but temporary.

If parents give money to their children they may lose it in some of life’s vicissitudes. If they bequeath to them a home of splendor, they may be driven out of it. If they pass down to them as a heritage only an honored name, they may sully it. But if they fill their hearts with the holy influences and memories of a happy Christian home no calamity, no great sorrow, no power of evil, no earthly loss, can ever rob them of their sacred possessions. The home songs will sing themselves out again in the years of toilsome duty. The home teachings will knit themselves into a fibre of character, rich in its manly or womanly beauty, and invulnerable as a coat of mail. The home prayers will bind the soul with gold chains, round the feet of God. Then, as the years go on and the old home of earth is broken up, it only moves from behind, as it were, and goes on before, where it draws the soul toward the better life.

J.R. Miller, Home-Making

Additional Resources

Bible
Bible study tools and other resources for making Scripture study a priority.