hosted by Anne, The Palm Tree Pundit
(Sorry, I think my numbers got off somewhere. Better now.)
Thoughts on the three forbidden topics: religion, politics, and homeschooling. Acts 18: 24-28
Kendra at Preschoolers and Peace posted this great list of what non-homeschoolers may not know. Our own family and friends have been very supportive, but I found that I needed to read this and found great encouragement in it. Enjoy!
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What Non-Homeschoolers May Not Know:
We've been educating our children at home for ten years now. In those ten years, I have observed that there are expectations that non-homeschoolers can place on homeschooling moms simply because they lack the practical knowledge of what it means to homeschool.
If you are the mother, grandmother, sister, friend, father, or brother of a homeschooling mom, here are some things you should know:
1. Educating children at home is a full-time job. Don't get irritated if she consistently allows the answering machine to do its job. If she were a teacher in an institutional classroom, you probably wouldn't think of calling her during school hours, so try to realize that while still at home, she is keeping regular school hours, too.
2. Unlike homes in which the children are gone for eight straight hours, her home is in a constant state of activity. The children are not only home, they are home making messes. All day long. Their mother doesn't even have the opportunity to go into their rooms while they are at school and weed out the junk. And if she is like me, you might find odd homeschooly things lying around- like the month we had a dead turtle in the garage fridge.
3. Housekeeping and homeschooling are mutually exclusive. If she is doing her job educating her children academically, then her house is not being cleaned. If she takes the day to clean the house, then school wil not be accomplished.
4. Place realistic expectations on her- she cannot simultaneously teach school, make three square meals, keep a house that looks like it has sprung out of the pages of Architectural Digest, have her nails done, drive children to extracurricular activities, and have all the clothing laundered and pressed. Something's gotta give, and in my experience, it is usually her personal care. So don't expect her to don the latest styles, have her roots meticulously dyed at just the right moment, and her aforementioned nails filed and polished to perfection. And while most of us aren't slovenly, we just tend to put some superfluous aspects of personal care at the bottom of the to-do list.
5. For many of us, homeschooling isn't an option. Many believe it is not only the best way for their family, it is the only way. Many see homeschooling as a Scriptural directive. When sharing a particular struggle unique to homeschooling, comments like, "Well, why don't you consider putting them in school? Maybe homeschooling just isn't your thing" aren't helpful. Instead, offer a listening ear and your fervent prayers on her behalf.
6. If you are truly concerned about the state of her emotions, home, children, or marriage, offer practical help to ease her burden. Personal time is at a premium for her, so consider offering to take her kids for the day so she can recuperate. If you like to do laundry, offer to come over and get the loads going, fold, and/or iron. If you like to cook, consider putting together some meals that she can store in the freezer for days when time is at a premium. If she teaches a broad spectrum of ages and grades, consider offering to come in once a week or more to teach preschool to the little ones. One grandma I know created "Nana U" for her preschool grandson (number five of seven) and not only did it ease her homeshooling daughter's burden, it created a special bond between grandma and the child.
But there’s a caveat here: ASK her what would be most helpful to her. Don’t presume to know what would help her. Taking the oldest children for the day might be fun for you, but it’s quite possibly not at all helpful to her. The living room might need to be vacuumed, but it’s not helpful if she’s trying to take a nap. Someone once told me, “If it’s not wanted, it’s not helpful.”
7. Think about what a financial burden homeschooling may be placing on the family. The loss of her possible income can be a real struggle nowadays, and you might be able to buoy her for another year by offering to purchase little things like simple school supplies. Gifts for the children like books on subjects of interest to the child, field trip fees, museum memberships, and the money to pay for music lessons or other extracurricular activities are the best thing you could give a homeschooling family. Not only does a homeschooling mom not need one more thing to manage or pick up, she would be thrilled to see you take an interest in the many academic items on her wish list.
8. Simple questions like, "How can I pray for you?" and "Is there any way I can help you?" are like a cool breeze in her life. Don't assume you know her needs- ask. You could just be the vessel God uses to carry her on through this very demanding and ultimately rewarding season of her life.
HT: Stepping HeavenwardApparently, our pastor decided that this topic would need more time than was allotted in one class period, so with the knowledge that we would be discussing into at least one additional class period, he spent a lot of time on introduction today. This introduction took the form of listing a lot of Scripture references and questions to go with them for us to ponder over the next week in preparation for the next class. I will attempt to present the information as clearly as I can here, but please take these passages and questions and study them yourselves. Hopefully, all this will become clearer and easier to discuss/ debate after next week’s class.
*A reminder before I get to the lesson: Please feel free to leave comments, thoughts, questions, etc. in the comment section (be considerate in your presentation, please). Don’t forget that if you receive these posts by email that you will have to come on over to the actual blog to post a comment. If you simply reply to an email, I and all the other email recipients will receive your response, but not blog readers.
Italics indicate an interjection of my own thought, comment or opinion.
Some questions that have been asked in regard to the role of women in the church:
Adam was created with a ‘design deficit’. He was alone and this was not good. He needed a helper. God allowed Adam to discover this lack on his own by presenting him with all of the animals to name and allowing Adam to discover that none was a suitable helper. With this knowledge provided, God created Eve as a help-mate for Adam.
What comes to mind when we hear the word “help-mate”? “Submission” was the general response. The pastor was really bolting through this material, so I did not have a chance to offer my response, which is “power” and “relief”. We have all heard the phrase, “Man is the head, but woman is the neck”, and I think that there is great truth in this statement. Women have a great deal of power in their marital relationship (which is what we are talking about when we are discussing help-mates). I know that my opinion holds great influence with my husband. Also, men tend to be more analytical and women more emotional, so we have a great ability to influence the directions of our husbands… to manipulate, to be completely frank. Thus, a help-mate wields great power. The relief comes in because, although I have all this power, I do not carry the majority of the burden. My children are responsible for their own spiritual states. I am responsible for my own spiritual state and, to a large extent, the states of my children. My husband, however, shoulders the burden of his own spiritual state and those of myself and my children. The concept of “the buck stops here” applies in spades to the head of the family. Thus, a help-mate has some relief, for she does not have to bear the full burden of the one over whom she has great influence. The help-mate is a completer. Adam is more “Adam” because of Eve. However, they are still individuals. Thus, the distinction between the sexes exists from Creation.
This is where a list of Scriptures and questions gets thrown out there with basically no discussion or comment. Just keep them in the back of your mind, ponder them through the week (I will be doing the same), and, hopefully, some of those questions and comments begging for answers will receive those answers next week.
Is the concept of the head covering cultural?
How would one define “long hair”?
Is a shaved head culturally symbolic?
What does the term “head” mean as it appears in verse 3?
How does this passage apply today?
At this point, the pastor drew a diagram on the board of a cone (point up) that he called the “cone of certainty”. The closer to the top (point), the more certain he was of something (such as Christ being Savior) and he would be willing to die for it. Near the center of the cone were those things he held to be true (i.e had a personal conviction about) but was not certain of. He stated that the role of women in the church would fall in the middle of the cone for him. He stated that it was enumerated in Scriptures, but not as law, only as wisdom. I am afraid I see where this is going, but I will hold-off judgment until we discuss the topic in detail next week. To be honest and upfront in my presentation, I should let those of you who do not know me well that I wear a heard-covering in formal worship (formal worship= anything inclusive of a call to worship).
What does it mean to be ordained?
Is it simply a question of giftedness, or is it also a question of authority?
I Corinthians 14:34-35, Galatians 3:28, I Timothy 2:11-15 (in which Paul appeals to Creation)
How does Jesus treat women?
Jesus spoke to them. It was against cultural custom at the time to speak to a woman in public who was not his wife or daughter. It shows respect on the level of a man.
John 4:27, John 7:24, John 7:11-13, Luke 8:48, Luke 23:27-31
Luke 13:16 -> Jesus expresses great respect by calling the woman a “daughter of Abraham”
John 8:10-11 -> however, coupled with this show of respect is a willingness to not gloss-over a woman’s sin
In the Old Testament, lust wasn’t really a sin, but in Matthew 5, Jesus equates it to adultery
Also in the Old Testament, men could divorce, but women could not. This left many women destitute. Jesus stated that all divorce (with one caveat) was sinful.
Frodo and I both had problems with these statements. Mine was more of a gut reaction, but Frodo was more eloquent in our discussion on the way home, so I will let him elaborate on this when/ if he gets opportunity to do so. (Are you reading this, hon? Hint, hint.)
John 19:26-27 -> Jesus provided for His mother at the time of His crucifixion
Women were used as examples of how we should act. One of these lessons was in the story of Mary and Martha where Jesus makes clear that women should sit under His teaching.
Women were the first to encounter the resurrected Christ. It was counter-cultural for women to be witnesses. Jesus used their action of performing their womanly duty (i.e. taking care of the dead) and used it to promote them from mourners/ caretakers to witnesses.
Despite all the ways in which Jesus treated women counter to the way they were treated culturally (lifting them higher than they were generally regarded), He still recognized distinct sexual roles. Luke 6:12-16 -> only men were chosen to be apostles with the knowledge that they would be the leaders of the first century church. According to Matthew 19:28, they were closest to Christ with special positions in Heaven. They were given a specific, earthly teaching ministry.
With this, a tense discussion began (this is guaranteed to happen when there are -2 minutes left in the class). One member of the class expressed the opinion that, given how men and women were regarded at the time (mentioning specifically the idea of women not being considered worthy of being witnesses), that Jesus had to choose male apostles because the message of the Gospel would not spread through women in a culture that did not value their opinion or what they had to relate. There was a great deal of agreement with this opinion. Our pastor felt that this could not be the case because Jesus had so obviously countered cultural views of women in His interaction with them without concern for how it would effect His message that He could have chosen female apostles if He had wanted to, so He must have chosen men for a reason. Precedent. Appeal to Creation. Something. This did not go over well. We will have to see where this discussion goes when we resume it next week.
BTW, if you find any broken links, please let me know (leave a comment or email me). I put the links in last when I was tired, so I may not have entered them correctly. Thanks.
Last Sunday’s Sunday School lesson covered the topic of free will. A rather heavy topic for an hour’s class. I was hoping that after a few days, I would be able to find a more fluid way of presenting the information presented in the class. It is now the eve of the next class, so I suppose that this will have to do. I hope that my presentation of it will be more thought-provoking than confusing.
Grant what Thou commandest, and command what Thou dost desire.
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With this seemingly simple prayer, the infamous debate between Augustine and Pelagius over the concept of free will began. But why? What does this prayer of Augustine’s really express? Pelagius had no problem with the second half of Augustine’s prayer “command what Thou dost desire.” Here, Augustine is acknowledging God’s omnipotence (all-powerfulness) and submitting to it. It is the first part of the prayer, “grant what Thou commandest”, that Pelagius took issue with. In this simple phrase, Augustine is acknowledging that man cannot choose what God does not allow him to choose. In other words, free will has boundaries, and these boundaries are set by God and not by the desires or abilities of
Let’s look at Scripture and see if we can make some sense of this issue by asking a few questions:
I’m going to leave you hanging for a second while we delve into a question that comes up when discussing The Fall. What did God mean in His admonition to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:17, “…from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die”? Specifically, what does God mean by “surely die”? Did God mean a physical death? He could have, but we know by reading Genesis 3 that God did not slay Adam and Eve upon their confession of disobedience. So physical death must not have been the only type of death to which God was referring. Knowing that man is spiritual being in addition to being a physical being, maybe God was referring to a spiritual death. But what would a spiritual death look like? Following the golden rule of interpretation, that we try to understand the unknown by first looking at the known, let’s look at the characteristics of physical death to try to determine the characteristics of spiritual death.
Physical death is the in ability to respond to physical stimuli. Therefore, spiritual death must be an inability to respond to spiritual stimuli, i.e. God. This definition can be supported by the text of Genesis 3 where we see Adam and Eve hiding from God in shame, and God making their break in fellowship obvious by banning Adam and Eve from the Garden. Spiritual death differs from physical death in one significant way, however. It is a condition which exists from generation to generation. Let’s ask some questions about Cain and Abel to clarify this point (ref. Genesis 4):
1. Could Cain sin? Yes.
2. Could Cain not sin? No. In Genesis 4:6-7, Cain cannot respond to God by doing what is pleasing to Him
3. If men cannot do what is pleasing to God, then why did God accept Abel’s sacrifice? In Genesis 4:4, we are told “the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering”. God’s regard for Abel came before His regard for Abel’s offering. It was God’s regard for Abel that made Abel’s sacrifice acceptable. Abel simply gave in faith.
Let’s leap forward in to this generation.
1. Can we sin? Yes.
2. Can we not sin? Yes.
This answer caused a bit of hoopla and requires some elaboration. First of all, most Christians would agree that we are able to not sin in Glory, in Eternity. The question is, when does that Eternity begin? To steal and completely twist a quote from When Harry Met Sally, “… when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” If we are able to not sin in Eternity and Eternity begins at conversion, then we are able to not sin now (assuming we are converted). Does this mean we are sinless? No. We still have free will. We are still free to choose sin. And sin is what it is in our nature to choose.
1. How can we choose Christ if we can choose sin only? Something must come from without if it cannot come from within.
2. Why me? Why was I able to choose Christ? Does Christ’s death bring us back to a place of neutrality? A place like
We have all heard this answer before, but it still doesn’t answer why. Why choose me? What did I do? Nothing. God does not choose based on what we do. The choice is one of grace through the sacrifice of Christ. We live what we are not and work for what we want to become because of this grace. This spurs more questions:
“But that’s not fair!” we protest. Grace isn’t fair; it’s offensive. Just ask the workers in the vineyard.
I will leave you with this essay by John Piper to ponder until my post on tomorrow’s class which will cover the role of women in the church.
For Rep. Paul, each piece of legislation must be examined for its constitutionality; that is, on the basis of whether or not the US Constitution allows the Congress or the Federal Government to engage in the actions described by the proposed legislation. If the Constitution does not allow it, then it must be opposed.
Our pastor is a nice guy. He loves to open up opportunities for people to discuss issues that are important to them. That is why, in the Sunday School class that he is teaching on Practical Theology this quarter, he decided to tailor the class by allowing us, the students, to ask questions that we would like him to teach on and have the class discuss. Poor, trusting, naïve man. I don’t think he knew what he was in for.
I have to say that I am honored to be among such thoughtful and vulnerable people and am looking forward to the discussions that grow from these questions.
Here are the questions that were submitted (our pastor tried to make them more manageable by organizing them into categories):
Predestination
If the PCA (reformed faith) believes in predestination, where does our free-will fit into our future? In other words, if God knows our future and it is already planned, what choice do we have?
Sacraments: Use and Meaning
Please explain again the use of Baptism & Communion as a sign and seal of salvation. What is the right attitude in which to receive these? Is circumcision still a sign and seal?
Are there any additional or only spiritual signs of salvation?
Sniffing Out the Truth of Cultish Coercion
1 John 2:18-26 & 1 John 4:1-3 & Galatians 1:6-9 – These verses have been presented to me to support “we know the truth and no one else does.” How do you view these verses in light of inner core and outer core beliefs? (Looking back, outside the dogma, there seems to be a contradiction between the Scriptures and the statement.)
A Case for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in the PCA
What is a woman’s role in the PCA? How are women viewed? If women are thought to not be able to hold a leadership role in the church, how is that carried over into everyday life? Such as:
a. Woman CEO with men as employees: how will she be viewed?
b. How do we bring our children up respecting a woman’s role without formulating an opinion that may be demeaning?
Does the reformed faith allow for changes? Is the culture at the time a basis for the role that women play?
Christ and Culture
How does the church determine what in Scripture is cultural practice and what is commanded by God as an act of obedience, worship, etc.? If sanctification is a reality that bears fruit in the life of the believer, why is the church virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding culture in so many ways?
Mixed Bag of Nuts
Why has [our church] chosen a contemporary worship format over hymnody/ psalmody?
How does Christianity (or reformed theology) reconcile Biblical truth with quantum physics?
How does Christianity (or reformed theology) reconcile Biblical history with dinosaurs?
What role does the Holy Spirit have in Christian life today? Is this purpose/ function any different now than from the time of Pentecost?
What theological differences are there between reformed Presbyterian and reformed Baptist? Reformed Episcopal?
Are there levels of “saintliness” or “sinfulness”?
Speak to the issue of iconoclasm and the role of arts in the church.
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Can you guess which ones Frodo and I submitted?
As our class delves into these questions, I will share my thoughts (and the many questions which are sure to follow) here. Maybe I can convince Frodo to also. Just check the theology category. If these topics interest you, I encourage you to check out Heather’s blog, Stepping Heavenward, where she will also be sharing her musings on her Sunday School’s teachings on Chapter 22 of the Baptist Confession of Faith.
In their never-ending effort to "help" homeschoolers, public school bureaucrats periodically try to increase homeschooling regulations. This makes K-12 education perhaps a unique endeavor: it's a field in which the failures regularly, and astonishingly, insist that they should be able to regulate the successful.Never mind that homeschoolers consistently outperform children institutionalized in government schools or that the longer a child is institutionalized in a government school the worse he does in relation to homeschooled children. Never mind, also, that international surveys of academic performance show that in the course of 12 years government schools manage to turn perfectly capable children into world-class dullards. No, the same education bureaucrats who consume an annual cash flow of roughly $600 billion to achieve previously unknown levels of semi-literacy and illiteracy among otherwise normal American children feel compelled from time to time to abandon their diligent pursuit of intellectual mediocrity to offer proposals for regulating homeschool parents.
A few days ago, I woke up and that little boy was gone. In his place, I found this little man instead. Notice the missing tooth. My little boy had all of his baby teeth, so this couldn't possibly be my little boy.