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"THE WORD" AND MY CHILDREN
"Mom?"
"What Michael?"
"My English teacher always talks about her views on politics, religion, and everything. A lot of what she says is different from what we believe. She doesn't like the President, and she does not believe in war. When I tell her what I think, she seems to get angry with me. I don't know what to do."
"Well Michael, first of all, I don't like the fact that she discusses her personal beliefs with her students at all. She should just be concentrating on English. Do any of your other teachers do this?"
"Yeah. Pretty much all of them. They sit around and tell us things about their lives and things they do and believe. Stuff like that."
"Why can't teachers just concentrate on teaching and sticking to the subject matter? That makes me so angry! Okay--this is what I am going to do. I will discuss the situation with your dad and see what he would like to do about this. In the meantime, let me see if I can't explain this to you. Our belief system comes from the Bible, the word of God, right?
Michael nods.
"And the Bible is the inerrant word of God which means what?"
"It means freedom from error. Everything in the bible is true and not to be questioned."
"Exactly. We choose to believe the bible is the inerrant word of God and believe by faith that every word is true. Unfortunately, Michael, there are a lot of people who either do not believe the bible is the word of God or people who believe the bible is the word of God but only parts of it. They like to say that the bible is written by men and men make mistakes and are not perfect. What they do not understand is that everything the men wrote in the bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit."
"I know mom. But what can I do about my teachers?"
"Listen Michael, we are called to be discerning. The way to be discerning is to pray and read and study the bible. Every day. Not just sometimes but every day. When we come against people such as your teacher, we need to pray for them and pray that God will enlighten their spirit. If possible, ignore it. If you can't ignore it, state your beliefs about it and quote the bible verses that go with it. Then just let it be. Only God can change a person's heart. Let's pray about this now and then study different versus of scripture on the subject. Tonight we will sit down with dad and see what he has to say on this, okay?"
These types of conversations have become prevalent in my household since my son began high school. It seems that teachers cannot just teach anymore. Now they are putting off "their viewpoints" on our children. Most of the time what is being said goes against our belief system as Christians. It reminds me of the scripture about being aware of false teachers. This situation with my son reminds me of my brothers when they went to college. They both took "religion" classes at one point and 25 years later they are still messed up about religion. The teachers put all kinds of nonsense in their heads. Since we come from a family who went to Church seldom, they had no defense against the onslaught of false information.
As the parent's of two boys, we understand just what an important and serious task it is to mature and grow as Christians ourselves and also teach our children about our faith and the word of God. Our children see us learn and mature and, as we do, they do. Together, as a family, we are always praying, studying scripture, and learning.
One verse that I love personally is Proverbs 22:6: Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it. What a wonderful promise from God! I know that if I do my part God will do his. No question. We can only do our best and teach our children, to the best of our knowledge and ability, the word of God and then let God do the rest.
Let us, every one, keep the faith...always praying to and trusting in the one who knows and loves us best.
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