Jon and Candy Summers share:

Christian Home Educators Fellowship—Faithfully honoring God and serving the homeschooling community for the past 28 years!

There’s No Place Like Home January 2012 Information

1. CHEF Information and Activities

    a. CHEF 28th Annual 2012 Graduation Meetings beginning Thursday, January 12

         b. CHEF 22nd Annual Math Olympics, Friday, January 20

         c. CHEF Meetings and English/Scottish Country Dance Practices beginning Friday, January 20

         d. CHEF Annual Family Ice Skating, Saturday, January 28

         e. CHEF 18th Annual Art Festival and Photography Contest, Tuesday, February 7

         f. CHEF Annual Paintball Game, Saturday, February 18

         g. CHEF Knife Classes, Wednesday and Thursday, February 22 and 23

         h. CHEF 2012 Conference

2. Covenantal Families: Biblical Scholarship Leads to Biblical Conversations

“Thank you for yet another wonderful Christmas Ball. We appreciate it each year. We are thankful for the family-friendly, Christ-centered activity. Our family enjoyed it so much that we are looking forward to the practices.” –Scott Air Force Base

CHEF INFORMATION AND ACTIVITIES:

CHEF 28th Annual 2012 Graduation In 2010, several homeschoolers expressed to Jon and I how ashamed they were of two other home educator’s graduation ceremonies, which espoused being Christian, but which were in fact, quite irreverent. A month later additional homeschoolers expressed their distress over still another irreverent graduation ceremony. With this grave concern over God’s honor and homeschoolers’ reputation, we want to assure you that CHEF is committed to conducting a formal graduation ceremony that honors God and testifies to the excellence of the path that we have chosen for our children. Consequently each facet of the ceremony is coordinated with Christ’s honor and Christian home educators’ reputation in view, thereby clearly defining the consecrated course which God requires of us.

The main purpose of the CHEF graduation is to give honor and glory to God, to express gratitude to parents for their faithful commitment to God in discipling their children, and to acknowledge and celebrate the graduates’ accomplishments. To help ensure this standard, CHEF clearly lays out these goals at the beginning, provides dress code and etiquette guidelines for the actual ceremony while also requiring submission of the graduates’ performances for approval, thus making certain that everything at our graduation ceremony honors God.

Recognized as Missouri ’s State Home Educator’s Organization by Missouri ’s universities, businesses, unions, and federally funded programs, our graduates are readily accepted on the diplomas CHEF issues at our graduation ceremony. However, throughout our years of leadership, we have been called upon by out of state universities, businesses, civil services, and unions to verify that their applicant actually graduated from CHEF-Missouri’s State Home Educator’s Organization. Thus many parents have expressed their deep appreciation knowing that their child’s participation in our graduation ceremony often expedites and eases the admissions process because of CHEF’s reputation. Besides this, participation in our graduation shows support to CHEF, which has faithfully honored God and served homeschooling families full time for the past 28 years.

To receive your graduation packet, please call Sonia Summers at 314-521-8487 and leave your name, graduate’s name, phone number, and email address.

Meetings: The graduation meetings will be held at Dorsett Village Baptist Church , 2240 Bennington , Maryland Heights MO 63043, located just off Hwy. 270 near Hwy. 70 from 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month: January 12, February 9, March 8, and April 12.

Directions: Take Hwy. 270 to Dorsett. Go west to McKelvey. Make a right on to McKelvey. At the first stoplight the street name changes to Bennington . Go through the stoplight to the first parking lot past Radiant Faith Academy Daycare’s (formerly Kinder Care) playground. Make a right into the parking lot. We will meet in the sanctuary for the first meeting and then in one of the lower level rooms of the main building for all meetings thereafter.

To give you an idea of the focus of our graduation you may read the godly and inspiring charge, “Destined to Make a Difference,” which was presented by Bob Wells in 2010 by going to www.chef-missouri.com. Click on “Services” and scroll to the bottom of the page.

CHEF 22nd Annual Math Olympics, Grades 3-12 Friday, January 20 at Southgate Christian Church, 9820 East Watson Road , Crestwood , MO 63126 . Registration deadline is December 31, 2011. The registration form is available at http://www.chef-missouri.com/files/RegistrationForm2012.pdf. For more information, contact Marsha Siecinski at mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 314-835-9557.

CHEF Meetings and English/Scottish Country Dance Practices called by Jeremy Suermann with Volleyball, Basketball and Great Fellowship at Dorsett Village Baptist Church, 2240 Bennington, Maryland Heights MO 63043 on Fridays 7:00 p.m.-Midnight on January 20; February 10, 24; March 9, 30; April 13, 27. Meetings are free. Dances: Registration cost at the door is $65 per family or $5 per dancer per class. You do not have to pay for family members who just come to watch. Dancers ages five and under are free.

On Friday, January 20, David Klarich will be our speaker from 7:00-8:15 p.m., dance 8:30-10:30 p.m., and basketball or volleyball 10:30-11:45 p.m.

We are honored to have CHEF’s attorney and lobbyist (and past Missouri senator and representative) David Klarich speak to us. This will be a great government lesson for all of us, but it will be especially important for our children. For those families who come to our dance practices from Illinois , we assure you that the information presented will also greatly benefit you, as well. Some of the topics to be covered: How a bill becomes law, issues relating to homeschooling, the difference between disciplining and child abuse, what the “authorities” can and cannot do, and answers to your questions.

We also want to emphasize the importance of showing your gratitude to David for his service in the Missouri House of Representatives and the Senate and for all the many years he has served our CHEF families for free. I know of no other state that has been blessed with such a tremendous service! Please make every effort to thank David for his sacrificial service.

Mr. Klarich is a homeschooling father of five and serves as CHEF’s attorney and lobbyist. David John Klarich was elected to the Missouri Senate (1994-2002) where he served as the Chairman of Judiciary; Chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules; Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions & Ethics; and member of Judicial Resources; Ways and Means; Pensions and General Laws; and Local Government and Economic Development. He was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives (1990-1994).

Mr. Klarich drafted, sponsored, and passed legislation relating to virtually all subjects. Included among his legislative accomplishments are the creation of the Child Custody, Abuse and Neglect Commission; created and/or protected the Uncompensated Tort Victims fund, Crime Victims Fund, and Unemployment Compensation Fund; passed a law that prohibits frivolous lawsuits by making inmates pay for their own legal fees; created a state program to put “at-risk” youth to work instead of turning to crime; created the first expedited capital crimes procedure; banned the death penalty for the mentally retarded; drafted and passed the first Violent Sexual Predators law, the Predator Registry, and Predator Civil Commitment procedure; defined and defended marriage; drafted and co-sponsored the “Safe Schools Act”; drafted significant civil, corporate, and judicial reform legislation; secured additional resources for education and transportation; and reformed property tax laws.

He also worked in private law practice with the Clayton law firm of Riezman Berger, P.C. In 2002, Mr. Klarich created and now manages a company known as Citizens for Policy Reform, LLC which provides government relations services before the United States Congress, Missouri General Assembly, and administrative agencies. He holds an A.B. in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Missouri-Columbia and an M.A. in Public Policy, and Juris Doctor from Regent University , Virginia .

David Klarich is in Jefferson City each day of the legislative session diligently working on our behalf both for us as homeschoolers and as families. Therefore, we are deeply grateful to God for providing us with such an experienced attorney who has served as both Missouri Representative and Missouri Senator for many years. David also handles our DFS cases and has been instrumental in helping our families in past years with issues concerning admission to technical schools, universities, the armed services, and work permits.

Directions: Take Hwy. 270 to Dorsett. Go west to McKelvey. Make a right on to McKelvey. At the first stoplight the street name changes to Bennington . Go through the stoplight to the first parking lot past Radiant Faith Academy Daycare’s (formerly Kinder Care) playground. Make a right into the parking lot.

CHEF Annual Family Ice Skating (Please Note New Hours 4:00-8:00 p.m.) Saturday, January 28, 4:00-8:00 p.m. Outdoor ice rink at Shaw Park , 217 S. Brentwood, Clayton , MO 63105 . $5 per skater includes skate rental, hot chocolate, and paper goods. Please send name, number of skaters, and check payable to CHEF, c/o Jon Summers, 236 St. Louis Avenue , Ferguson , MO 63135 by January 25. To get this deal, we must pay in advance, so please send your check in by the deadline; however, if you are able to come at the last minute, we will still be able to accommodate your family. Just make certain that the ticket window knows that you are with the CHEF group. This outdoor rink is a beautiful place to skate at night. Bring a finger food or plate of cookies to share, as we will set up hot chocolate in the warmed seating area just off the rink.

CHEF 18th Annual Art Festival and Photography Contest Tuesday, February 7 at Larimore Plantation Banquet Hall, 11475 Lilac Ave. , St. Louis , MO 63138 , less than a mile north of 270 at the Lilac Avenue exit.

Come one and all to view the myriad of art pieces by our talented home schooled children displayed in the lovely setting of the Larimore Plantation Banquet Hall. Enjoy classical music played by homeschool students while you admire the artwork, and candlelight, hors d’oeuvres, cookies and cold drinks in the interim before the awards ceremony. The fine arts contest is open to all homeschooled students, ages 5 and up, including high school students and graduates. Once again this year we will have the added pleasure of viewing photographs taken by homeschool students aged 14 and up. A category will also be set up for homeschool graduates. All photography contest participants may also enter up to two fine arts projects.

IMPORTANT DATES

Friday, January 6 Early registration deadline $3.50 per project up to/including registrations postmarked by this date

Thursday, January 19 Late (Final) registration deadline (MUST be received by this date) $4.50 per project

Thursday, February 2 Deadline for project drop-off

Tuesday, February 7 Viewing: 6:00-7:30 p.m.; Announcement of winners: 8:00 p.m.; Additional viewing, clean-up, and project retrieval: 9:00 p.m.

For additional details on registration procedures, drop-off locations, guidelines for acceptable artwork, etc., go to http://www.chef-missouri.com under Calendar of Events, February 2012.

Please feel free to contact Anne Belley (314-741-8704) or Adrianne Burns (618-377-0419) with any questions.

CHEF Annual Paintball Game Saturday, February 18, 12:30-4:30 p.m. at Gateway Paintball Field, the same location as the last several years. $15 per person for gun, mask, air, and four hours of play—paint is extra (2000 rounds for $60) or $30 per person for gun, mask, air, four hours of play, and 500 rounds of paint is included. This is the same price as it has been for years! Arrive at noon for gear and instructions. Children must be 10 years old to play. Pay when you arrive but please call 314-521-8487 by February 15 to let Jedidiah know how many of you will be playing. This is a great father/child activity! Come and enjoy!

Directions: Gateway is located between 70, 270, and 370. From 70, take 70 to Earth City North. Go about 2 miles to St. Charles Rock Road . At the end of the road, it will curve right to the front of the sand mine. Follow the road to the right. About a half mile down the road, you will see Gateway on the left. From St. Charles Rock Road , take St. Charles Rock Road west to the end of the road. At the end of the road, it will curve right to the front of the sand mine. Follow the road to the right. About a half mile down the road, you will see Gateway on the left. www.bushwackerspaintball.net.

CHEF Knife Classes Wednesday and Thursday, February 22 and 23 at Ozark Knife Makers, 4615 North Sunrise Court, Ozark, MO 65721. This is a great opportunity for starting your own business or as a hobby for father and sons.

(If we can get 10 registrants we will be able to take this class for $300 instead of $320 per person.) Please mail your check payable to CHEF, c/o Jon Summers, 236 St. Louis Ave. , Ferguson , MO 63135 by February 4.

During the seminar you will learn several tips, techniques, and tricks of the craft that your instructors have been mastering over the course of many years. Safety is always of extreme importance and will be observed at all times. Terms of Liability must be signed prior to the classroom training. You will be creating your own knife by the “stock removal method” from beginning to completion. Every student gets a folder of dealer catalogs. Some of the things you will learn:

• layout and designing knives
• grinding techniques
• different types of steel
• the hardening and the tempering of the steel
• handles and bolsters
• how to make mosaic pins
• soldering guards
• where to get material
• selling techniques
• shop safety
• acid etching steel
• do’s and don’ts of knife making

After taking this class, a young homeschooling boy of 13 convinced his dad to loan him $25,000 to start his own knife business, and he was able to pay it off in the first year.

For more information, go to http://www.OzarkKnifeMakers.com or the link to an article from the January 2012 issue of Rural Missouri : http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ruralmissouri/201201/index.php?startid=8.

2012 CONFERENCE

The Second Mayflower of covenant keepers for the glory of God! Faithfully contending for the hearts and souls of our families, we pledge ourselves in solemn covenant to preserve and defend Christ’s Sovereign dominion over family, Church, and state.

Speakers: Chuck Bentley, Douglas Bond, John Eidsmoe, Dr. Marshall Foster, Dr. Paul Jehle, Dr. Joe Morecraft, Wade Myers, Douglas Phillips, and Kevin Swanson

Exciting Additions this Year

• Spectacular Video Promotional

• Stunning Covenant Keepers Poster to be signed by the speakers

• A gift of The Second Mayflower, The American Covenant, and Christianity and the

Constitution to early registrants

• Book signings by the authors of these books: Kevin Swanson, Marshall Foster, and

John Eidsmoe

• Scottish Re-enactors

• Scottish Bagpipes/Scottish Ballads

• Spectacular Scottish Ball

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

www.theresnoplacelikehome-summers.com

“We appreciate you so much, because you always point us to the Word of God. Thank you!”

–VA

For those of you who miss the printed version of our newsletter, consider reading the emailed version on your laptop, tablet, or iPad.

WEBLOG

Take a look on our weblog at "Spectacular Christmas Decorations"

http://www.theresnoplacelikehome-summers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=998:december-14th-2011&catid=58:blog&Itemid=64

Economy-Primarily, the management, regulation, and government of a family or the concerns of a household. A frugal and judicious use of money; the management which expends money to advantage, and incurs no waste. Economy includes also a prudent management of all the means by which property is saved or accumulated; a judicious application of time, of labor, and of the instruments of labor.

Management of the Family-carefully managing our family’s conversations, prohibiting foolish prattle while encouraging deep conversations by example, by asking questions that probe the depth of God’s Word, and by practice.

Incurs No Waste-not allowing words to be wasted on foolishness. Making certain that children express themselves accurately and with purpose.

COVENANTAL FAMILIES: BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP LEADS TO BIBLICAL CONVERSATIONS

Over dinner, new homeschooling parents lamented to us how their pastor suspected that they had an agenda to proselytize other church parents to stay home to disciple their children, when in fact they had none. We replied that they should not even be in a church where that was an issue, as the pastor clearly is not a man about God’s business, but that they better have an agenda to bring others in accordance with God’s Word no matter where they are!

Consider the following facts from Kevin Swanson’s The Second Mayflower. Keep in mind that this book was published in 2008, so all of these figures will have increased by now. “The United States retains only 5% of the world’s population yet claims 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. Six million children live with homosexual parents. 70% of the women applying for artificial insemination are lesbians. A full 67% of those who have post-graduate degrees support homosexual marriage, and 70% of those under 35 years of age support homosexual unions. Since 1973 48,589,993 babies have been aborted, which is equivalent to the population of 20 states. The illegitimacy rate now stands at 37%. There has been a 720% increase in the rate of single parent births in only 45 years. The number of families with husband, wife, and children fell from 40% in 1970 to 24% in the 2000s. At the turn of the 20th century barely 10% of mothers in this nation had left the home for the labor market. By 1985, the percentage of mothers with children under six working outside of the home passed the 50% mark, and today it stands near 65%. The number of elderly employing the reverse mortgage has increased 2000% over the last 10 years! Incredibly, CNN Money.com reports that only 8% of the population will receive an inheritance and only about 1% will get anything significant.”

Obviously the deficiency goes far deeper than a monetary inheritance. In truth our nation is theologically bankrupt, which makes “to whom much is given, much is required” paramount at this critical juncture. That is why it always astounds us when “Christian” homeschoolers respond to our question as to how they addressed opposition with, “We did not say anything because we did not want to offend them.”

Our response is, “You don’t want to offend man, but you will offend God by preferring compromise over His Word? Silence is not love. If we love others, our first concern for them will be their salvation and subsequent obedience to God.”

As we have reiterated over and over again, the strength of a nation is founded on the strength of families. God’s strategy for victory is not a Republican president and certainly not a church with youth groups, Sunday schools, nursery and all other schemes designed to fragment the most powerful force on earth because God designed the family as the foundation of both church and state.

By the way, when someone tells us that they have a really terrific church, we always ask these questions: Are the families worshipping together instead of being torn apart? Are the church activities family activities? Are the fathers leading their families in Bible study and prayer each day? Are the moms keepers at home? Are the children being discipled? Are the young ladies staying at home to invest in their families? Are the children encouraged to marry and stay close to home rather than scattering like quail?

When they reply to the contrary, we always admonish them with this truth: “If your church does not have the family right, they have absolutely nothing right, and your family will pay the price no matter how much you work to keep them together!”

Families, we are in a horrific battle where evil has nearly engulfed our entire nation; a battle nearly lost because our ancestors abdicated their duty to disciple their children and then failed to rout the enemy at its inception. The enemy is now at our door, and yet we have homeschoolers who say that they don’t want to offend! The deluge is upon us for that very reason. So let us get past “luv” and truly love our enemies with the sword of the Spirit, “destroying every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ… For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Corinthians 10:5,3,4).

Certainly we have not raised our children like Beatrice in More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss by George Lewis Prentiss: “Then comes a damsel named Beatrice, who has taken me upon trust just as you did. You may be thankful that your parents are not like hers, for she is to be educated for the world; music, French, and Italian crowd almost everything else out of place, and as for religious influences, she is under them here for the first time. How thankful I feel when I see such cases as this, that God gave me pious parents, who taught me from my very birth, that His fear is the beginning of wisdom!”

However, let us not pride ourselves in this alone, for unless we engage the culture with the sole purpose of glorifying God and restoring His law order, we have missed the boat—that Second Mayflower of homeschoolers that Kevin Swanson points to in his book, who are destined to take dominion of a land engulfed in darkness. The Pilgrims did not die on these shores because they did not want to offend their neighbors. They died on these shores while working to dispel the darkness that engulfed this land by taking dominion of it for the glory of God.

So yes, God requires His children to become biblical scholars, but not just for entrance into heaven. When someone tells us that the most important thing Christians can be doing is getting people saved, our first response is “Saved for what?” And then proceed to point out that God did not intend for us to live on this earth for an average of 80 years just to wait for Him to return so that we can go to heaven. What a bizarre notion!

As pointed out in our three prior articles, God intends for us to labor as biblical scholars, but for what purpose? Surely it is not for obtaining a scholarship to an Ivy League university or for attaining an elevated position in society; and surely not to cloister us until He returns. But as He restored our relationship to Him, so we in like are to restore His law order upon earth, taking dominion for His glory, a life endeavor for all Christians—up until the last two centuries. That is why we are now in a world of hurt. No one wants to offend. No one wants to push the antithesis. Yet tolerance of apostasy is apostasy in itself.

It is not about getting people saved, but about making disciples, teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded. Discipleship, then, is altogether different from a worldly education and produces far different consequences, the chief being biblical conversations.

James 3:13 “Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.”

My Cup Runneth Over

Living in a land of plenty, it is hard to imagine someone dying from thirst, but for one who lives in a desert region, it is a reality, making water the most precious commodity for life. That is why David used this poignant analogy in Psalm 23:5 to depict how God prepares a table for the weary, parched soul. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”

Certainly all of us have experienced the welcome sight of a plant near death being revived through rehydration. When we think of it in this way, we come to realize the significance of what God does for our souls. Yet God not only quenches our thirst, but also gives us a river of living water to pour into others.

John 7:37,38 “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

John 10:10 “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

Let Our Conversation Be As Becometh the Gospel of Christ

Some time ago, I was asked a very interesting question that truly reflects this point. The question was asked if, being a woman, I ever felt inferior with anyone or in any situation. My answer was immediate because I am never thinking of myself—how I look, how I come across, if I will make a good impression because I am always looking outward—thinking of how I can best represent my Father while pouring water into others’ souls.

For, I, too, was once a wretched sinner; a destitute vagabond; a weary, wandering, parched soul, who for lack of living water was dying from thirst, when a call went out to invite me to feast, which has kept me from ever thirsting or hungering again. I can hardly believe that God would want such a wretched sinner such as myself, and yet He adopted me as His own. Consequently, I never feel inferior because I possess all the treasures in my Father’s kingdom due to His mercy upon my wretched soul. Truly every grace I possess comes from my Father’s presence. In truth even every life giving breath I take comes from Him. For in Him I live and move and have my being (Acts 17:28).

So out of gratefulness and obedience to my Father, I make every breath He gives me count toward manifesting the excellence of His Holiness, the power of His sovereignty, the soundness His doctrine, the glory of His grace, and the justice of His will. So regardless of whom I meet, whether it be the grocery attendant, the waiter, the receptionist, the doctor, the mailman, the new or old homeschooler, I labor to invest in their lives, to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and destroy every lofty thing raised up against Him because He is not only my Father, but the King of kings (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).

2 Corinthians 4:6,7 “For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”

Of course, I try to conduct myself in a manner worthy of my Father, but other than my endeavor to keep from marring His character, I really don’t care what people think of me. My first priority is faithfulness to His commission to make disciples. Granted, I don’t deliberately go out to offend others, but quite frankly God’s Word is offensive to those who are in rebellion to Him because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it is not even able to subject itself to the law of God. Or as the KJV says, “The carnal mind is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7).

Yet God tells us in Philippians 1:27 to make certain that our conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ. Taking this seriously, I take great care to make certain that my conversation manifests my Excellency’s magnificent attributes. As Matthew Henry said, “Duty is ours; the event is God’s.”

Hebrews 6:7 “For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation, useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.”

It must have been marvelous to be in Moses’ company after he had spent so much time in God’s presence. So filled with God’s light, Moses truly emanated His presence. Is this not what all God’s children should look like after spending time with Him—in His Word and in prayer? God is light, and if we are His, we will radiate His light.

Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Isn’t it a marvelous thing to be in the company of another Christian who pours forth living water into the well of our souls? As Christians, our goal should be to fill others’ souls from the river of life.

“I think it is not very difficult to discern by the duties and converses of Christians, what frames their spirits are under. Take a Christian in a good frame, and how serious, heavenly, and profitable, will his converses and duties be! What a lovely companion is he during the continuance of it!” –John Flavel

Come Eat of My Manna and Live

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14)

Just as God’s rain upon the fallow, parched ground brought forth fruitful vegetation, our conversations should offer our hearers everything that is pleasant, delightful, and nourishing to make one fruitful.

For a clear contrast between those who prepare a feast of manna that leads to heavenly discourse and those who prepare a feast of foolishness that leads to death, let us turn to Proverbs 9:1-5 which says, “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars. She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens; she crieth upon the highest places of the city. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither; as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him. ‘Come eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.’”

By deliberate and arduous labor, a wise person builds his house upon the pillars of the Word of the Lord by furnishing his mind with manna so that he can feed the poor and hungry with the bread of life. He proactively exhorts—urges, presses, pushes, encourages, insists, and gives earnest advice—to those in a world of want to forsake the foolish and live by feasting at the Lord’s table. For wisdom is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who hold her fast (Proverbs 3:18).

Of course not all will partake nor appreciate the delectable words of wisdom, but as swine trample precious pearls under their feet and just as Esau chose pottage instead of the choicest meat, so, too, will men reject the truth. And yes, this also will cause some men to hate us, but we must continue to press on, for it is a matter of life and death to those whom we speak.

1 John 4:4-6 “Ye are of God, little children, and have over come them: because greater is he that is in you, than he who is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

Proverbs 9:7,8 “He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame; and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot. Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee; rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.”

Considering that Christ subjected Himself to cruelty and death for us while we were yet sinners, what manner of courage should we posses in doing His will? For our conversation is God’s means of giving life to others.

Proverbs 9:9-11 “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser; teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased.”

Conversely, conversation can provide food of another kind, which leads to death as we see in Proverbs 9:13-18: “A foolish woman is clamourous, she is simple and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city. To call passengers who go right on their way. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither; and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, ‘Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ But he knoweth not that the dead are here; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.”

Just as Satan impersonates Christ, so, too, the foolish woman imitates the wise woman’s plea with the same words, “Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither; as for him that wanteth understanding,” yet the similarity stops there. Whereas wisdom pleads with her guest to “forsake the foolish and live and go in the way of understanding,” the foolish woman entices the fool with delectable things that are done in secret—those things that God forbids.

On the one hand, wisdom withholds no good thing from her guest, while on the other foolishness offers that which leads to death. With this in mind, let us realize that the manner in which conversations are presented, whether openly or in whispered secret, manifests the source from which they come. Such as the fool, who although devoid of wisdom, demands recognition while contending for personal honor rather than for the souls of the lost.

Furthermore, just as Satan spoke to Eve with words stolen from God, slightly altering them to give an entirely different meaning, so the foolish woman uses stolen water, making Spurgeon’s analysis quite poignant: For it is not so much discerning right from wrong, but right from almost right.

This reminds us of Talkative in Pilgrim’s Progress, who fitted his conversation according to whom he spoke. So to the Christian, he spoke with Christian jargon. To the heathen, he spoke that which appealed to him, making spiritual discernment paramount. Thus, as parents, we must tune our children’s ears to the Words of our Father that they may discern right from almost right, as Satan frequently presents himself as an angel of light when indeed he crouches like a lion to see whom he can devour.

It is obvious, then, from the perusal of this chapter in Proverbs how important it is for us to examine our own conversations and those of our children’s, for all our words shall be tried—both those in open and those in secret.

Matthew 12:36,37 “But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Romans 2:15,16 “In that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”

1 Corinthians 4:5 “…the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.”

The Intent of Man’s Heart

God is always concerned about the intent of our hearts, regardless of how we appear to others, for we can appear as an angel of light when in fact we are the devil’s demon, advocating his kingdom instead of God’s. So let us be very careful to examine our own hearts, lest our hearts deceive us into thinking we are working for God when in fact we are working for Satan; thinking we are seeking God’s glory when in fact we are seeking our own; or thinking we are loving our neighbor by remaining silent when in fact we are loving ourselves because we don’t want others to think badly of us.

Basically it amounts to whether we speak to serve our own ends or those of Christ’s. And since Christ was singularly focused on His Father’s will, those of us who call ourselves Christians must be about our Father’s business, as well. It is at this point that the boys are separated from the men, so to speak, or in other words, the foolish from the wise. Not as condescending, prideful men who boast of God’s goodness, but whose intent is to glorify themselves through their knowledge of Him, but as humble, grateful servants of the Living God who works regeneration in the hearts of men.

For we are either full of ourselves, or full of our Father; full of foolishness, or full of wisdom; full of dead men’s bones, or full of life giving manna. The reality is that until we are totally emptied of ourselves, being Christ-conscious instead of self-conscious, we cannot begin to fill another’s soul. And then it takes serious study of God’s Word before we are able to reveal God’s mind and will to others. However, there is hope, for once we are emptied of our own thoughts, and instead filled with God’s, our conversation goes from worthless to valuable; useless to useful; futile to fruitful; hopeless to hopeful; ineffectual to effectual.

1 Peter 1:18,19 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your father; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.”

“You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure. God hath spoken much to you in the Scripture; labor to understand as much of what he saith as you can. God hath made you all reasonable creatures; therefore let not the noble faculty of reason or understanding lie neglected. Content not yourselves with having so much knowledge as is thrown in your way, and as you receive in some sense unavoidably by the frequent inculcation of divine truth in the preaching of the word, of which you are obliged to be hearers, or as you accidentally gain in conversation; but let it be very much your business to search for it, and that with the same diligence and labor with which men are wont to dig in mines of silver and gold.”

–Jonathan Edwards

Foolishness or Sarcasm: To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Required

Matthew 12:35-37 “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the Day of Judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (NKJV)

Matthew 15:18-20 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man …” (NASB)

Thomas Watson said, “To learn Christ is to be made like Christ, when the divine characters of His holiness are engraved upon our hearts.” God says in 1 Peter 1:15: “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.” And in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image.” 1 Corinthians 2:16: “We have the mind of Christ.”

Therefore as Paul warned Timothy to avoid trifling conversation in 1 Timothy 6:20: “O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called ‘knowledge,’” so we should speak only for the benefit of others for instructing in righteousness.

Only for benefit since idleness is a sin even when it pertains to our conversations because it steals and destroys, instead of laboring for the kingdom. Therefore John Calvin rightly stated, “As idle talk is often concealed under the garb of jesting, and wit, the Apostle Paul expressly condemns pleasantry, which is so agreeable as to seem a praiseworthy virtue, as a part of foolish talking (Eph. 5:4).”

For foolishness, whether done in naïveté or in sarcasm, is condemned by God in Ephesians 5:4: “There must be no filthiness nor foolish talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting,” for “he who winks maliciously causes grief, and a chattering fool comes to ruin” (Proverbs 10:10).

I cringe when I think of my former days of continual sarcasm and the utter foolishness that poured from my mouth. When Candy and I were first married, there were times when I would have her in tears just minutes after my arrival home from work. Sadly I did not understand then how crushing my sarcasm was to her. As a matter of fact it took years of maturing in Christ before I realized that sarcasm has no place in a Christian’s conversation, for as Candy points out, it is nothing more than searing rudeness cloaked in playfulness. The sad part is that it had become such a habitual form of communication that I would easily fall right back into it when around others who were sarcastic. That is why I beseech young parents to train children in godly habits, one of which is to train their children to speak only that which is for edification.

For one thing, Candy always says what she means so that our children and I never have to guess her meaning. She also is very gracious and grateful so that her words comfort, direct, guide, soothe, and instruct unto righteousness. In essence, she builds us up all the time.

When it comes to the children, she never allowed sarcasm or making fun at the expense of someone else. From the beginning, she taught them Ephesians 4:29 which says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” Anything outside these parameters was simply not permitted.

It is a lesson that has taken my entire lifetime to embrace because I grew up in a family that continually jabbed at one another through sharp sarcasm, resulting in an insecurity that in turn caused me to make certain that I tore another down before they destroyed me. So instead of listening, I inevitably was thinking of what to say in return so that I could top the other guy’s cutting quips. Thankfully, however, I now understand that sarcasm is vicious and devastating, and no parent should allow it.

Like Christ, we possess joy, but singularly focused on executing our Father’s will, we must realize the life and death consequences of our associations. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, ‘He is the One who catches the wise in their craftiness’” (1 Corinthians 3:19). Therefore, “We have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 4:2).

Jeremiah Burroughs aptly confirmed this when he said, “Oh, it is an excellent thing to see the conversations of Christians in a due order, all guided with spiritual wisdom and holiness.” For the chief end in all things should be to honor God and enrich others.

Wives and Mothers

In Walking from East to West, remember what Ravi Zacharias wrote about when he first met his wife that “she was a remarkable conversationalist—very well read, intelligent, solidly informed, and able to talk about virtually any subject.”

These are the attributes that drew Ravi to Margie and made her suitable for his brilliant mind. Can you imagine what his life would have been if he had settled on a woman of lesser caliber who did not read, who was not informed, and who was not a good conversationalist? Knowing his thirst for God’s wisdom, we know that he would have been miserable.

Josephine’s Tearoom is a wonderful place to gather over lunch, but our family prefers arriving nearer to their closing when most of their patrons have departed because most of their patrons are women whose talking becomes deafening at the height of the lunch hour. Let’s face it, women not only love to talk, but also they have an inherent urge to talk.

Consider for a moment the recent studies that substantiate this fact. One states that the average woman speaks 30,000 words in a day, compared to man’s 12,000; another said that a woman uses 20,000 words to man’s 7,000; while one said 8,000 to 2,000. Some women may attribute this increase to the fact that they have to repeat everything at least once to their husbands, but the point is that women speak a lot each day, making the governing of their verbiage crucial to ensure righteousness.

So what is my point? If our own minds, and that of our daughters, are not being continually filled with biblical wisdom, then the output is nothing more than incessant, inconsequential prattle.

Therefore, our daughters continue to fill their minds with the precious pearls of knowledge so as to be equipped for intelligent husbands who will seek their advice. There is nothing wrong with sharing concerns over the baby’s swollen gums or the toddler’s apparent disinterest in potty training, but a husband who comes home from a long day of working away from home should not find a prattler or gossiper waiting for him, but a companion who fits his intellect, who both stimulates, comforts, and supports him.

Many years ago, I remember lamenting a young homeschooling father’s arduous schedule of working three jobs until I met his wife, and then I lamented his foolishness in marrying such an incessant prattler. How sad! How very, very sad!

Salt pork and boiled potatoes might be tolerable for one meal, but insufferable as common fare. Yet even though none of us would choose that off a menu, it has more substance than the trivial frivolity that passes for conversation today.

In light of this travesty, let us impress upon our daughters to forsake worldly fables, but instead embrace discipline for godliness (1 Timothy 4:7) by training them to love nothing less than heady conversations where theology, history, government, science, and the finer arts of homemaking are discussed in great detail.

Search for Knowledge

When I am in the presence of others more adept at certain subjects, I spend my time investigating their knowledge by asking probing questions and intently listening as they explain truths I have not yet discovered. I certainly am not ashamed at my lack of understanding of new concepts. Insecurity does not plague my ego, and so I continually ask questions about the things that I do not perceive clearly, including the meaning of words that are unfamiliar to me. And so my children are never afraid to ask questions, but they are encouraged to learn all they can from those wiser than themselves. For “the mind of the prudent acquires knowledge and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge” (Proverbs 18:15).

Brilliant people became so because they asked plenty of questions. However, with that said, let me state that they also applied themselves diligently to the answers. So we have trained our children to listen intently to adults’ conversations, reflect circumspectly, and apply their knowledge judiciously.

Recently we were invited to a function of lawyers and judges. Before responding to the invitation, I asked if my children could attend with us. The response was that my children would certainly not enjoy themselves due to sheer boredom. Sadly this is the world’s mentality, when 200 years ago, our young men and women held conversations the likes of which most of us have never experienced because of the watered down fodder passed off as conversation today.

Although we talked all the time at home, when my parents were discussing anything or other adults were present, I remained silent because that is what children were supposed to do. But while I was remaining silent, I was listening and reflecting upon every word. This training taught me to respect my elders and learn as much as I could from them. Quite frankly, growing up in an adult world tended to train my young tendrils to reach higher than most children.

To raise wise sons and daughters, we must not only practice wise conversation in the home, but also must make certain that our children sit at the feet of other wise adults whose conversations are ordered according to God’s Word; who share and support our vision and commitment to family discipleship; who desire to sharpen our children’s perception of biblical truths; who speak wisdom and understand the significance of the authority vested in parents; and who support our endeavors and reinforce the biblical precepts and principles we impart. In truth, our friends should be chosen with our children’s best interests at heart.

Equally important is showing by our example that honor is due to those who are wiser than we and to those who invest in our lives. As the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, so those who emanate His wisdom deserve honor and reverence. God’s command to “honor our father” implies far more than just our physical father. As the Westminster Catechism rightly states, “By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts, and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.”

Hebrews 13:7 “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.”

Laboring Day and Night

Living in a fast food culture where shallow sound bites replace nourishing reading and godly conversation, parents must do everything in their power to train their children to think deeply and then converse from the depths of God’s thoughts. Like the magnificent cathedrals of yore, which were painstakingly built stone by stone, often taking centuries to complete, we must labor day by day, month by month, year by year to lay the stones of godliness. This can only occur where discipleship takes place when we rise up, when we walk along the way, and when we lie down. By God’s own description, it means that parents must keep company with their children, occupying their days and their nights with deep and meaningful intercourse.

At this point you may be asking yourselves why we take so much time repeating these things over and over again. It is because the world continues to urge, and press, and push, and encourage, and insist that children need activities to give them purpose, to make them well rounded, to provide them with friends, and to make them happy. After all, the world does not want children around their parents all day.

And so as homeschooling families continue to convey their hectic schedules to us, the recurrent response our family expresses to one another is, “How sad!” How sad!” How sad!” Because the constant activities that these families boast of frame a picture of very fragmented families, whose activity-driven life makes discipleship impossible.

For discipleship requires a steadfast commitment to read, study, discuss, converse, and pray together throughout each day. It requires continual engaging and interacting, not with others, but with our children.

Since everything can be known about us by how we spend our time, with whom we spend our time, what we read, what we don’t read, the words we speak, and by the things we don’t say, where are we personally, and where is our family?

Candy and I could rest from our urging, our pressing, our pushing, our insisting, and our encouraging if the families we love and labor for each day were not in such a state of worldliness—broken, wounded, sick, and groaning. So, like the great physician, we leave the sanctuary of our Father’s Kingdom to bring living water, manna, and medicine to the dying, the parched, the starving, and the sick. Our godly affection for others’ souls prompts us to continually instruct, exhort, reprove, comfort, and show the way unto happiness, for truly there is no place like home.

“Christ is the most tender-hearted physician. He hath ended his passion but not his compassion. He is not more full of skill than sympathy, ‘He healed the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds’ (Psalm 147:3). Every groan of the patient goes to the heart of the physician.”

–Thomas Watson

Raising Our Children for Royalty

Let us return to Ravi Zacharias’s wife, one last time, as an example of her parents’ preparation for a godly prince. “She was a remarkable conversationalist—very well read, intelligent, solidly informed, and able to talk about virtually any subject.”

Equally important to training our children in accordance to their royal heritage is helping them choose a spouse best crafted for their own noble upbringing. And since the strongest influence on family is the unity of parents, this consideration is paramount when choosing a companion for this inseparable union.

Contrary to the world’s justification of their wrong choices by emphasizing that opposites attract, we must impress upon our children’s minds the vast importance of being equally yoked through common doctrinal convictions, intellectual ability, passions, and interests.

After 33 years of marriage and over 25 years of counseling many couples, I can say without a doubt that differences cause conflicts that often become insurmountable. Of course, none of us will agree on everything or hold everything in common, but the more couples share, the less they strive against one other.

Opposites may initially attract, but it has been our experience that the opposing character traits that first attracted them to each other become the very issues that later drive a wedge between them.

Although Candy and I differ in some ways, which sadly has led to heated arguments, the strength of our unity remains deeply rooted upon those things mentioned above—our doctrinal convictions, our intellectual abilities, our passions, and our interests—for these are the very elements that cement two into soul mates as God intended.

Our shared love of God’s Word and history probably has formed the strongest part of our union, for we both love to read, study, and discuss Scripture, other theological books, and history, providing many hours each day of supreme enjoyment. For there is no deeper attachment that we can form than communing together in the presence of the Lord, while feasting together on His choicest meat.

This passion for learning truth led us to a shared vision for making disciples of our children and others, teaching them all that God commanded. Thus we have walked in lockstep with this vision for our family, for our church, and for CHEF.

Candy and I also possess an exuberance for life, which manifests itself in our interest in everyone and everything. We both love deep theological discussions, excellent food, cooking, fine dining at home and at restaurants, entertaining, traveling, leisurely walks, hiking, fishing, four wheeling, swimming, tubing, tennis, horseback riding, and gardening. And so each evening, we gather around our table for fine dining and deep conversations, followed by playing games and reading with our children. These are the things that bring enormous contentment into our lives as we continually share our deepest interests with one another.

Being married to one’s soul mate and forming a family on that foundation is the strongest bond on earth, in turn forming strong churches and strong communities. In truth it is the strength of nations. No other success compensates for its failure. No nation can survive without strong families. So let us join together to strengthen families. Let us take our heavenly agenda into our communities, into the marketplace, and into the workplace.

Isaiah 58:12 “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell.” (NAS) “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.” (KJV)

Of interest at this point is that the hallmark of our relationship, and the thing that everyone noticed, was that we spent all our time together in deep conversation.

Something to Strive for

From More Love To Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss by George Lewis Prentiss: “Dr. Payson possessed rare conversational powers and love to wield them in the service of His master. When in a genial mood—and the mild excitement of social intercourse generally put him in such a mood—his familiar talk was equally delightful and instructive. He was, in truth, an improvisator. Quick perception, an almost intuitive insight into character, an inexhaustible fund of fresh, original thought and incident, the happiest illustrations, and a memory that never faltered in recalling what he had once read or seen, easy self-control, and ardent sympathies, all conspired to give him this preeminence. Without effort or any appearance of incongruity he could in term be grave and gay, playful and serious. This came of the utter sincerity and genuineness of his character. There was nothing artificial about him; nature and grace had full play and, so to say, constantly ran into each other. The same qualities that rendered him such a master of conversation, lent a potent charm to his familiar religious talks in the prayer meeting, at the fireside, or in the social circle. Always eager to speak for his master, he knew how to do it with a wise skill and tenderness of feeling that disarmed prejudice and sometimes won the most determined foe. Even in administering reproof or rebuke there was the happiest union of tact and gentleness.”

Let us labor together for the souls of men, making His will our chief endeavor and His glory our chief end; fearing God and not man; remaining firm in our convictions regardless of men’s opinions; not allowing man’s praise to lull us into a spiritual death, remembering that men are fickle compared to God’s immutability. As living epistles, let our conversations induce others to seek the Lord by challenging them to reach deep within the Word of God through diligent study.

For “whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23).

Jon and Candy Summers share:

Christian Home Educators Fellowship—Faithfully honoring God and serving the homeschooling community for the past 27 years!

There’s No Place Like Home November 2011 Information
1. CHEF Information and Activities
    a. CHEF Meeting and Square Dance, Friday, November 11, 2011
    b. CHEF 18th Annual Christmas Ball, Saturday, December 10, 2011
    c. CH EF 22nd Annual Math Olympics, Friday, January 20, 2012
2. 2011 Conference
3. Covenantal Families Biblical Scholarship, Part 3
4. The Importance of Purchasing Godly Books While They Are Still in Print
5. Kevin Swanson 2008
6. Delightful Surprises
7. In the Library

CHEF INFORMATION AND ACTIVITIES:

CHEF Meeting and Square Dance with some Civil War Dances Friday, November 11 called by John Ramsay and Jeremy Suermann at Dorsett Village Baptist Church, 2240 Bennington, Maryland Heights MO 63043. Meeting 7:00-8:15 p.m. and Square Dance with some Civil War Dances 8:30-10:30 p.m. with basketball and more fellowship afterwards. Meeting, fellowship, and basketball are free. Only the dance costs $5 per dancer. Dancers five and under free. (For those of you who have already paid your $50 for all five dance practices for your family, this square dance is the last of the five practices and thus is included in that fee, so you will not be paying an additional amount.) Please feel free to dress in Western attire if you so choose.

Meeting Topic Fallout in the homeschooling community and the persecution some families are reaping from their antagonism. The importance of wisely choosing friends for our families. Avoid making idols out of other families.

Agenda I am sorry that I confused so many of you with the combination of the meetings and dances. The meetings are open to everyone, not just those who have attended in years past. For those who do not desire to attend dance practices, you may stay and watch, or you may fellowship with other families out in the seating area of the lobby. Following dance practice, the children may play basketball or just visit.

Directions: Take Hwy. 270 to Dorsett. Go west to McKelvey. Make a right at the first stoplight on to McKelvey. At the first stoplight on McKelvey, the street name changes to Bennington. Continue through the stoplight to the first parking lot past Kinder Care’s playground. Make a right into the parking lot.


 

CHEF 18th Annual Spectacular Christmas Ball Saturday, December 10, 2011, 6:00 p.m.-Midnight at St. Francis Xavier Church’s gorgeous ballroom. $6 per person ($42 maximum/family). Children 2 and under free. Our ball will include dances that the whole family will enjoy. Our theme this year is a Civil War Ball. Please feel free to dress in ball costumes or your Sunday best clothes. This will truly be another spectacular holiday event as always. Our family looks forward to seeing all of you there. All are welcome. Please bring 2 two-liter bottles of ginger ale and a finger food for our buffet.

Please dress modestly. Parents, we realize how difficult it is these days to find modest apparel for daughters; however, we ask that you make sure that your daughters do not wear low necklines or spaghetti strapped dresses. If anyone comes in inappropriate clothing, we will ask that the young girl wrap a shawl or jacket around her shoulders. Jon and I are busy with details and conversations all evening so are somewhat oblivious to the few dresses we hear about each year. Therefore, if you see any dresses that are inappropriate, please let us know so that we can ask the young girl to wrap a shawl around her shoulders.

Mail checks payable to CHEF, c/o Jon Summers, 236 St. Louis Ave., Ferguson, MO 63135 by December 6. You may still pay at the door, but we would like to know how many people will be attending.

Directions: From Hwy. 40 or 44, go north on Grand. Make left on Laclede (at St. Louis University) and then an immediate left into parking garage. If there is anyone at the garage gate, just tell them that you are going to St. Francis Xavier. From garage, walk north on Grand to church. Enter church on left side. St. Francis Xavier is at the corner of Grand and Lindell (3628 Lindell) just down from the Fox Theatre.

 

CHEF 22nd Annual Math Olympics Friday, January 20, 2012 at Southgate Christian Church, 9820 East Watson Road, Crestwood, MO 63126. The registration form will be coming soon. For more information, contact Marsha Siecinski at mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 314-835-9557.

For more information and to download the Registration Form click here!
 

2011 CONFERENCE
Strengthening Families Through the Word of God

We read Safely Home and loved it so much that we purchased copies to give away to others. Thank you! –St. Louis, MO

Thank you for another amazing conference. We were blessed, revived and encouraged. We know there is so much involved in making the conference a success. Thank you for all that you do!! Blessings –Maryland Heights, MO

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
www.theresnoplacelikehome-summers.com

My daughter cannot wait until she receives and reads through each of your newsletters. She loves trying each of your suggestions and has transformed our home into loveliness. She has learned to love decorating, cooking, and appointing food as you have shown—to make it beautiful like Mrs. Summers said we should. It is a joy to see her enthusiasm for homemaking. Thank you.
–Affton, MO

To see the latest WEBLOG click on the following links.

Pumpkins, Squash, Apple, Gourds, and Mums
http://www.theresnoplacelikehome-summers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=982:october-24th-2011&catid=58:blog&Itemid=64

Fall Decorations
http://www.theresnoplacelikehome-summers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=984:october-30th-2011&catid=58:blog&Itemid=64

COVENANTAL FAMILIES BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP, PART 3

Dear Fathers-From Jon

This is the crowning lesson of our Biblical Scholarship series, which I hope all fathers read to their families. It can be read in just a little over thirty minutes, but I hope that you use this in conjunction with your Bible and further instruction for your family’s Bible study tonight. Many of you already have read the other installments in this series to your families, but as the holidays approach, life becomes more hectic, so I just wanted to encourage you not to miss this one.

I will be giving each of my children their own copy so they can follow along as I read it to them tonight as part of our nightly Bible study, followed by discussion of these immensely important truths.

I am not discounting the worth of our wives’ instruction to our children. I praise them for their consistent diligence and devoted labor in teaching our children, which for the most part, they execute far better than most husbands. But even though God commands children to listen to both their father’s and their mother’s instruction, His commands for instructing children are directed exclusively to fathers, placing the responsibility of this vastly important task squarely on the father’s shoulders. Therefore, it is to fathers that I speak here now because as you will see in the article, it is because of our abdication of duty that over three-fourths of professing Christian youth will reject the faith and the church by the end of high school.

So let us become a part of the few who change the course of history by instructing our sons and daughters to instruct their sons and daughters in the Word of God, but even beyond this, to instruct them both that it is the sons who should take the lead in their families.

Proverbs 4:1-13 “Hear, O sons, the instruction of a father, and give attention that you may gain understanding, for I give you sound teaching; do not abandon my instruction. When I was a son to my father, tender and the only son in the sight of my mother, then he taught me and said to me, ‘Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and live; acquire wisdom! Acquire understanding! Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will guard you; love her, and she will watch over you. The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom; and with all your acquiring, get understanding. Prize her, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a garland of grace; she will present you with a crown of beauty. Hear, my son, and accept my sayings and the years of your life will be many. I have directed you in the way of wisdom; I have led you in upright paths. When you walk, your steps will not be impeded; and if you run, you will not stumble. Take hold of instruction; do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life.’”

Biblical Scholarship, Part 3

In Walking from East to West, Ravi Zacharias writes about when he first met his wife: “I knew right away that there was much more to this girl than just her lovely appearance. Margie was sharp, and the better I got to know her, the more things I loved about her. She was a remarkable conversationalist—very well read, intelligent, solidly informed, and able to talk about virtually any subject. She especially loved history and had read book after book on all kinds of historical subjects.”

“And it was so easy to be myself with her. I found I could talk to Margie about anything—from history, to fun things, to theological doctrines. I could laugh with her, crack jokes, or be serious. The only things this girl knew absolutely nothing about, I discovered, were movies and modern music. She had never heard Elvis Presley sing…she didn’t even own a record. Her family was mind-bogglingly strict on those matters. But I learned that for every book I had read, Margie had read a dozen more.”

So what made Margie different from most girls? According to Ravi, it was the fact that “her family was mind-bogglingly strict on those matters,” that she “knew absolutely nothing about movies and modern music,” and instead had been directed to read book after book on historical subjects, which of course included theological books since Ravi could speak to her on theological doctrines.

In essence, Margie’s family had managed their daughter’s time according to God’s specifications and thus fitted her for His purpose. They had forbidden worthless fodder, but instead had provided pleasant nourishing manna. Consequently, they had prepared her to be a fit helpmeet for a husband who would devote his life to taking dominion for God’s glory. That is biblical scholarship at its best!

Contrast Margie’s superior mind and virtuous character with a newly married homeschool graduate who told my daughter at one of our CHEF curriculum fairs that she was shopping for her husband. When Sonia questioned her as to what kind of books her husband desired, this girl responded with “boring theological ones by Puritans like Spurgeon.”

In light of the treasure trove of our monthly teachings, speakers’ workshops, and the books that God has provided our CHEF families for the past 25 years, this admission is reprehensible, making it inconceivable, in our minds, as to how someone who had been homeschooled their entire life could possess no more desire for godly meat than most public school graduates.

Jonathan Edwards, Jeremiah Burroughs, John Flavel, John Owen, Thomas Watson, George Swinnock, Matthew Mead, John Bunyan, Christopher Love, Thomas Shepherd, Stephen Charnock, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Doolittle, Richard Steele, Samuel Rutherford and Spurgeon—boring? Hardly! In truth, only those who have no taste for great spiritual depth would find these brilliant theologians’ books unappetizing. And this is just a partial list of our favorite Puritan authors, whose works we love, whose works we long for, whose works we read to our family continuously. If only we had walked up to the Lord’s banquet table every day to feast on the richness of His Word as our children do, how much more we could have accomplished for our magnificent King by now?

In spite of the fact that we personally know the lack of fruit in this girl’s life, in one sentence, she had revealed not only the barren wasteland that existed between her and God, but also her parents’ failure to manage her time and disciple her in the Word of the Lord. Obviously, she had not been directed to be about God’s business, or she would have relished the depth of the Puritans’ preaching.

Although there is no excuse for such blatant shallowness in our homeschooling community, it is true that parents must diligently seek a godly seed by making certain their children partake of that which makes one wise.

For “Heart-work is hard work indeed. To shuffle over religious duties with a loose and careless spirit will cost no great difficulties; but to set yourself before the Lord, and to tie up your loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon him: this will cost you something. To attain ease and dexterity of language in prayer and to be able to put your meaning into appropriate and fitting expressions is easy; but to get your heart broken for sin while you are actually confessing it; melted with free grace even while you are blessing God for it; to be really ashamed and humbled through the awareness of God’s infinite holiness, and to keep your heart in this state not only in, but after these duties, will surely cost you some groans and travailing pain of soul.” John Flavel

So let us get past the bizarre postmodern cultural notion that just as long as our children profess Christ as their Savior, we can rest assured that they are indeed saved. To the contrary, as John Owen points out, “It is in many places a lost labour to seek for Christianity among Christians. Neither is it a verbal acknowledgement, in owning that which Christ suffered at Jerusalem, which will free any from this charge and guilt. Unless the Lord Christ, that Christ which is God and man in one person, is owned, received, believed in, loved, trusted unto, and obeyed in all things, as He is proposed unto us in the Scripture, and with respect unto all the ends of righteousness, holiness, life, and salvation, for which He is so proposed, He is renounced and forsaken.”

In Fading of the Flesh and the Flourishing of the Faith, George Swinnock says: “Life is death’s seedtime, and earth is life’s harvest. Expect a crop, both for quality and quantity that is answerable to the seed that you sow at present! You cannot live with God in the hereafter unless you live for God here.”

In other words, what we sow, we shall reap, which applies to our point in fact that although we will be continually seeding our children’s lives until we draw our last breath, our most opportune moments lie at home when our children are under our roof. Therefore, we must use that fleeting time wisely and judiciously to seed their minds with the Word of God, both from the Bible and from great theologians—”expecting a crop, both for quality and quantity that is answerable to the seed that you sow at present!”

Knowing that we will reap for all eternity what we ourselves sow surely makes us careful to attend to our own souls, doesn’t it? How much more so, then, should we be continually sowing our children’s minds, knowing that for the most part, our child’s eternal state rests on our seeding during the first twenty years of their life?

Now we are under no delusion that parents can save their own children because only God can do that, but the overwhelming evidence points to the reality that the majority of conversions take place in childhood, which certainly points to parents’ meticulous early childhood training. So from the beginning, it was the parents’ duty to seek a godly seed (Malachi 2:15). Thus God chose Abraham “so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him” (Genesis 18:19). “That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children” (Psalm 78:6).

Created in the image of God, our children have the capacity of thinking thoughts after our omniscient God, but if we, as parents, do not incline our children’s minds toward godly meat and command them to know the way of the Lord and keep to that way, they will forever remain in darkness. So let us keep in mind that sitting in a garage no more makes them a car than living in a house that professes Christianity or sitting in church each Sunday or homeschooling makes them a Christian.

Ironically, although this homeschooled girl’s father comes to our conference each year with his family and receives our teachings and reading suggestions each month, he not only does not direct his children to attend our speakers’ workshops, read the biblical teachings or the books we recommend, but instead feeds their minds with secular public library books that he pronounces good due to their lack of moral perversion. And upon reflection of prior conversations with this father, it really is no wonder this girl considers the depth of the Puritans boring when her father has been heard to say he does not know why such a big deal is made over the Puritans’ writings.

Upon careful consideration of what this means for future generations, we must ask ourselves which daughter-in-law we desire for raising our grandchildren, or if we have daughters, which daughter are we raising—the one who was “very well read, intelligent, solidly informed, and able to talk about virtually any subject, who especially loved history and had read book after book on all kinds of historical subjects” or the girl who thought the Puritans were boring?

The answer to this question may seem obvious, but sadly, although most parents would be thrilled to have the first girl as their daughter-in-law or their own daughter, they treat the possibility of the former more as a matter of sheer luck, rather than a matter of a clearly defined plan, executed with the utmost care. Christian or secular humanist, each is forged minute by minute, day by day—neither just happen by accident.

Besides, biblically speaking, calling oneself a Christian while having no regard for spiritual depth is a misnomer because there is no such thing as mindless Christianity. As a matter of fact, God throughout the Bible commands His people to know Him and to increase in wisdom and understanding.

For example, in Luke 10:25-27, Jesus was asked what one must do to inherit eternal life. His answer was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” Again in Matthew 22:37, Jesus tells us to love God with all our mind and even commends a scribe for his thoughtful intelligence in Mark 12:34: “When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’” And in Colossians 3:2, God commands us to set our mind on things which are above.

Then in Ephesians 4:14-24, God tells us that “we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him…walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart…but you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, lay aside the old self…and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

The transformation comes through the renewing of the mind as in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Our warfare is a battle over our minds fighting every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, whereby we take every thought, not just some thoughts, but every thought, captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).

David, as Christ’s representative, tells his son to “know thou the God of thy father” (1 Chronicles 28:9). Jesus tells His disciples in John 14:23: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

And finally in John 15:5-7, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask what ever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

So if we desire a godly seed, that which is thoroughly conversant with God’s Word, His doctrines, and His working throughout history, we must seize time throughout the day and night to read and study. And if there is a godly seed, then quite accordingly, there will be godly fruit, for God tells us in Matthew 7:16 that “we shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”

Leaders Are Readers

It comes as no surprise, then, that the Puritans’ fruit, which continues to bear in profusion even today, is a result of their passion for learning all they could about their Lord and Master. They were true biblical scholars—great men of undeniable intellectual acumen who were immensely impacted by the Word of God and the theological books they studied.

For instance, the man in question, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, not only possessed 12,000 books (a massive collection by even today’s standards) but also read 6 of his books every week of his life. Some he even studied over and over like Pilgrim’s Progress, which he reread 100 times. Clearly the man was wise because he intentionally endeavored to be such, devoting 18 hours each day to reading, studying, writing, preaching, and ministering to his flock. He was in fact so committed to mining every rich nugget from God’s Word that he studied Psalms for 20 years before he wrote his commentary, The Treasury of David.

His devotion to impacting people for Christ manifested itself in his habit of preaching 10 times a week. Over time these sermons accumulated to fill 63 volumes, which resulted in reaching 10 million people in his lifetime.

So why did this homeschool graduate deplore Spurgeon? If we did not know this child’s parents, we might speculate that she had retained her inherently depraved nature in spite of her parents’ auspiciously pious upbringing, conforming to a modestly moral demeanor only for the propitious surroundings it afforded, when in fact she despised anything remotely erring on the side of spiritual exhortation or instruction. This certainly occurs frequently within Christian homes because unless God regenerates man’s heart, he remains at enmity with God.

As Spurgeon says, “‘The carnal mind is enmity against God.’ Ye may train him up, ye may make his intellect almost angelic, ye may strengthen his soul until he shall take what are riddles to us, and unravel them with his fingers in a moment; ye may make him so mighty, that he can grasp the iron secrets of the eternal hills and grind them to atoms in his fist; ye may give him an eye so keen, that he can penetrate the arcana of rocks and mountains; ye may add a soul so potent, that he may slay the giant Sphinx, that had for ages troubled the mightiest men of learning; yet, when ye have done all, his mind shall be a depraved one, and his carnal heart shall still be in opposition to God. Yea, more, ye shall bring him to the house of prayer; ye shall make him sit constantly under the clearest preaching of the word, where he shall hear the doctrines of grace in all their purity, attended by a holy unction; but if that holy unction does not rest upon him, all shall be vain; he shall still come most regularly, but, like the pious door of the chapel, that turneth in and out, he shall still be the same; having an outside superficial religion, and his carnal mind shall still be at enmity against God. Now, this is not my assertion, it is the declaration of God’s word, and you must leave it if you do not believe it; but quarrel not with me, it is my Master’s message; and it is true of every one of you—men, women, and children, and myself too—that if we have not been regenerated and converted, if we have not experienced a change of heart, our carnal mind is still at enmity against God.” -From Spurgeon’s sermon The Carnal Mind Enmity Against God

1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Romans 8:6-8 “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Yes, God alone is the One who converts and regenerates wicked hearts, yet He mostly does that regeneration through the conscientious, thorough training of parents. And in this case, let us reiterate again that the parents are to blame for their part in failing to incline their children’s hearts to truth, for the father set the course through his own opposition to biblical scholarship.

So although created in the image of an omniscient God, this young girl’s mind had not been cultivated with scholarly works of theology and history but had been vitiated by worthless fodder, thus rendering her an unfit companion for a husband of superior virtue, at least based on her husband’s taste for substantial instruction. Devoid of biblical scholarship, then, and subsequent biblical governing principles, her passions reigned paramount instead of divine reason; therefore, she slandered one of history’s most revered and extensively read preachers.

Spurgeon’s Response

Ironically, Spurgeon describes this young girl’s state in his commentary on the Psalms from The Treasury of David, particularly the text in Psalm 1: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.”

Spurgeon says of the man that is blessed: “His delight is in the law of the Lord—he delights to meditate in it, to read it by day, and think upon it by night. The law of the Lord is the daily bread of the true believer.”

He then goes on to give warning to hypocrites who think themselves safe: “Perhaps some of you can claim a sort of negative purity, because you do not walk in the way of the ungodly; but let me ask you—Is your delight in the law of God? Do you study God’s Word? Do you make it the man of your right hand—your best companion and hourly guide? If not, this blessing belongeth not to you.”

As homeschoolers, we must be careful of the comfort we derive from chumming with nice people in allowing it to deceive us into thinking that all is well with our soul. Instead we must step away from the homeschooling crowd that shrouds our lives and do some serious introspection to see if we think we are godly only because we hang with the moral when in fact we neglect God’s foremost commandment—to love Him with all our mind.

So let each of us take a hard look at ourselves and our families by answering Surgeon’s questions: “Is our delight in the law of God? Do we study God’s Word? Do we make it the man of our right hand—our best companion and hourly guide?” For the answers will determine if we are blessed: “Like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.”

On the last verse Spurgeon expounds with: “Mark the use of the term ‘ungodly,’ for, as we have seen in the opening of the Psalm, these are the beginners in evil, and are the least offensive of sinners. Oh! If such is the sad state of those who quietly continue in their morality, and neglect their God, what must be the condition of open sinners and shameless infidels?”

Then take note of Spurgeon’s next warning to the ungodly who do not delight in the Word of God and meditate in it day and night. “Here is their character, ‘they are like chaff,’ intrinsically worthless, dead, without substance, and easily carried away…death shall hurry them with its terrible blast in the fire in which they shall be utterly consumed.” Like the families whom we see begin the homeschooling journey in earnest, yet at a distance down the road, they are “carried away” far from the convictions they once professed—sadly not only rejecting them, but also despising what they wholeheartedly embraced in the beginning.

Spurgeon goes on to say, “The ungodly man is unconcerned about religion; he is neither zealous for his own salvation nor for that of others; and he counsels and advises those with whom he converses to adopt his plan, and not trouble themselves about praying, reading, repentance, etc., etc.; ‘There is no need for such things; live an honest life, make no fuss about religion, and you will fare well enough at last.’ Now, ‘Blessed is the man who walks not in this man’s counsel’ who does not come into his measures, nor act according to his plan.”

Spurgeon ends his commentary on Psalm 1 with some very thought provoking quotes.

“Meditation doth discriminate and characterize a man; by this he may take a measure of his heart, whether it be good or bad; let me allude to that; ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.’ Proverbs 23:7 As the meditation is, such is the man. Meditation is the touchstone of a Christian; it shows what metal he is made of. It is a spiritual index; the index shows what is in the book, so meditation shows what is in the heart.” –Thomas Watson from Saint’s Spiritual Delight

“A godly education, under the influences of the divine Spirit, which can never be withheld where they are earnestly sought, is sure to produce the fruits of righteousness; and he who reads, prays, and meditates, will ever see the work which God has given him to do; the power by which he is to perform it; and the times, places, and opportunities for doing those things by which God can obtain most glory, his own soul most good, and his neighbor most edification.” –Adam Clarke

“The Lord reckons the times which pass over us, and puts them to our account; let us, therefore, improve them, and with the impotent persons at the pool of Bethesda, step in when the angel stirs the water. Now the church is afflicted, it is a season of prayer and learning; now the church is enlarged, it is a season of praise; I am now at a sermon, I will hear what God will say; now in the company of a learned and wise man, I will draw some knowledge and counsel from him…And thus as the tree of life bringeth fruit every month, so a wise Christian, as a wise husbandman, hath his distinct employments for every month, bringing forth his fruit in his season.” –John Spencer

“Charles Spurgeon so clearly explains why we love the Puritans’ writings so much and why we have devoted so many years to studying their works when he stated, ‘When we take down a volume of Puritan theology we find in a solitary page more thinking and more learning, more Scripture, more real teaching, than in whole folios of the effusions of modern thought. The modern man would be rich if he possessed even the crumbs that fall from the table of the Puritans.’” –From Iain Murray’s The Forgotten Spurgeon

Manna or Pottage–For as a Man Thinketh So He Is!

All ideas shape our thinking and consequently take us in a particular direction, for God tells us in Proverbs 23:7 that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” In fact, books impact us for a lifetime because ideas have consequences. This truth is most clearly seen in Darwin’s impact on the world. In particular let us consider the consequences of Darwin’s ideas in the lives of Stalin, Lenin, and Hitler, all of whom were deeply affected by his ideas on evolution.

Also deeply affected was Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger, who summed up Darwin’s ideas most definitively in her slogan, “No Gods No Masters.” Essentially, once God was removed as Creator and King, all acts of murder, whether in the form of gas chambers, starvation, or abortion, could be justified, and thus the world is still capitulating from Darwin’s books—a man who still very much rules from the grave.

But, we must ask, what influenced Darwin? Since all ideas are based on theological presuppositions, we can clearly see how Darwin’s family’s Unitarian beliefs (rejection of the infallibility of scripture, rejection of original sin, rejection of eternal damnation, rejection of the divinity of Christ, and rejection of the atonement) largely shaped his mind.

On the other hand, it was the Puritans’ sermons and other theological writings (which this girl refers to as boring) that literally forged America—the first Christian Republic in the history of the world. So let us never underestimate the power of words, either for good or for evil, for “the pen is mightier than the sword.” –Edward Bulwer-Lytton

In pertaining to our original point, we find this quote by Spurgeon most fitting: “Whether we teach young Christians truth or not, the devil will be sure to teach them error. They will hear of it somehow, even if they are watched by the most careful guardians. The only way to keep chaff out of the child’s little measure is to fill it brimful with good wheat.”

In essence, if your children’s education comprises something other than the Word of God, or if it comprises a smidgen of scripture with an additional dose of “Christian” historical novels, secular history books, and public library fare, you might as well stop wasting your time and send them to public school because the truth of the matter is that your children’s minds will fare no better than the pagans.

This is why Jon and I loathe curriculum that reduces God’s omniscience to mere humanity by minimizing His providential works to a few dates and irrelevant facts and novels that do the same only sandwich them between suspenseful fantasies. They are the bane of education and the scourge of literature because they reduce God’s magnificent works to the mundane while drawing our children’s minds into falsehoods, which stay with them forever.

Novels

In an article from Victoria magazine titled “Reading On and On and On” by Francine Prose, a woman reveals how novels, both in childhood and adulthood, helped her escape from the responsibilities of the life she deemed ordinary. “I read … most of all, for escape. I had a pleasant, uneventful childhood—which ironically, was what I was fleeing. I wanted a novel to take me out of my life and put me in someone else’s, one with surprising plot twists. All I had to do was open the covers of a densely printed novel, and the slow, apparently endless summer afternoons, the tedious car trips with my family…were suddenly enlivened with adventure and excitement, with noble sacrifice and true love, with exotic, dangerous places and fully imagined worlds.”

“For me, this was the most important aspect of reading. I wanted a novel to take me out of my life and put me in someone else’s, a life that was—I hoped—long and full of surprising plot twists that kept my attention from wandering back to less compelling, less glamorous confines of everyday reality. This desire for a whole new world to substitute for my own was part of what attracted me to those lengthy novels…introduced to a social life so much livelier than my own…to lose myself, to forget myself, and to come back, changed. For those few hundred pages, the demands and distractions of my ordinary life will temporarily disappear.”

When I finished reading this article to Sonia, she said, “How very, very sad that this woman wasted such precious time on novels and became so discontented!” Instead of reading books that fitted this young girl for her future role as wife and mother, she was allowed to escape from her family and her responsibilities by dreaming and living in other people’s shoes, causing her to be more and more discontented with her present life, which she deemed ordinary. Without direction, purpose, and work, life can seem ordinary, which is why managing our children’s time is so very important.

Do your children look at their days as endless, your family car trips as tedious, their lives as boring? Are they discontented to be at home with you? If so, you need to let your children know how serious a sin discontentment is and take measures to correct this perversion.

Elizabeth Prentiss reveals this in another way when she writes in her diary while teaching at a girl’s school: “I wonder if all the girls in the world are just alike? Seems to me they might be so sweet and loveable if they leave off chattering forever and ever about lovers…If mothers would keep their unfledged birds under their own wings, wouldn’t they make better mother birds? Now some girls downstairs, who ought to be thinking about all the beautiful things in life but just lovers, are reading novels, love stories, and poetry, till they can’t care for anything else…”

She then says to herself, “Now, Lizzie Paton, where is the use of fretting so? Go right to work reading Leighton…alas, this is such a nice world, and the girls don’t know it!”

Mark Elizabeth’s profound observation: “If mothers would keep their unfledged birds under their own wings, wouldn’t they make better mother birds?” Instead of wasting their time filling their heads with romantic notions and coveting things that don’t belong to them, they should have stayed close to their mother’s side to learn wisdom from the person God placed over them. Elizabeth Prentiss, on the other hand, was following the pattern that had been set by her parents in her childhood—spending her time getting to know her heavenly Father more intimately by reading from the Puritan authors such as Leighton.

Our question is this, then, how will our sons and daughters be able to train up mighty nations for God if they do not fully understand the depth of theology? For all the habits formed in our youth predispose us to adopt either a course of industry or indolence in the way of learning and working. Thus in pertaining to novels, it must be acknowledged that they naturally attract our baser nature to fix our imagination on thoughts that promote our pride and covetous nature, while soothing the indolence this fosters. Therefore, we must struggle against our children’s natural tendency to throw off their responsibility of mind and action by occupying their time worthy of the greatness of their lineage.

From previous articles, you will remember that the Pilgrims came to America because they were losing their children to the corruption of Holland. For this reason, they pledged that they would rather die in the wilderness of America than allow their children’s souls to die. The Puritans later fled Europe for the same reason. As John Winthrop wrote: “The fountains of learning and religion are so corrupted as…most children, even the best wits and of fairest hopes, are perverted, corrupted, and utterly overthrown by the multitudes of evil examples and the licentious government… where men strain at gnats and swallow camels…”

Where are we, dear parents? Quite frankly, we can keep our children at home and still expose them to foolishness and licentious examples through books and the Internet. Indeed this exists extensively throughout our community as we continually grieve over the list of worthless books homeschooled children tell us they read and over the wasted hours they spend on the Internet. But the problem does not lie with them, for when we question their parents as to what they are reading for themselves and to their children, silence often ensues. Not always, as there are those parents who continuously read the Bible and godly books to their children, but for the most part, the vast majority of parents we question, most particularly fathers, are not studying the Word or teaching it to their children as God commanded.

So please allow me to step away for a moment from Candy in our joint endeavor here, to speak as a father to fathers. Except for a few faithful men, I continuously hear from our fathers that they either do not like to read or simply do not have the time. It grieves me so very much that I actually weep sometimes at the lack of commitment I see in so many of our fathers. As a father I understand how hard it is to make a living for our families, but making a living does not take up all our waking hours nor should it be our foremost endeavor as God places the family squarely on our shoulders and commands us to disciple our children. And in the light of eternity, no other success can compensate for our failure in this area. So it cannot be a matter of what we like or don’t like. If we are God’s, we will read and study and teach because God tells us to. And it is not a matter of simply not having the time, but a matter of managing our time with our children’s souls in mind. For as we all know, time is fleeting; therefore, we cannot afford to waste any of the moments we have left.

Fathers, I know full well how selfish we can be and how we deceive ourselves thinking that we give everything to our families by laboring day in and day out for their sustenance, when in truth, that is just a part of the daily responsibility God requires of us. Our duty does not end when we walk through the door at what we consider to be the end of our day, for there is absolutely nothing more important than teaching our children the ways of the Lord. For our chief responsibility as fathers is to study that we may teach our children the depth of God that they may know His ways through daily Bible study, history, and the Puritans’ sermons.

Our present predicament where few fathers read anything or maybe just a chapter or two of the Bible each day makes me think of the text in Hosea where the people loved their ignorance so much. How much more severely will we be judged for choosing pottage over manna when God has offered us a plethora of godly books? For there are more godly books available today than at any other time in history.

Joel Beeke writes: “The great eighteenth-century revivalist, George Whitefield, wrote: ‘The Puritans [were] burning and shining lights. When cast out by the black Bartholomew Act, and driven from their respective charges to preach in barns and fields, in the highways and hedges, they in a special manner wrote and preached as men having authority. Though dead, by their writings they yet speak: a peculiar unction attends them to this very hour (Works, 4:306-307).’”

“Whitefield went on to predict that Puritan writings would continue to be resurrected until the end of time due to their scriptural spirituality. Today, we are living in such a time. Interest in Puritan books has seldom been more intense. In the last fifty years, 150 Puritan authors and nearly 700 Puritan titles have been brought back into print.”

“Puritan literature has so multiplied that few book lovers can afford to purchase all that is being published. What books should you buy? Where can you find a brief summary of each Puritan work and a brief biography of each author so that you can have a glimpse of who is behind all these books?”

“These kinds of questions motivated Randall Pederson and me to write Meet the Puritans: With a Guide to Modern Reprints. In this book, we tell the life stories of the 150 Puritan writers who have been reprinted in the past fifty years. We have also included concise reviews of the 700 newly published Puritan titles plus bibliographical information on each book. And we have noted the books that we consider most critical to have in a personal library.”

The Banner of Truth Trust writes in Communion with God by John Owen: “The Puritan era in England was distinguished pre-eminently by the rich school of evangelical authors whose writings have had such powerful influence wherever they have been read.”

So Is Our Reading Shallow or Deep?

To answer this heading’s question, we must evaluate the content of our reading to determine if we are feasting upon the “nobler, higher richer truths of God” or the earth’s dust.

From Recapture the Wonder, Ravi Zacharias asks, “Is your own reading shallow or deep? The wonder that you will find in the shallow end can only be for a child. Swimming in the deep is for the mature. If a follower of Jesus does not mature in his or her reading, the church could end up running the biggest nursery in the world.”

Ravi then makes a terrific analogy as he goes on to share about his visit to the ancient Greek monasteries. “In these monasteries the monks were devoted to studying… the ‘sacred text.’ Anything outside of the Scriptures was considered to be deadly to the soul. So seriously did the authorities of bygone years take that narrow view that the pages of any other book, such as the writing of Aristotle, etc., were dusted with a thin coating of arsenic. This way, when a monk secretly daring to read from these books moistened his finger to turn the page, he would at that moment be unknowingly poisoning himself until he would suddenly drop dead. The poor monks did not know why one by one their mates were dying, but the ‘Grand Inquisitors’ knew that punishment had been meted out for those ‘cheating’ on their reading.” What a great visual example of what happens to us when we read materials that are deadly to our souls!

The Epicenter of the Battle

From Ken Ham’s Foundations DVD series, we learned that one day in 2009, three hundred atheists descended on the Creation Museum in Cincinnati. Here is what one of them wrote after his visit. “For me the most frightening part was the children’s section. It was at this moment that I learned the deepest lesson on my visit to the Museum. It is the minds and hearts of our children that the battle will be fought…”

Recently, a homeschooler shared with us what her atheist brother told her—that while he sees some benefits to homeschooling, it must be fought against because of parents’ indoctrination of intolerance, creationism, providential history and such.

In an atheist’s publication it was stated: “A historic transition is occurring barely noticed. Slowly, quietly, imperceptibly, religion is shriveling in America, as it already has in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan—across the developed world…The first world is entering the long-predicted secular Age, where Science and Knowledge dominate.”

Ken Ham went on to quote Barack Obama from his book, The Audacity of Hope: “Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”

Then while in Turkey, Obama addressed the people by saying, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bonded by ideals and a set of values.” But as Ken Ham aptly pointed out, if the values of a nation are not founded on the authority of scripture, then they become arbitrary according to the will of those in power at the time.

So who is presently in power? In spite of the fact that the majority of our nation still claims to be Christian, the State not only rules, but also makes the rules, which in most cases are antagonistic to the family, particularly the Christian family, upon which this country was founded.

How did this happen when God clearly instituted the family to be in power, as the foundation of both the church and the civil government, and the source from which both the church and civil government would govern?

Since the family is the underpinning of both church and civil government, we must look there to see what is happening. According to statistics, 70 to 88% of our nation’s youth are rejecting their parents’ faith and the church by the time they complete high school. Why? Well, not only do 95% of our churched youth go to the State’s pagan schools, but even for those families who keep their children home, for the most part, fathers have abandoned their duty to disciple their children. Parents, particularly fathers, then, are the root of the problem.

In our own homeschooling community, our fallout is due in large part to fathers’ indifference to their children’s souls because they don’t disciple their children when they rise up, when they walk along the way, and when they lie down. This sin then passes on into the homeschooling community at large where it is manifested in schools for homeschoolers; secular speakers at homeschool conferences; Ken Ham being ousted over preference for an evolutionist; and support group leaders who focus on man’s thoughts rather than God’s Word, homeschooling rather than home discipleship, mothers rather than fathers and mothers, children rather than families, and activities rather than homes. It is to the point that most conferences and most support groups across the country now soften, and in some cases, completely eradicate their Christian direction by reiterating Obama’s sentiments to their families—Whatever we once were, we are no longer just Christian; we are also Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and nonbelievers. Thus we must direct our activities accordingly.

Fathers, we have slept on our watch! We are the ones responsible for this travesty and the ones whom God holds responsible! Satan does not care if we homeschool our children as long as we remain indifferent to the way in which God wants it executed. Have you read your copy of Safely Home that we gave out at the conference?

Adolf Hitler hit it on the head when he exposed his method for cultural transformation: “When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.’” –God and Caesar by John Eidsmoe

The far reaching scope of our failure lies in the fact that the President of the United States proclaimed in 2010 that “an important chapter in our great unfinished story is the movement for fairness and equality on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community…Across my administration, openly LGBT employees are serving at every level.”

He then proclaimed June 2010 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride month in which he called “upon all Americans to observe this month fighting prejudice and discrimination in their own lives and everywhere it exists.”

Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. For Darwin, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Margaret Sanger this meant eliminating God, creation, and the fall of man, the depravity of all men, the redemption, the divinity of Christ, and the resurrection. As follows, discrimination means the prejudicial treatment of different categories of people and things. And since these prejudices and discriminations have, for the most part, been eliminated in our country’s minds, with public education, infidelity, adultery, abortion, and co-habitation now readily accepted, our nation’s present leader directs all Americans to fight the prejudice in those who are in opposition to homosexuals’ perverse behavior, which God calls an abomination, and thereby eliminate discrimination that would keep them from becoming teachers or even adopting children.

“If the Foundations Are Destroyed, What Can the Righteous Do?” Psalm 11:3

Again, let us reiterate that the family, through home discipleship, has always been God’s strategy for taking dominion of the culture for His glory and for passing on the faith to the next generation. And no, not all children who are homeschooled will be saved any more than all the Israelites were saved. God is the One who does the saving, but He does use parents as His vehicle in training them in righteousness, so whenever we deviate from God’s way, whether we delegate that responsibility to learning centers, to the church, or the State, failure and destruction are inevitable.

Again, the most superior education available to man is executed in the manner God ordained by the hand of parents whom He personally chose, whose focus is on biblical scholarship which He emphatically commanded, who are actively involved in disciplining the intellect, so as to fit our children for God’s purpose.


So Where Do We Start to Reclaim the Culture?

Since history is God’s story, we must start at the beginning in Genesis and work our way through God’s providence, reading over and over from cover to cover the Word of God. We cannot start in the New Testament because that is not where God began. Children cannot grasp the need for a Savior until they understand why they need a Savior. The consequence of starting in the New Testament is the same as starting in the middle of any other book—it causes confusion. Prior to modern dispensationalism, families and churches taught the whole counsel of God, starting in Genesis and working their way through to the end, as God had written it.

However, it is not just reading the Word that God commands, but delving into the depth of God’s omniscient wisdom. For this our Founding Fathers used Matthew Henry’s commentaries with Noah’s Webster’s 1828 dictionary at hand to define biblical terms. Then for methodical instruction of biblical doctrines, the Westminster Catechism, which was developed for fathers to instruct their children and pastors their flocks, was used, not only by these same Founding Fathers, but by their fathers in Europe as well, along with the Confession of Faith, along with the Puritans’ sermons. These were the most widely used resources amongst our early forefathers and by far the most influential in forging the first Christian Republic known in the history of the world.

What a legacy we have been given! So let us consider carefully what it took to achieve this miracle and what it is going to take to reclaim it. When a man leaves an inheritance, it is customary that he leaves a detailed will of how he wants that inheritance to be carried out. So for 200 years, fathers’ faithful investing in their families and instruction on how to keep their inheritance produced such a vast fortune of biblical principles in the minds of men that they were able to construct the first Christian Constitutional Republic in the history of the world. But as is the case, fortunes can be lost in one generation or in several, if not safeguarded by following the pattern of success set forth by the fathers who achieved them. So if we desire to keep our inheritance, then we must follow the course of our forefathers.

Essential Reading List

Being avid readers, we have personally read hundreds upon hundreds of books. From these we have put together a list of the very best that we call our Essential Reading List found on our website www.theresnoplacelikehome-summers.com under In The Library.

It begins: Based on 31 years of homeschooling and the hundreds of books that we have read over the years, Candy and I can emphatically state that the following books and DVDs are the most important materials you will ever use to teach your children God’s truth and providential working through history. In fact, the vast majority of our days are spent in reading, studying, discussing, and copying notes from these very materials. More than anything, other than the Bible, these materials have had the greatest impact on our lives, transforming the way we think and live. We are eternally grateful to God for instructing us with these books and hope that these resources bless your family as much as they have ours.

Teach History

Apart from a thorough study of Genesis through Revelation, God’s divine presence throughout history is the most important truth we can teach our children. In fact, throughout the Bible, God continues to command His children to REMEMBER, and with good reason. Romans 15:4 “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

This hope makes us grateful to God for all He has done for us through an understanding of His complete sovereignty over all His creation that we may learn God’s will and purpose. In essence, without a thorough understanding of history, we will never truly understand God and His generational faithfulness, nor our purpose, hope, or inheritance.

For a providential view of history recognizes that God, as the supreme Lord and Sovereign, is directing all events to accomplish His purpose and bring forth His kingdom on the earth as the sequence of events in the lives of men and nations form the chain of history.

Careful Cultivation

Yet in spite of all the best materials, the finest plan of action can be waylaid by failure to cultivate our children’s minds towards our teaching. This is never more evident than in a conversation we held with a mother several years ago who told us that she was ready to quit teaching her children after only one day of emulating biblical scholarship because her children did nothing but complain, squirm, tease, and fight throughout her entire lesson.

The reason this occurred is because her children’s ears were not inclined to the Word of God nor were their tastes cultivated towards meat, but more importantly, they had not been trained to form the manners and habits necessary to receive wisdom. Children are certainly not going to honor and revere God if they cannot honor and revere their parent. And children are not going to listen to God if their ears are not tuned towards their parents’ words.

So let us examine what it takes to cultivate our children’s hearts by contemplating what it takes to procure fruit from trees. Since our family personally desires to have our own orchard, we frequently ask proprietors of orchards what it takes to produce fruit. Interestingly, every farmer basically gives the same answer: “Careful cultivation of fruit trees is imperative for procuring not just the maximum yield of high quality fruit, but fruit, period.”

Quite frankly, by the time they finish explaining all that goes into careful cultivation—an ideal planting site with optimal sun and climatic exposure, adequate spacing, rich soil, along with continual fertilization, irrigation, mulching, weeding, spraying, and pruning—we are inclined to continue purchasing our fruit from them.

As parents, we don’t have that luxury! Since God commands us to disciple our own children, we are not allowed to pay someone else to do the job for us. We must do our own careful cultivation of our children’s minds. For most of us, though, we did not have a clue of what this would take, for we neither had parents or other Christians in our lives who trained us for the job. But God is good and thus used His Holy Spirit to direct our minds towards reading and studying His Word for the answers. And then He led us to other individuals who were ferreting out the truth from the Word as well, which they shared in their books, and so we studied day and night that we would know all that was required to “command our children and our household after us to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice.”

So when it came to the cultivation of our children’s minds we learned from Hebrews 5:13,14 that “everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

Consequently, we came to realize that if we did not feed our children meat, but continued to feed them milk, that would be all that they could handle. To digest meat children must practice chewing and digesting meat. In essence, their ears, eyes, and mind must be trained to grasp, assimilate, and reiterate the magnificence of God’s wisdom.

As the scripture states, solid food is the result of training and practice. The result of this is clearly seen in how our children learn to speak, first by listening to us and then imitating what they hear. Some words come more easily than others, but training and practice is the key to articulate children.

For most of us, we realize that to cultivate our toddlers’ taste for healthy, solid foods, we do not continue to feed them pabulum nor do we dilute their food with five parts water to one part nutrition. Instead we sit them down to the same healthy meals that we eat.

This holds true when it comes to consumption of truth from reading aloud, which is accomplished by stopping along the way to define words, explain concepts, and ask questions that cause our children to think and reflect upon the content expressed.

But let us, for a moment, go back to speaking. Before children speak, they must hear. Before they hear, they must learn to incline their ears to our teachings. Therefore, throughout proverbs, God repeatedly commands children to incline their ears to their father and mother’s teachings. For this reason: to discern and obey a God they cannot see, they must first be able to listen and respond to the parents they can see. This requires daily training of making certain our children’s wills eagerly submit to ours—a topic that we will thoroughly cover in an upcoming article on Honor and Obey.

An undisciplined mind is a rebellious mind, which wanders off in the direction it sees fit instead of attending to the important business at hand. Although common to all of us at times, to a disciplined mind, these wanderings rarely occur because of training and practice to concentrate on that which God ordains instead of on that which the flesh prefers. In regard to our children, this truth is vitally important to understand because unless we diligently train our children to discipline their minds to submit to God rather than to their selfish desires, they will forever remain foolishly ignorant.

Consistent practice is the key to avoiding this travesty by making certain that eye, ear, and mind are singularly focused towards the topic at hand. Thus, like a good shepherd who lovingly uses his staff to go after his straying sheep, we must gently draw our children towards our voice. This can be accomplished by having them repeat our directions to them and by asking questions throughout our readings. Thus through practice, they can keep themselves from being distracted by the worldly diversions the enemy places along their path.

With this said, let us also state the importance of speaking truth at all times instead of sarcastically jesting, making it necessary for our children to constantly guess whether we really mean what we say or not. The integrity of the authority God bestows on parents needs to be upheld at all times to be effective, so consider wisely the words you choose to speak. Foolishness or worthless chatter has no place in Christ’s presence; therefore, we must set the example to speak only those things that are edifying and appropriate. So to acquire a taste for meat, children must be exposed to meaty words, meaty conversations, and meaty books. Proverbs 2:2 “Make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding.”

Academic Evolution (Based on Candy’s Experience as a Public School Teacher)

During my training to become an elementary teacher, I was instructed that children needed to be separated from their parents and siblings and given age segregated materials, appropriated by what the experts equated with mental ability. Thus child developmental strategies nonsensically placed all children at immovable levels based on the theory of evolution, when in fact, history bears out the truth that man did not begin life in caves and work his way up to skyscrapers but was created in the image of God and given dominion over the earth (Psalm 8, Hebrews 2:6-12).

It is impossible to fully comprehend this horrific tragedy when we have been numbed by such a pervasive pagan culture, yet I would like for us to take a moment to ponder the breadth, length, depth and height of our Father’s wisdom and judgments in contrast to our own training.

For in spite of our royal lineage revealed in Romans 11:33: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things,” we have been treated like Neanderthal creatures and fed Dick and Jane and Dr. Seuss books instead of our Majestic Father’s royal decrees.

Sadly, even though we know something is not right, we often choose what is most familiar because of the comfort and ease it provides. Hence, most of us began replicating what we knew by recreating the pagan school setting in our own homes, segregating our children and their materials according to age.

An example of this occurred this past fall, when after only one week of school a mother came to me in dismay, telling me that she was ready to give up my prescription for a happy, well ordered, well-read family. The materials, she thought, were too heady, making comprehension impossible for her younger aged children. True, the materials that I loaned her from our bookshelves were too heady for her children at that particular point in time, but as I quickly pointed out, she must not give up but persevere so that her children learn to acquire a taste for meat. For too long she had followed the public school mentality and method that most of us first adhere to—watered down information. I know, because the first year that I ordered curriculum, I, too, ordered age appropriate materials for my first grader.

Although excited over receiving our first set of books, after perusal of the content, I was dismayed over their lack of depth. In just days, we finished the year’s worth of History and Science because my daughter had been used to consuming adult conversations, adult readings, and adult sermons. Was that it, I wondered? Obviously, these very watered down versions of important truths were a product of evolutionary thinking, even though they were from traditional Christian publishers. From then on I selected materials far ahead of prescribed grade level recommendations. So when my next two children were five and six, we started our science instruction from a fifth grade book and our history from seventh and tenth grade books. Shortly after that, however, we never went back to curriculum but instructed from the books you see in our Essential Reading list.

The results of this is that at age ten, Josiah was reading sermons from the Reformation and then at twelve, reading through Political Sermons of the Founding Era, a 1596-page book containing rhetoric of political discourse of the eternal truths of God’s laws that formed the basis of the American Revolution and foundation of political liberty. Inculcating divine truths and providential design based on God’s law of liberty is what formed the deeply rooted truths in the consciousness of men, which in turn gave birth to America.

Leading up to this birth, families taught their children to read so that they could read from the family Bible, not from some condensed, compromised, watered-down child’s version. Equally important was equipping them to study God’s Word through the use of the most circulated and commonly read materials of the day, the Puritans’ sermons—not like the feel good humanistic mindless drivel that is passed off as sermons today, but brilliant in-depth theological masterpieces that caused their hearers and readers to think and reflect.

As life was so often cut short, parents took the eternal state of their children’s souls seriously by managing their time with God’s throne room in mind. Therefore, from the very beginning of life, children were taught to sit and listen to chapters from the family Bible, adult sermons, adult conversation, a steady supply of meaty discussions and books, and lessons worthy of their lineage. This rigorous training produced children that were thoroughly conversant and equipped in the heady divine thoughts of their Father so that even young boys were fully prepared to enter seminaries at the age of 12 and 14, doing work that most college graduates today would be incapable of mastering.

Consider for a moment what this kind of teaching produced in the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Although all the signers of the Declaration were learned and accomplished men, for brevity sake, I will just list but a few examples to prove my point. John Hancock graduated from Harvard at age 17; Samuel Adams became a member of Harvard at age 14; John Adams entered Harvard at 16; Robert Paine entered Harvard at age 14; while Elbridge Gerry entered Harvard before he even completed his 14th year. Josiah Bartlett at sixteen possessed a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin and so entered the study of medicine. At 16 William Ellery entered Harvard, as did William Williams, while Lewis Morris entered Yale. Benjamin Rush received his degree of Bachelor of Arts from Princeton before the end of his 15th year. Richard Stockton graduated from Princeton at the age of 18. At 22, Samuel Huntington entered the study of law by reading the extensive supply of books from another lawyer, and due to his diligence became prominent in his profession. John Witherspoon entered the University of Edinburgh at age 14. At this same age, he is reputed to have possessed an uncommon taste in sacred criticism and commenced preaching at age 21. As if this is not enough, let us remember that the university courses of that day and age were far superior to any today.

One of the chief hindrances to setting higher standards for our students is our own biblical and historical illiteracy. This coupled with twelve years of insufferable bondage to a system of scoffers who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness created a mindset that still holds many of us in bondage today.

Romans 1:18-20 states, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.”

As Christians we must not shackle ourselves to grade appropriate scope and sequence charts because they have been produced by atheistic evolutionists who consider children just a little higher than chimps, capable only of incrementally graduated information. Instead we must look at our children as God’s children, created in His image, fully capable of digesting divine truths. Our founding fathers were intellectual giants because they inclined their ears and their hearts towards their parents’ wisdom. As Adam walked with God in the garden, and as Jesus discipled His apostles, so we must disciple our children in eternal truths.

The books that we review in the newsletter are not just for the nourishment of your children’s soul, but for your welfare as well. Every day we become better parents because of all the reading we do. It is the beauty of sanctification, set apart for His purpose to be fitted for usefulness in His kingdom.

Our Final Thoughts on Biblical Scholarship:To Inspire Confidence of Parents’ Final Success

As the church in America becomes increasingly illiterate, it becomes a far greater privilege and a far more important responsibility to preserve and promote the vast depth of scriptural truth that has been entrusted to us, but as R.C. Sproul aptly taught, “To be central in our hearts He must be foremost in our minds.”

Foremost is hard to achieve when so many worldly distractions contend for our attention, but we must realize that every generation struggled with diversions. That is why God commands that we “be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Our instruction, our words, and our actions, all should reveal to the world the will of God—that which is good, acceptable, and perfect!

Interestingly, conform means to behave acceptably; to follow a standard, which in this case means to behave according to our noble birth, to the dictates of our imperial King, a divine standard set forth in His extensive royal proclamations. So as Henry Smith prayed, “Lord Jesus so moderate our learning…that we may direct all our studies to the enlarging of His glorie and kingdome here on earth.”

This, then, is the chief end of education—our conformity to Christ so that we may take dominion on this earth for His glory with a fixed determination: “To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice and equity; to give prudence to the naïve, to the youth knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel” (Proverbs 1:2-5).

God’s Grand Overarching Plan

Created in the image of the King of kings, our children’s minds possess immense potential, worthy of their lineage so that they may enter into His royal court and commune with Him. Instructing our children with this in mind certainly should alter our earthly perspective and serve as the impetus to rise above the mediocre, the common, the frivolous, and foolish to the noble height to which they were created.

Furthermore, our children’s royal blood requires them to accomplish magnificent works for their Divine Father, the King, and to rule in His stead while on earth. Thus, in conjunction with the power of His Holy Spirit, parents’ careful cultivation will inevitably influence the culture for generations to come—an understanding that should inspire and invigorate us to run the race with endurance. For we have been raised up for such a time as this: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

God has already prepared the good works our children will accomplish by equipping us for the task at hand. Therefore all our instruction should be planned and executed with this chief end in mind, that the acquisition of knowledge should be for the gain of Christ and that of our neighbor. This knowledge guards our children’s hearts against the sin of pride: “Knowledge makes arrogant…if anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:1,2).

1 Corinthians 3:18-21 “Let no man deceive himself, if any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, ‘He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness;’ and again, ‘The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless. So then let no one boast in men…’”

Colossians 2:3 In Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

James 1:17,18 “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.”

2 Corinthians 4:6,7 “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God, and not from ourselves.”

Ephesians 2:8,9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Not only are our children’s faculties a gift from God, but so, too, is any increase in knowledge, due also in part to our dedication and labor, thereby rendering all self-acclamation to be sin. Indeed we must train our children that while arrogance builds up self, edification builds others. Thus being sanctified for the King’s purpose of faithfully conveying His divine knowledge and wisdom to those who are perishing, we must hold our children accountable to the mandate given in Ephesians 4:29: “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.”

One of the most important principles to this end is to impart the true significance of the brevity of our existence on earth, the eternity of our existence in the afterlife, and the impact every present moment has on the future. Just as each wasted moment detracts from our noble purpose and glorious end, so, too, does each productive moment further God’s glory and His glorious kingdom. Like the magnificent edifices of ancient Europe, wisdom is gained by careful management of time and materials. So, too, can we see this in the meticulous management of the earthly kings’ offspring who would one day rule empires.

Our role is no less significant but vastly more important because we are raising up generations for the King of kings’ royal court, who will play vastly crucial parts in Christianity’s distinguished history.

Method

The foremost principle of discipleship is training our children to obey by making their inherently rebellious nature submit to our authority so that they will be able to listen and embrace truths in gratitude. In general, our fallen natures turn our attention to the frivolous—that which pleases our lustful flesh. Therefore, it becomes necessary to attend to our children’s distractions by grasping them with the loving staff of the Good Shepherd to turn their hearts towards the nourishing grasses and pure pools of water that give life. It begins at birth and continues until they naturally turn their hearts towards our teaching and follow wherever we lead. Initially this requires constant oversight of disposition and demeanor until it becomes part of their very nature. Negligence in this area of discipleship undermines the entire foundation, not only rendering them useless but a curse to their family and society in general. We cannot stress the importance of this point enough, as it is crucial to everything else in life.

Questions interspersed throughout each day’s continual conversations tremendously helps young children focus on the importance of life.

Also of importance is passing on a thirst, love and passion for gaining wisdom through our own enthusiasm so they understand that learning takes place each day to those who are listening and looking in anticipation of the truths of God’s Word and world. Since His revelation exists in everything, everyone, and in every situation, it is our duty to point these out throughout each day, for wisdom increases by continual exercise.

Thorough observation of surroundings, people, and situations, followed by instructional discussion based on God’s reasoning, develops our children’s perception to see things as God sees them and to think God’s thoughts after Him, thus cultivating both their discernment and reasoning. For our own family this means that no matter where we go or who we are with or with what occupies our minds and hands, it becomes a valuable lesson.

At first, when the children were young, we had them relay the day in the order that it transpired so as to help them order their thinking; gently correcting anything that they placed out of order. This consistent training greatly aided their ability to relay things accurately and keep their thoughts straight. Then with reasoning based on scriptural truth, we would help them discern each thing that happened as that which was either righteous and most expedient or that which was sin and an inconvenience to others. This clearly forged discernment and sharpened their ability to take in everything for the purpose of glorifying God and advancing His kingdom for the benefit of others. Of course, some children are much more in tune than others based on their spiritual status. For some parents, this variance in their children depresses their hearts and diminishes their efforts, but quite to the contrary, our efforts are vitally more important for those who seem to be dense. So don’t give up. God says that His Word shall not come back void. Persistence pays off.

The oft-repeated axiom that we should not judge is one of those false doctrines that emphasize a passage regardless of the plentitude of others that speak to the contrary. Essentially there is nothing that we do that is not directed by our judgment, which many times requires decisions based on our judgment of others as well. They should be when it comes to more obvious ones like who we marry, where we choose to live, where we work, what church we attend, and who we choose for our friends. All of these are based on our judgment of others, which if done according to scripture will be considered prudent and wise. The scripture that tells us that we shall know them by their fruit is imperative to the welfare of all we endeavor. Therefore, continually discuss the character of others and judge according to scripture so that your children will be able to judge wisely when it comes to making those potentially life changing decisions.

Proverbs 2:11-22 “Discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things; from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; who delight in doing evil and rejoice in the perversity of evil; whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways; to deliver you from the strange woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her words; that leaves the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; for her house sinks down to death and her tracks lead to the dead; none who go to her return again. Nor do they reach the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will live in the land and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be uprooted from it.”

With that said, it is also necessary to cultivate a tender conscience in our children’s hearts so that they do not think as the Pharisees but as the Publican, that they remain humble before God so as not to become critical but to grieve over the lost. We have all known those critical individuals who nitpick at everything, often straining out gnats while swallowing the camel. Remember, grace and mercy always accompany holiness.

As life is serious business, seriousness and sober reflection should be forged to attend all thoughts so that careless words and impetuous actions of youth cease. This does not negate the joy that should emanate from us, for a cheerful spirit is a hallmark of someone who possesses the indwelling Spirit of God, but then so, too, does sober mindedness.

Merely reading to occupy one’s time is a waste of precious moments that should otherwise be spent productively in enlightening the mind on God, increasing the depth of understanding of God’s precepts, improving manners, and in general, a transformation of the mind towards holiness. Therefore, all of our children’s reading should be done with a definite purpose in mind. And since time flies, prioritizing and ordering our children’s studies is necessary to make the most of what we have been allotted—that which could be cut short at any moment. Our Essential Reading list is ordered with this in mind.

Though we possess an extraordinary ability to retain what we learn, due to our fallen nature, our propensity tends towards forgetfulness, so every manner of assistance should be used in assisting our children in training their minds to remember that which is important. Note taking serves as a marvelous help towards this end, both in remembering and in separating the important from the trivia, and so should habitually accompany each reading. This skill requires practice in wise prioritization, so on page after page, highlight only key words that ideally convey the general principle until your children grasp the ability to use the least amount of words to capture the concept without compromising the meaning. Then continue to check their highlighting until their proficiency becomes evident. From there they can copy their own thoughts on paper that reflect the main points of importance. This same process applies to taking notes while listening to either of you teach.

Rather than abandoning ship, our minds are capable of solving most difficulties; therefore, as soon as problems arise, our children’s minds should be trained to instinctively seek a practical and efficient solution. This is most easily done by communicating your own solutions to daily problems, explaining your reasoning and order of deductions. This methodical process minimizes frustration and fretting.

And of course, domestic economy (which ironically is often overlooked) is of the utmost importance for both our sons and daughters’ future station. Therefore, the majority of our time should be devoted towards this goal.

Each day, time should be devoted to consideration of their depraved state and God’s merciful grace, silent reading of the scripture, reflection on its truth and application to their own lives, followed by silent prayer for the sanctifying influence of their Father’s Holy Spirit upon their immortal souls.

Parents, God has given us everything we need for this task. 2 Peter 1:2,3 “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

Finally we do not “cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in our prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Ephesians 1:16-17).

Proverbs 2

“My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: He is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: to deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; whose ways are crooked, and the froward in their paths: to deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.”



THE IMPORTANCE OF PURCHASING GODLY BOOKS WHILE THEY ARE STILL IN PRINT

Jon and I often tell families to purchase the books we recommend before they go out of print because we believe that there is nothing more valuable than a library of excellent godly books. As Oswald Chambers’s professor used to say to him, “Sell the bed and buy the book.” This may seem extreme to a non-reader, but to passionate readers like us, a godly book’s wisdom is worth its weight in gold.

A case in point: Before our 2009 conference we asked Tom Eldredge if he would be willing to sign his book Safely Home for the first 500 attendees. Sadly, Tom informed us that his book was out of print. So what was once going for somewhere between $6 and $10 was being offered on Amazon for $65. Thankfully there were still some inexpensive copies on eBay, which we purchased to give new homeschooling families. And thankfully Vision Forum printed them again for us the following year so that we were able to pass on that quintessential homeschooling book to many of you at this past year’s conference. But what if some other publishing company had those rights and was not willing to print them for us? The foundational content of that book would be unavailable to those who recently began to homeschool their children. Out-of-print books are not our only concern, as we often also stress to families that they need to purchase the books we recommend before they are outlawed. Far fetched? Hardly, when you consider the present political agenda. Even three years ago, book banning had begun. Please read the following article from Kevin Swanson and realize the reality of our concerns.
 

KEVIN SWANSON 2008

“Book Banning Week is Now All Year Round in Colorado.” “Censorship Threatens Civil Reprisals in Colorado.” “If you don’t keep your Bible within the four walls of the church, you’ll find yourself within the four walls of a prison.” “A Christian bookstore will have to clear half its shelves.”

These were statements made in a conference held this afternoon with 20 Christian leaders representing legal defense organizations, media, and ministries from Colorado and around the country. The purpose of the meeting was to outline a strategy to address what could be the most serious attack on the Christian faith in our nation’s history. Three weeks after Colorado Governor Ritter signed SB200, the grim reality of it all, the true impact and sweeping implications of the law are just now setting in for those leaders (including yours truly who participated in the phone call).

This law will impact every Christian bookstore, every Christian school, every Colorado Satellite School, every bookstore, every Christian ministry, and every Christian business in the state.

Even outlets like Wal-mart and Barnes and Noble Books will be prevented from selling the Bible or books authored by Dr. James Dobson. Christian ministries may have to leave the state for legal protection.

Strategies discussed in the meeting included a facial challenge in court, a Get-Rid-of Ritter recall campaign, a referendum in the next election, and a legislative reversal through the 2008 elections.

Our political strength is waning at present, in the face of a declining church that has lost its own moral compass, a powerful decadent media, a secular education paid for by the secular humanist state, and 37% of boys born without fathers (up from 6% in 1960).

Suffice it to say that Christians will break this law and will be persecuted for it. In the words of the Apostle Peter, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

I doubt that the forty-year persecution ahead of us will ever match that of the bloody Roman persecutions or even the communist rage against Christ and His church. Fully expecting the humanist schools and hotbeds of homosexuality to produce a problem 7X worse by the latter part of the 2010s, I can’t imagine a scenario where we might escape some persecution (short of all-out national reformation and repentance at the preaching of the Word of God from thousands of pulpits).

John 17:14-17 “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

2 Timothy 3:13-15 “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”



DELIGHTFUL SURPRISES

Build Your Children’s Library

Begin building your children’s own personal library with reference materials, theological books, historical books, and books you have enjoyed reading as a family. Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, Matthew Henry’s commentaries, the Westminster Catechism, and the Institutes of Biblical Law are all excellent reference books that your children will use with their own families for years to come. Our Essential Reading List is a great resource to assist you in your selection of additional books to add to their collection. And it is amazing how quickly you can amass a library if you give books to your children each holiday.
 

Inscribe Your Books

Make certain that you personalize the books you give to your children before you present them, not only the theological treasures but also the practical and adorable books as well. This will not only be treasured by your children in later years as a testimony to your devotion to their souls, but also by future generations as a valuable insight into their Divine lineage. Inscriptions are most appropriately written on the first blank page or on the inside of the front cover. Examples:

The Character of an Upright Man: A Plea for Personal Integrity by Richard Steele (1629-1692) Dear Jedidiah, Upright means “honest; just; not deviating from correct moral principles; as an upright man.” God said of Job, “My servant Job…there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” This is your father’s and my prayer for you, my son, that Jedidiah, God’s servant, will be a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil! Love, Mom and Dad

Let It Rot! The Gardener’s Guide to Composting by Stu Campbell
Dear Jedidiah, It is such a pleasure to watch the miraculous work of God turn leaves into rich soil—even grass clippings and organic garbage. Just as God takes our depraved souls and makes them rich and useful in His Kingdom, so, too, He turns discarded garbage into something rich and useful. May you appreciate the awesome work of His Hands and enjoy using His miracles to enrich our lives. Happy Composting! Love, Dad and Mama

Record Books

Make your own recordings of your children’s favorite books so that you can read those books to your children’s children after your physical body is with the Lord. Record your favorite books of the Bible. If there are parts of the Bible that you traditionally read on certain holidays, record those readings for future holidays, or just record books so that your own children may listen to them while they take their baths or while they drift off to sleep.

Reading Chart

Most homeschooled children do not require incentives to read. As a matter of fact, the opposite usually occurs, that the child is reading so many books, so quickly, that it is hard to keep the shelves stocked. However, this is a fun project that just makes reading more delightful. On a sheet of posterboard, draw a lovely wooden bookcase and color with rich brown markers. On each shelf of the bookcase, sketch the outline of books as they sit on your shelf, slightly varying both the width and height of each book. Give one to each child, with a list of books that you want them to read on their own. After each book is read, have your child color a book on the chart using colored pencils. When a certain number of books have been read, allow your child to pick a special gift out of a treasure chest. The treasure chest can be as simple as a drawer in your dresser or a shelf in your closet, but even more fun is painting an Office Depot box to look like a real treasure chest, using black and gold paint.

Gifts

Book Embosser A book embosser is a wonderful gift for older children as it lends an air of sophistication and class to their books. Embossers can be personalized with the child’s name and some text like “From the Library of…” The embosser I selected for Jon reads: Library of Jon M. Summers with his initials JMS in the center. A good embosser leaves a very crisp impression on the book’s page and so should last for generations.

Book Labels and Bookplates Decorative book labels and bookplates are another way to personalize each of your children’s books. Often Ex Libris is used in conjunction with the person’s name because it is Latin for “from the books” and thus can be interpreted “From the library of…” I have heard that there are printable bookplate designs online.

Book Bag Creating a stylish book bag for each of your children or having them create their own is not only fun but also a great gift for transporting reading books to wherever you go: Grandma’s, doctor appointments, shopping, or for longer trips as you travel. Canvas bags can be purchased at any craft store along with fabric paints. Encourage your child to draw several plans on paper before actually settling on the final design.

Reading Light Reading lights make nice gifts especially when accompanied with new books. Several varieties are available for both reading in bed and in the car.

Bookmarks Books are valuable possessions that should be treated with care so that they can be handed down through the generations. Therefore, teach your children their value by forbidding them to lay their books open face down or face up or turning over the corner of pages by providing each of your children with lovely bookmarks to hold their place. Purchase several lovely bookmarks for each child or make your own by gluing pretty gift wrap or greeting cards to cardstock cut the size of a bookmark or just cover with cute stickers.

Bible on CD The Word of Promise Audio CDs make terrific gifts as children can listen to the Word of God when they color, when they play with Legos, when they take their baths, when they travel in the car, or as they go to sleep.

IN THE LIBRARY

Care of Books

Our family considers books to be our most valuable possession, which we hope to pass on down through the generations, so we handle and store these treasures with the utmost care. Our bookshelves are placed out of the direct sunlight and away from extreme temperature changes so that heat and humidity will not harm them. To prevent damage to each book’s spine, we place our books snugly upright on the shelves but not jammed tight. (Well, at least we try not to squish them too tight. The problem is that we have too many books and not enough shelves. This is a constant battle, but we persevere because jamming books too tightly together ruins them!)

Removing books from the shelves by the top of their spines will also ruin them. We can attest to this problem as our Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, which we use almost every day, is now detached from its pages because some of us grab it from the top. However, the appropriate way to remove a book from its shelf is to push in either book on each side and then grasp the spine in the middle of the book and gently pull. The reverse holds true when placing it back on the shelf. Just push out either book on each side, place book in between these, and push all three of them in at the same time.

We wipe our books with a soft clean cloth twice a year to remove dust.

Never keep books in a warm or hot car as this will soften the glue and detach pages or completely warp the book. We love to read in the car and so have learned this the hard way.

Books are worth more with the original jacket, but since we intend to keep our books through the generations, I like to remove the jackets and just have the lovely binding showing.

Jon and Candy Summers share:

Christian Home Educators Fellowship—Faithfully honoring God and serving the homeschooling community for the past 27 years!

There’s No Place Like Home October 2011 Information

1. CHEF Information and Activities

    a. CHEF Civil War Dance Practice, Friday, October 21, 2011

    b. CHEF Meeting and Square Dance, Friday, November 11, 2011

    c. CHEF 22nd Annual Math Olympics Friday, January 20, 2012

    d. CHEF 18th Annual Homeschool Art Festival and Photography Contest, February 7, 2012

2. Update on Candy

3. Special Opportunities

    a. Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center

    b. The Constitution or Sharia Conference

4. A Higher Calling

5. Delightful Surprises

6. The Lord’s Day: A Marvelous Day of Resting in the Lord

7. Economy

8. Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

9. The Dismantling of America

10. War Between the States: A Very Uncivil War

CHEF INFORMATION AND ACTIVITIES:

PLEASE NOTE: Due to Candy’s continued recuperation, our family will not be attending this upcoming dance practice and thus will not be holding a support group teaching, prior to the October 21 dance practice. The meeting will instead be held on November 11 prior to our square dance.

CHEF Civil War Dance Practice Friday, October 21 at Dorsett Village Baptist Church, 2240 Bennington, Maryland Heights MO 63043. Dance practice is from 7:00-9:00 p.m. followed by basketball and fellowship. $5 per dancer. Dancers five and under free. This is in preparation for our December 10 Civil War Ball.

CHEF Meeting and Square Dance with some Civil War Dances Friday, November 11 called by John Ramsay and Jeremy Suermann at Dorsett Village Baptist Church, 2240 Bennington, Maryland Heights MO 63043. Meeting 7:00-8:15 p.m. and Square Dance with some Civil War Dances 8:30-10:30 p.m. with basketball and more fellowship afterwards. Meeting, fellowship, and basketball are free. Only the dance costs $5 per dancer. Dancers five and under free. (For those of you who have already paid your $50 for all five dance practices for your family, this square dance is number five of the five practices and thus is included in that fee, so you will not be paying an additional amount.) Please feel free to dress in Western attire if you so choose.

Agenda I am sorry that I confused so many of you with the combination of the meetings and dances. The meetings are open to everyone, not just those who have attended in years past. For those who do not desire to attend dance practices, you may stay and watch, or you may fellowship with other families out in the seating area of the lobby. Following dance practice, the children may play basketball or just visit.

November 11 Meeting Topic The fallout we are seeing in the homeschooling community and the persecution some of our families are reaping from their antagonism; not making idols of other families; and the importance of wisely choosing families for our family’s friends.

Directions: Take Hwy. 270 to Dorsett. Go west to McKelvey. Make a right at the first stoplight on to McKelvey. At the first stoplight on McKelvey, the street name changes to Bennington. Continue through the stoplight to the first parking lot past Kinder Care’s playground. Make a right into the parking lot.

CHEF 22nd Annual Math Olympics Friday, January 20, 2012 at Southgate Christian Church, 9820 East Watson Road, Crestwood, MO 63126. The registration form will be coming soon. For more information, contact Marsha Siecinski at mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 314-835-9557.

CHEF 18th Annual Homeschool Art Festival and Photography Contest Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at Larimore Plantation Banquet Hall, 11475 Lilac Ave., St. Louis, MO 63138 (less than a mile north of 270 at the Lilac Avenue exit). $3.50 per entry.

Come one and all to the Larimore Plantation to enjoy classical music, candlelight, hors d’oeuvres, cookies and cold drinks while viewing the myriad of art pieces displayed by our talented homeschooled children. The fine arts contest is open to all homeschooled students, ages 5 and up, including high school students and graduates. Once again this year we will have the added pleasure of viewing photographs taken by homeschool students aged 14 and up. A category will also be set up for homeschool graduates. All photography contest participants may also enter up to two fine arts projects. Come and display your God-given talents as you seek to glorify Him!

All award ribbons will be affixed to the artwork on display, but we will have a special time to announce and applaud the winners, as well as to distribute the People’s Choice awards. Rules, registration, and drop-off location details to follow. For more information, contact Anne Belley at mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 314-741-8704. See www.larimoreweddings.com for information on the location.

Please note that the date is a month earlier than usual for the Art Festival (February instead of March).

UPDATE ON CANDY

Dear Families,

Thank you for your prayers. I went in for surgery at 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday, October 12, was operated on by two OB/GYNs from 7:00-9:00 a.m. or so, recuperated in the room until 8:30 p.m., and then went home—praise God! Each day I continue to feel much better.

My uterus and cervix were removed even though they were perfectly fine; however, they did find endometriosis outside my uterus and adhesions on my ovaries, which they removed in hopes that these were the cause of my abdominal pain. I will know in time.

I am very thankful that God spared my life, at least for a time longer, so that I am able to serve Him through continuing to train my children and to help my husband. May the coming days be even more productive and more fruitful for advancing His Kingdom!

My Family

How merciful God is to place us in families! Isn’t it the most wonderful plan ever devised? It is always such a blessing for me to see family members pull together for the benefit of the one in need. From Jon showering me, to the boys helping me move and picking flowers for my bedside, to Sonia running the house in my absence, family is God’s greatest gift!

Recuperation

While Jon and the boys were away for the CHEF Father/Son Weekend, Sonia faithfully nursed both my cat and me. Next to my bed, she had my favorite DVDs along with decorating books and cookbooks. Meals were brought in on trays, lotion was rubbed on my legs and feet, and hours were spent next to me in bed as she read to me each day. Together we spent wonderful moments planning upcoming family celebrations, decorating projects, meals, crafts, outings, and new business endeavors. So except for my cat dying on Sunday, this time of recovery has been a tremendous blessing for both my body and soul. Thank you, again, for all your prayers, calls, emails, cards, and offer for meals. We are deeply grateful!

SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES:

[This information is communicated to you only as a service to our families. The information contained herein is not screened or verified by CHEF. Please be discerning at all times.]

Carolyn Bast shares: I am a homeschool mother and a volunteer at the Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center in Overland, Missouri. I was asked by the director to put the word out about our birds and to make others aware of a need we have. Every spring we have a huge influx of rescued birds. Many are babies rescued after falling out of nests or rescued from cats or dogs. Some of the birds are injured after having been hit by cars or flying into windows. We get all manner of songbirds (which are the only ones we can care for) and are usually overwhelmed with starlings. The director would like help with caring for the baby starlings, as these are very hardy birds, and we have an overpopulation of them anyway. She will make up booklets that explain how to care for a baby bird and then give the bird to homeschool families to take them home and raise them. The family can provide all the care and then release the birds when they are ready. It would be a wonderful learning experience for children, and Wild Bird Rehab will help and direct the care as needed. The director says that March is the month when our “season” of caring for the babies begins, and we are making you aware of this wonderful learning opportunity early so we can plan over the winter how to implement this. If a large number of families are interested, we may need to have a class in the winter to address questions and to help prepare the families in caring for these animals. If you have any questions, please contact Carolyn Bast at mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Muslims Did you see pictures of the Muslim women holding signs at the Twin Tower Memorial that read “9/11 Beginning of the End of Democracy” and “Islam Will Dominate the World”? Did you know that they set fire to a depiction of the US flag?

When my sister-in-law rebuked her Muslim friend for celebrating the deaths of all those who lost their lives at the Twin Towers, her friend said, “What did you Americans expect? This is only the beginning!” Sadly, our taxes support this Muslim immigrant’s business and paid for her mother to come to America to have her operation in our American hospital. Do we not understand that our policy toward the Muslims is a concerted effort to destroy our country?

The Constitution or Sharia: A Freedom Conference is a national conference on Sharia and the Islamization of America held on Friday, November 11 in Nashville, TN. Topics include Sharia and Jihad, The European Experience with Sharia, The Dehumanization and Diminishment of Women in the West Under Sharia, Religious Persecution Under Sharia, The Muslim Brotherhood in America, Sharia and Legal Action, Grassroots Organizing Against Shari and Rabat (including Mega-Mosques), Defending Liberty in Legislatures, Fighting Islamist Propaganda in the Media, plus an action packed evening banquet! See http://shariafreeusa.com/the-constitution-or-sharia-a-freedom-conference/.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

We hope to have the rest of the newsletter to you soon!

WEBLOG-It's Time to Plant TULIPS

www.theresnoplacelikehome-summers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=974:october-13th-2011&catid=58:blog&Itemid=64

PUMPKINS, SQUASH, APPLES, GOURDS, AND MUMS

www.theresnoplacelikehome-summers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=982:october-24th-2011&catid=58:blog&Itemid=64

A HIGHER CALLING (reprinted from There’s No Place Like Home book)

Okay, life could be easier if we could twitch our noses and our possessions would organize themselves, dust wouldn’t float, groceries were delivered, desserts weren’t fattening, VCRs programmed themselves, the phone wouldn’t ring, all cotton clothes were permanent press, all dishes were disposable, maids were mandatory wedding gifts, pens would come when called, and socks stayed paired, yet nothing could be sweeter and more rewarding than nurturing and loving our loved ones and being loved in return.

Some of the moms I have counseled lately are struggling with discontentment. If you are, always remember to look at your life through the eyes of Christ and count your blessings!

* Some moms wake up to the morning news, but we wake up to hugs and kisses.

* Some moms may get dressed up for work, but we can dress any way we like and be comfortable.

* Some moms may listen to mood music while they work, but nothing is sweeter than the sounds of our own happy children.

* Some moms pay taxes, while we pay attention and pay compliments to our children.

* Some moms may have a lot of co-worker buddies, but there’s no closer friendship than with our own children and husband.

* Some moms pay big bucks to go work out at the gym, but we don’t have to leave the comforts of home, pay big bucks, or sweat while we work out to keep up with our toddlers.

* Some moms may take exciting yearly vacations, but with children, every day is an adventure.

* Some moms may have a bigger house, even though no one’s home to enjoy it, but we can snuggle together in our cozy home every day.

* Some moms have more space to entertain company, but the best company to entertain is our own family.

* Some moms may work to possess lots of possessions, but the only possessions we can take to heaven are our children.

* Some moms may boast great retirement benefits, but we have the absolute best—children and grandchildren—that will not only rise up and call us blessed, but will bless us by keeping us.

* Some moms may attain a higher social status, but there is no higher calling than being a full time mom.

* While lying on their death bed, no one wishes they had worked more or made more money, but most wish they had spent more time with their loved ones.

Our children are a testimony of our faithfulness, and we won’t have any regrets when called home.

DELIGHTFUL SURPRISES

After you visit your favorite apple orchard this year, consider extending the delight of the apple by completing some of the following projects.

* On a horizontal piece of paper, paint 4 different apple trees, one for each season. So starting with winter, paint a bare leafed tree. The spring tree will be bursting with buds. Summer will bring vibrant leaves and red apples. Then a fall tree in all its autumnal splendor.

* Cut red construction paper in the shape of a big apple the size of an average placemat. Using an X-Acto knife, cut vertical slits within the interior of the shape, leaving an inch or so of red border. To create the apple’s white center, have the children take pre-cut white strips of construction paper and weave them through the red slits. Then they can paint a few seeds or a worm inside. Cover with clear adhesive shelf paper and use as placemats through the fall.

* Create your own apple print wrapping paper by dipping a halved apple in red paint and pressing it on butcher-block paper or brown paper. Continue dipping and printing until the paper is adequately covered.

* Listen to Johnny Appleseed’s story on CD.

* Make apple fritters, apple butter, apple pies, apple crisps, apple dumplings, apple cake, apple oat muffins, applesauce, apple strudel, apple salad, apple jelly, and of course, caramel apples.

* Dry apples for snacks.

* Thread slices of apples on cotton thread for decorating a window. Consider making some for your trees outside for the birds and squirrels.

* Take on the character of an apple tree and write a story about what it is like to be a tree in a pick your own apple orchard. Encourage the children to write particular incidences of families that come to pick their apples.

* Plant an apple tree or two.

THE LORD’S DAY: A Marvelous Day of Resting in the Lord

When we were home churching for several years, Jon would teach our family for hours on end, stopping only for lunch and dinner. It was such a great day of uninterrupted learning and resting in the Lord that I actually had a hard time going back to a conventional church setting even though it was my husband who was pastoring the church.

Since then, we have tried to replicate our Sundays at home as best we can, so during Jon’s sermon, all of us take notes. Following Jon’s sermon, we fellowship and then some of us gather to discuss the sermon and other books we are studying. Once we leave church, Jon discusses his sermon with the children while asking pertinent questions about its application to their own lives. When we arrive home, we usually eat lunch and then play a family board game. After our game, we read theological and historical books aloud, stopping to discuss the content. Sometime during our study, I heat up the evening meal, which I already have prepared. After our dinner, we read more of our theological and historical books aloud, often followed by a teaching DVD, and then more reading until we gather for our evening family prayers—the end of a marvelous day of learning and resting in the Lord!

ECONOMY

Primarily, the management, regulation, and government of a family or the concerns of a household. A frugal and judicious use of money; the management which expends money to advantage, and incurs no waste. Economy includes also a prudent management of all the means by which property is saved or accumulated; a judicious application of time, of labor, and of the instruments of labor.

Management of the Family

-Discuss ways in which each family member can help reduce energy costs by being more conscious of energy use.

-Reduce unnecessary trips by grouping errands so that you can do them all in the same day, mapping them out so that you don’t do any back tracking.

-Teach your children to keep running lists of household items that are running low so that you purchase them when you next shop rather than being forced to run out for something you absolutely need.

- Purchase staples in multiples so that you always have them on hand.

Incurs No Waste

Even though most utility bills increased by 30% in the last five years due to soaring fuel costs, they are increasing once again by up to another 30%. Therefore, it behooves us to consider ways in which we can cut our energy costs.

-Insulate and seal your attic.

-Apply weather stripping to the bottom, sides, and top of your doors.

-Quickly close exterior doors when entering or exiting.

-Keep your basement door closed.

-Hang heavy drapes on your windows and close them at night.

-Close fireplace damper when not in use.

-Turn off lights that are not in use.

-Keep filters clean.

-Put on flannel sheets and pile on the blankets so you can lower your thermostat at night.

-Wrap water heater in a tank blanket.

-Lower temperature on your hot water heater.

-Install water saving showerheads.

-Decrease the time you spend in the shower.

-Repair leaky faucets.

-Always use cold water for the rinse cycle.

-Clean lint filter after every load of clothes.

-Hang clothes to dry.

-Remove clothes and hang before they are dry to save on ironing.

-Turn off the dishwasher and do the dishes by hand or open the dishwasher door to let the dishes air-dry.

-Replace any cracked seals on freezers and refrigerators.

-Keep your freezer and refrigerator away from all heat sources.

-Instead of thawing foods on the counter, place them in the refrigerator to thaw because this will bring down the temperature of your refrigerator.

-Cool food before placing it in the refrigerator.

FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE

After I gave blood for my operation, the hospital told me that it was important for me to eat foods rich in iron to build my red blood cells prior to surgery. On hearing this, Diane Drinkard sent the following list so I knew what foods contained iron. Foods high in iron include prune juice, beef, organ meats, chicken, lamb, eggs, beans, dried split peas, lentils, parsley, clams, mussels, oysters, venison, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts, sesame seeds, whole grain oats, sardines, Jerusalem artichokes, whole grain wheat, beet greens, Swiss chard, dandelion greens, and spinach.

THE DISMANTLING OF AMERICA

Due to more global warming emission regulations, power companies are being forced to spend billions to retrofit their plants to meet governmental mandates. Of course this cost has to be passed on to the consumer. The interesting note about this is that for every CO2 atom we no longer emit into the atmosphere due to extreme regulations (which has contributed to our shriveling economy), China and India will double their emissions because their economies are booming.

Another Business Bit the Dust

Sadly, the family apple farm we visited each year closed due to high taxes on family businesses and the extreme increase in cost of herbicides and fertilizers because of EPA restrictions. This is just another example of a multi-generational family business that our government has destroyed.

Christians’ Steadfastness

Jon and I constructed the following letter to Macy’s after repeated attempts to have their mailings stopped.

Macy’s Corporate Office

7 West 7th Street

Cincinnati OH 45202

To Macy’s Corporate Board:

Considering the statistics on STDs, unwed mothers, divorce, and broken families, we would think that that your company would desire to assist your country in restoring stability to families instead of contributing to its decline by promoting promiscuity.

Our family is trying to raise faithful, undefiled children and thus strongly object to your immoral advertisements! It is bad enough that our children are exposed to these in your store, but to have them continuously enter our home by mail is abominable, especially since we have called repeatedly to request that they stop.

It is certainly our hope that you would change your policy in regards to your active promotion of promiscuity, but regardless of your decision, we demand that your publications cease from entering our home.

Sincerely, Jon and Candy Summers

WAR BETWEEN THE STATES: A VERY UNCIVIL WAR

Excerpts from John Dwyer’s book: “At point after point, the Enlightenment and ancient Christendom clashes. Instead of God and the Bible together providing a standard of absolutes for the authority of a society, the Enlightenment offered relativism, wherein man determined his own standards of authority. Then he typically used the vehicle of government agencies, programs or policies to carry them out.”

“The Enlightenment produced a very impersonal society, and it profoundly affected the Church, the family, and the state, which were the institutions Christendom previously acknowledged as divinely ordained. It either mixed them and their roles up or robbed them of their authority and power. Additionally, rather than finding its basis in revealed law as had Reformation-influenced Christianity, the Enlightenment was based on the concept of natural law. This led men to determine through their own observation and judgment what was right and wrong. ‘Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.’”

“The Enlightenment worldview discarded the old ideas of covenant and tradition in favor of the idea of contract.”

“A covenant is an agreement between God and man or between man and man with God as the divine witness. A contract is a strictly human instrument established between two or more people. Indeed, the Enlightenment proved no less than the hinge upon which Western civilization shifted away from its predominate subscription to Christianity.”