Fulfilling the Great Commission as Ordinary Christians

When we think of the Great Commission we usually have in mind career missionaries going overseas or cross-culturally. Definitely that's an important part of the Great Commission. But not all will become full-time missionaries. Some will be stuck in the home taking care of their children or to some their aging parents. Some will be managing family business. A few might even do both. Still some will probably stay in their local churches serving for the rest of their lives. Does that mean that they can't fulfill the Great Commission?

Let's look at it this way. Yes, the Great Commission takes place cross-culturally and in faraway places as missionaries are sent out to preach the gospel, make disciples of Christ, and start a church. However, ordinarily it happens in our homes, our workplaces, in the church, at school, even in some unexpected places.

The Great Commission begins at home where Christian parents are patiently teaching and disciplining their children in the ways of the Lord, including doing cheerfully simple house chores. Disciple-making takes place at home where husbands and fathers lead their families in reading the Bible, in teaching their families the precious doctrines of the Christian faith, and in leading their wives and children in prayer. Remember that as believers our children also belong to the Lord. We consider them disciples also. They also need to be taught of the teachings of Christ until they, too, would profess faith in him.

Proper understanding of the Great Commission would also lead Christian single men and single women to seriously consider marriage with a fellow believer in the Lord in order to build a home where Christ is honored as Lord, where his Word is taught and obeyed, and where children are nurtured to believe and serve God.

The Great Commission also happens in the workplace where Christian professionals and employees bear witness to the grace of God in their words (evangelism) and their good deeds to their fellow workers. They are the light of Christ in the workplace bearing good works as testimonies to the power and presence of God in their lives.

The Great Commission is also being fulfilled in Christian schools where children are taught in every subject the truth about God not only as the great Creator and Lord of the universe but also as the Redeemer and Savior in the person and work of His Son Jesus Christ. So Christian teachers are also fulfilling the Great Commission in the workplace.

And of course, in the church, where everyone is being taught of the gospel and its implications in personal lives and in the life of the whole community of faith, the Great Commission also takes place. Our Reformed churches must always proclaim the gospel in the pulpit, in Sunday school classrooms, in catechism classes, and in the nursery. Every member of the church must be captured and saturated by the same good news of salvation so that each one and the whole body naturally bear the gospel-fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control. We need the gospel not only to fulfill the Great Commission but also to live daily the Christian life bearing witness for Christ.

Christian Homeschooling: A Way to Educate Our Children the Christian Way

So why do we homeschool our children? Why do we use Biblical and Christ-centered curricula and materials in teaching our children? What is our goal?

First, we must see our children as God’s children. They are ultimately God’s. They are heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127:3). Our children are ultimately not our own. We are God’s representative to our children. We treat our children the way God would treat them. We are to nurture, admonish, guide, discipline, and love them as God would do it.

What’s the essence of our parenting then? We are parenting our children in God’s stead.

Second, what should our goal be in homeschooling? Of course, in everything we do, our goal should always be to glorify God by obeying His commands. The Word of God requires us parents to instruct our children in the Christian faith and the doctrine of salvation. That’s what Deuteronomy 6:4-9 tell us. That's what 2 Timothy 3:14-15 shows us. This does not mean that you are talking to your children always, 24/7, all things about the Lord and you don’t talk to them about the ordinary things in life.

When the wise men of Scripture talk about setting a good example to our children and training them in righteousness, they mean that in the context of all of life – at home, at work, along the road, at the workshop, or in the market place.

Some of us, parents, especially those who are newly converted to the Christian faith, in our zeal and passion, we have the tendency to always correct and rebuke our children and talk to them only about God to the point of embittering them by always saying all the negative things. And our children actually end up saying, “I don’t like that God for MY God. That’s a horrible religion!” It’s all negative! It’s all outward behavior and performance that we are after in our children.

However, we will never win over our children to God when our religion is primarily negative. Yes, we must be correcting and rebuking our children – we must warn them about worldliness and waywardness – but that’s not the bulk of Christianity. That’s a part of it. The bigger part is the gospel, the grace of God in Christ, the glory and the purpose, as well as the meaning and fulfillment of life in God through Jesus Christ.

Christianity is essentially positive in nature. Our God who revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ is not a grumpy God, always correcting and rebuking, but a very attractive, joy-filled, tender-hearted, loving, and patient God. "He does not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever" (Psalm 103:9). As his children, He does rebuke us but in a very gentle way.

Here is where the education of our children comes in. We need good Christian education primarily not to get our children away from the world or ungodly children or spare them from embarrassment and bullying and materialism but PRIMARILY BECAUSE OF JESUS CHRIST! Christian education does not primarily mean teaching them good values and wisdom. That’s only a small part of it.

The bigger part of Christian education is to teach every subject or every knowledge to our children and how this knowledge relates to the Lordship of Christ and how it glorifies God! Christ is the sum and the bottom of education. He is the center of education! The positive teaching is the call of the gospel – the invitation to the fullness of Christ and the fact that Christ is both the object and subject of Christian education.

As object of Christian education, Jesus is the foundation and the goal of teaching our children. Why do we teach our children Language and Logic and Science and History and Geology and Astronomy and Anatomy and Math? So they may know God through our Lord Jesus Christ, His person and His work, His saving power and majestic rule, and in knowing Him they would learn to bow down before His Lordship and glorify Him in their knowledge.

We don’t want our children to have perfect scores in Language and Logic but they don’t understand the Bible and they do not know God. We don’t want them to have excellent grades in Science and Social Studies but they don’t bow down in adoration before the God who created our bodies and the whole universe and saved us through His Son Jesus Christ.

As Rev. Greg Lubbers writes, “This [i.e., the glory of God] is the exclusive goal of Christian education. This is what gives [Christian education] inestimable value. Where this is understood, there will be an invisible caption written above every classroom of Christian instruction and every page of Christian curriculum quoting Ecclesiastes 12:13, ‘Let us hear the conclusion of every matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man’” (The Outlook, Sept/Oct 2010, p.10).

As the subject of our children’s education, Jesus is the one who imparts His divine instruction. He acts in revealing His lordship to the hearts of our children, bringing them to bow down in humble fear. Christ accomplishes this work through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, it is the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit within the heart of our children that reveals the sovereignty of Christ and brings the appropriate response of faith, repentance and obedience.

So as the subject of Christian education our Lord Jesus acts – He does something for us that we cannot truly understand every subject without Him and without the power of His Spirit guiding our path and illuminating our mind.

Note also Ephesians 6:4 and the emphasis of nurturing our children “in the Lord.” We don’t raise our children according to OUR ideas of nurture and admonition but the nurture and admonition of the LORD and His ideas. Spiritually, morally, socially, emotionally, intellectually, and physically, we are to raise our children on behalf of God according to His Word.

The whole book of Proverbs illustrates this. Parental, especially paternal (because the father is the primary teacher), and covenantal approach (God calls us “My son…”, “My daughter…”) is the Biblical pattern of educating our children. A Christian home must be a temple in which God is not forced down children’s throat but God is acknowledged and cherished and worshiped (Psalm 34:11-14).

That means we teach our children continually (day by day), as opportunities arise (formal or informal), but we do so primarily positively, truthfully, and honestly teach them all areas of life. And in all those areas, Christ is sovereign. He is Lord of all our lives. It’s a daunting and unending task – always teaching our children. But we have the promise of God that He will equip us as we faithfully teach them.

So Christian education, especially Christian homeschool education, is valuable because it is exclusive, in that it seeks to do something nothing else does – not the public education, not the mediocre Christian education, not the godless or humanistic or man-centered education – in bringing the student face to face with a sovereign Christ as He displays His sovereignty through His person and work, calling for a response of humble fear.

While only eternity will fully reveal the results of such labor, may we, by the grace of God, labor on with immovable hope that God will crown and reward faithful Christian Homeschool education with His blessings!

(This message was first shared at our December 2011 Lighthouse Homeschool Network General Assembly. The essence of the message was based on a lecture on parenting by Dr. Joel Beeke and an article by Rev. Greg Lubbers, “The Exclusive Goal of Christian Education” from the Christian magazine The Outlook, Sept/Oct 2010).

Covenant Theology and Family Life

The church elders and I have recently seen the need to strengthen our grasp of the doctrine of the covenant and its ramifications and applications to our relationships in the family. We are convinced that godly families make a godly church. So we prayed and keep on praying that the families in church would grow not only in their knowledge of God and His covenant dealing with us but also in godliness in the home and in the body of Christ that we might not blaspheme the Name of God.

Thus beginning October 2011, the elders decided to change our Sunday afternoon worship service into a Bible study with the focus on God’s covenant and its implications to marriage, family, and parenting. I have been using the materials of Dr. Joel R. Beeke – both his writings and audio lectures – as our study guide.

Since almost all of the members of the congregation did not grow up in a Reformed family with covenantal perspective, the Sunday afternoon Covenant Bible study has enriched our understanding of Covenant Theology. All the more we appreciate our rich heritage as Reformed believers. Some of the topics we have covered include 'How to View our Covenant Children,' 'Family Worship,' 'Building Convictions in Our Children,' 'Cultivating Healthy Relationships Among Children,' and 'Raising our Children as Gatekeepers'.

Here's what Dr. Beeke says in his lecture on Building Convictions in Our Children:

"Teach your children to seek communion with God in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. You want to stress with your children through evangelizing [and catechizing] them that all of life is empty without God and they must be always seeking God. What’s important in everything in life is that we seek God’s will. Seek communion with God...All of life revolves around God. Without God all of life is empty. That’s the conviction you want to instill upon your children.

Then there is nothing other than the conviction of the motto of the Reformers that says, “Coram Deo,” which means “In or before the face of God.” You want your children to live with the consciousness that God is always present. That will keep them not only not to commit sin but also help them to seek the Lord’s presence and the Lord’s will. And if that is foundational in their lives, ultimately when you teach them to live on praying ground and to living lives seeking God, and God the Holy Spirit blesses it, you’re 90% on the way home in terms of childrearing because your children leave your home seeking God, knowing to pray spontaneously over everything. It’s going to be alright. They are going to be alright. They’ve got a good foundation. They’ve got built-in convictions. So this is absolutely critical – to be seeking God and be aware of God’s presence."