The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Should Churches Deny Membership To Families That Use Public Schools？

00:00:00.000 All right, listen, guys, I get it.

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00:00:42.740 Question from the Youngs.

00:00:43.840 Do you believe that a family should be denied membership

00:00:46.260 in the church if they do not homeschool

00:00:48.640 or have their children in Christian education?

00:00:52.180 Me and my wife were told that we had to prove repentance.

00:00:56.200 Okay, prove repentance.

00:00:57.280 Don't like that.

00:00:58.060 by homeschooling and by my wife quitting her job to be in the home before we would be considered

00:01:05.360 for membership. Your thoughts, please. Great question. Okay. Christians cannot use public

00:01:11.480 school, period. They can't. So I agree with that. With this one, Nathan, just keep the question up 1.00

00:01:17.440 because I'm going to take a couple of segments. All right. So Christians can't use public schools.

00:01:22.640 Public schools, neutrality is a myth. That's what I've been doing this whole episode. Moral 1.00

00:01:27.080 neutrality is a myth. Religious neutrality is a myth. Worship neutrality is a myth, right? So 0.92

00:01:33.640 public schools are state schools. It's pluralism. It's secularism. It's, and the biblical word would

00:01:43.980 be, it's polytheism. It's public atheism. That's what it is. And so your children are being taught

00:01:50.600 to hate the living God. And so, yes, as a father who's commanded to train your children up in the

00:01:56.900 fear and admonition of the Lord, that chiefly, that's mothers and fathers, but chiefly falls

00:02:00.360 on fathers, fathers, Ephesians chapter six, do not exasperate your children, but train them up in the

00:02:05.120 fear and paideia, the Christian curriculum, the Christian curriculum, the fear of the Lord and

00:02:11.720 Christian teaching. Okay. So, so you got to do that. You have to do that. You can do it. There

00:02:18.200 are multiple ways to do it and there are debates to be had about which way is better, but there

00:02:21.840 are certain ways that you can't do it. And you can't do it by using a public, atheistic, polytheistic,

00:02:28.160 God-hating school. That's called a public school. So you can't do that. So your church is right

00:02:33.120 that your kids can't go to public school. Now, here's the deal, though. This is where I would

00:02:37.800 disagree with your pastors. It's a good sentiment, but I wouldn't enforce it this way. This is not

00:02:44.320 how I would practically carry it out. So me and my wife were told that we had to prove repentance.

00:02:49.800 So that you got to be careful with, all right? So Acts mentions this phrase, this concept of

00:02:55.740 doing good works in keeping with repentance. But there's a fine line between penance

00:03:02.280 and good works in keeping with repentance. And I've done some teaching on this before,

00:03:06.900 actually with A.D. Robles, I think. But one of the ways I think just practically to distinguish

00:03:12.240 between penance, which is heresy, that's Roman Catholicism, working for God's grace, working

00:03:20.880 for atonement, working for forgiveness, and doing good works in keeping with repentance,

00:03:26.200 is it, this is just one way to distinguish between the two. When it comes to penance,

00:03:32.580 man will always tell you what to do, what your penance is specifically. You must do this. Your

00:03:39.400 Repentance is this many Hail Marys and this many Our Fathers and this, you know, blah,

00:03:43.220 blah, blah.

00:03:43.720 Whereas doing good works and keeping with repentance, the Holy Spirit decides, because

00:03:48.060 He governs and controls your sanctification, He decides what those good works are.

00:03:53.500 So, for instance, somebody could repent.

00:03:56.540 Now, it's going to fall into the category of that particular sin, though, okay?

00:04:00.580 So, there are some baselines.

00:04:01.840 There are some...

00:04:03.820 It's not a free-for-all.

00:04:06.080 There's some guardrails on this, okay?

00:04:07.920 So, if a guy is claiming to repent of sexual immorality, well, doing good works in keeping

00:04:16.160 with repentance, so that we know that that repentance is genuine, is going to look like

00:04:20.680 him being sanctified, doing good works in that arena of he failed in sexual immorality.

00:04:25.740 So, there's elements of sexual purity, okay?

00:04:30.140 But the Holy Spirit still dictates that.

00:04:31.880 So if we say, um, you are not repentant, we will not view you as repentant unless you

00:04:39.200 repent of your sexual immorality by, um, getting covenant eyes on your laptop and, um, and

00:04:47.380 selling your iPhone and buying a flip phone.

00:04:51.560 And the guy says, well, I can't have a flip phone because of the nature of my work.

00:04:56.160 Um, and, and so I'm not going to do that.

00:04:59.400 but I am going to get accountability partners and I'm going to do this. I'm going to do these other

00:05:03.280 things. And then he actually is bearing good, good works in keeping with repentance. And six

00:05:07.680 months go by and the pastor say, but you didn't do it our way. Well, that there's your sign. Boom.

00:05:13.140 That's a clear. And so you see what I'm saying? So the specificity of what those good works in

00:05:18.200 keeping with repentance are is, is usually a good sign of whether you're getting into the

00:05:22.840 realm of penance, man saying, you must repent like this. You must do good works in keeping

00:05:27.440 with repentance, I would say yes and amen. And this is precisely what those good works will look

00:05:32.060 like. I would say, whoa, hold it there, Pope. You know, that's, that's all right. That's, that's

00:05:38.000 Rome. Cut that out. Okay. So let's, let's not do penance. Let's not be heretics. Now here's the

00:05:43.320 deal with what you're saying. And I'm sure there's a myriad of other details that, you know,

00:05:47.480 variables that you could share, but based off of what you've written, um, me and my wife were told

00:05:52.580 that we had to prove repentance. So I'm going to interpret that giving your pastors the most

00:05:56.820 benefit of the doubt that I can. I'm going to interpret that as me and my wife were told by

00:06:01.640 our pastors that we needed to bear good works in keeping with repentance by homeschooling and by

00:06:08.040 my wife quitting her job to be in the home before we would be considered for membership. So first,

00:06:14.860 I would say I would disagree that homeschooling is the only option. I think it's a great option.

00:06:21.780 it might be even the best option. But I do not believe that I biblically can make an argument 0.99

00:06:27.220 that it's the only option, right? Brian Sauve and Eric Kahn and Dan Burkholder, the King's Hall

00:06:32.600 guys, you know, with their St. Brendan, I think, St. Brendan's Academy in Ogden, Utah, with their

00:06:40.260 church, and that's their classical Christian school. And they do great work, and I think

00:06:44.840 that's a great option. And Eric Kahn has actually made some decent arguments for why he thinks that

00:06:49.420 sending your kids to a classical Christian school is better than homeschooling.

00:06:56.140 And I think he has some, I think there's some merit to what he's saying. And I would push back

00:07:00.240 on some things and I would agree with some things. And then, you know, you've got, of course, Doug

00:07:04.000 Wilson with Logos, his school. So number one, I would say it doesn't have to be, so that's getting

00:07:10.400 a little bit more specific than I would like. I think we're drifting. I'm not saying that is

00:07:14.560 penance definitively, but we're getting a little, we're getting a little popish. You know what I

00:07:19.580 mean? So that's a little more popy than I would like. Let's move away from the poopy popy into

00:07:23.940 the, you know, into the more of the, let's let the Holy Spirit decide what those good works are.

00:07:28.380 But okay, then what can we say definitively? Well, we can say no public school. You can say

00:07:34.420 that strictly from the Bible. That's not penance, that's Bible. Okay. Here's the final thing that

00:07:40.400 I would say, though. In our current moment, cultural moment, where Christians have been

00:07:45.580 so deceived and lied to by pastors, Big Eva, Gospel Coalition, this and that, well, your kids 0.57

00:07:51.520 are missionaries, and where our economy has been destroyed by feminism, right? Nobody loves feminism 1.00

00:07:56.480 more than men, right? Especially rich men who can now pay their employees less, because when that 1.00

00:08:05.480 employee says, but I have a household of five, a wife and three kids. This isn't a livable wage.

00:08:11.100 The employer can just say, well, who gave you the audacity to think that you can have a single

00:08:17.100 income family? Why is your wife not working for me too? Feminism liberated wives from building up 1.00

00:08:23.920 the household of their man, namely their husband, to building up the house of the man, namely 1.00

00:08:32.360 corporate America. And women were foolish enough because women do tend to be deceived more easily 0.99

00:08:39.160 than men. They were foolish and men didn't guard women from this, just like Adam failing in the 1.00

00:08:43.880 garden. Women were deceived by the serpent, in this case, Leviathan, the state and culture and 1.00

00:08:49.560 all these kinds of things in Hollywood to thinking, I'm liberated from the shackles of children and

00:08:54.220 marriage and family. And women now are less happy and they've been shackled, liberated from the 0.95

00:09:01.200 shackle of a white picket fence in suburban America and then shackled to working for some 0.99

00:09:08.160 Fortune 500 company 60 hours a week and never getting to have children and watching their

00:09:14.500 womb shut down and their biological clock running out and then all of a sudden having

00:09:20.660 massive regrets, right? 1.00

00:09:21.860 So yay, feminism. 1.00

00:09:22.760 Okay, so feminism, but that's still a reality. 0.54

00:09:25.760 So because of the failure of the church, the failure of men not standing up and then perverse 0.86

00:09:30.840 men who love feminism because feminism serves men, doesn't serve women, serves men, wicked men. 0.99

00:09:37.300 Because of all those things, faithful men being cowards, wicked men lying, and then foolish women 0.99

00:09:45.200 taking the bait and being deceived and all these different things. And I would include the 19th 0.95

00:09:51.160 Amendment in that women's suffrage, all these things ruined our country. They did. They did. 1.00

00:09:56.800 and they ruined our economy

00:09:58.600 because everything's tied together, right?

00:10:00.040 It's not just, you know, independent compartments.

00:10:02.080 It's like spaghetti.

00:10:02.840 Everything affects everything.

00:10:04.000 So you ruin culture.

00:10:05.320 It affects politics.

00:10:06.220 It affects economics, all these different things

00:10:07.840 because of that.

00:10:09.240 And then that's just, that's the larger picture, right?

00:10:11.540 The last hundred years.

00:10:12.320 Well, let's just look now more narrow the last two years.

00:10:16.140 Joe Biden, inflation, you know, all these things.

00:10:18.520 It is really, really, really hard

00:10:20.420 for a family that hasn't had this theology

00:10:24.940 of understanding the importance of children

00:10:26.660 being raised with a Christian education and a single income home and all those kinds of things,

00:10:31.080 it's really hard to all of a sudden come into that theology, change your mind, but then practically

00:10:36.460 and fiscally, financially make it happen. And so I think we're just living in a time where there's

00:10:42.460 going to have to be a lot of grace. Not grace from pastors saying, oh, public school's fine.

00:10:47.120 No, but grace saying it's okay for it to take some time. So this is what I would do in my church.

00:10:54.720 I would say, number one, it doesn't have to be homeschool. It just has to be Christian school,

00:10:58.840 Christian homeschool or Christian school. But it can't be public school because that's

00:11:02.720 anti-Christ school. We don't send our kids to anti-Christian school. Okay. So it's got to be

00:11:07.420 Christian school. And the mom, the mother, she needs to be a keeper at home. That's Titus chapter 0.99

00:11:14.620 two. That doesn't mean she can't work like Proverbs 31, have her hand in this or hand in that.

00:11:18.700 But her chief ministry is working in the home with the children. So even if they use a 1.00

00:11:24.540 Christian classical school, and she has a few hours each day, it still needs to be home-oriented,

00:11:29.000 children-oriented. She's a lover of her children. She is a keeper at home, those kinds of things.

00:11:33.480 So that's all non-negotiable. But what I would say is it doesn't just have to be homeschool.

00:11:37.520 Let's broaden out. I think that's getting a little bit too specific. There can be other

00:11:42.160 Christian options of education. And then two, let's broaden the options of Christian education,

00:11:49.360 And then let's also, let's lengthen the time to make this happen.

00:11:53.460 So what I would require, if somebody was pursuing membership, I would say, if it came up and

00:12:01.400 I had knowledge about, oh, kids go to a public school and what, you know, what do you, and

00:12:05.760 they're like, yeah, the kids go to public school.

00:12:07.700 Our kids are missionaries.

00:12:08.600 You know, we view our kids as missionaries.

00:12:09.960 And it's like, well, okay, like, do you enlist your seven-year-old in the army?

00:12:14.260 Then why are you doing it in spiritual terms?

00:12:16.600 Why are you enlisting your seven-year-old in a spiritual war?

00:12:19.360 No, no, no. Kids are not missionaries. They're not soldiers. Kids are in training. And once

00:12:25.320 they're grown and the arrow is fully fashioned and sharpened, then we send them out. We don't

00:12:31.460 send them out when they're seven. We send them out when they're 18 or whatever, when they're men, 0.96

00:12:36.260 when they're women, when they're adults. And so I would correct them. And I'd say, no, no, no,

00:12:40.700 no. You got to change the way you view kids. Change the way you orient the home,

00:12:46.280 your view of the home, your kid needs a distinctly Christian education, and the state will not 0.99

00:12:51.460 provide that. So you can't do that. But then I would say, but there are multiple options. There's 0.99

00:12:56.140 homeschooling, there's hybrids, there's different chapters and classical conversations, and there's

00:13:00.640 Christian schools, and there's this and that, and this school of thought, and that school of thought,

00:13:03.860 and you can do logos online with curriculums that you can get, all these different things.

00:13:08.500 So there's a lot of different options. And because it's so hard right now, it's so hard,

00:13:13.600 because we've so sinned against the home, the household, and there are economic implications 0.82

00:13:20.520 to feminism, there's economic, you know, and political implications and all these different 1.00

00:13:26.340 things. What we would require for membership is that you simply agree. Not that you make it happen 0.99

00:13:33.140 before becoming a member, but you agree. You agree that it is right and good for women

00:13:37.740 to be oriented around the children and keepers at home. You believe that Christian children must 1.00

00:13:45.280 receive a Christian education and that they cannot be sent to public school. And you agree that for 1.00

00:13:50.520 the most part, you're trying, seeking for the husband to be a protective provider and work

00:13:55.680 towards, for the most part, a single income family. Husband working out of the home, wife working in

00:14:01.560 the home, some variants and things like that. There are details, and the kids getting a Christian

00:14:06.280 education. So first, let's change your theology. Repent of your bad theology. That would be

00:14:12.320 required. Repenting for your bad views. And then the good work in keeping with repentance wouldn't

00:14:18.680 be that you made everything happen and that you're no longer a two-income, because that takes time.

00:14:24.680 The good works in keeping with repentance is you repent of your bad theology,

00:14:29.160 and then the good works are that you're making a plan. It doesn't mean that you accomplished it all

00:14:35.180 overnight, but you're making a plan and that you're able to say to your pastor, we've got a

00:14:39.720 year plan or even a two-year plan to try to scale back, you know, for me to try to make more as a

00:14:46.660 husband for us to lower our budget as a family. And I got to go and be with my kids here in just

00:14:51.480 a second, but lower our budget as a family to live on less, to get mom out of work or at least

00:14:56.380 working part-time and for us to be able to do this with a kid's education so we don't have to do

00:15:00.740 public school. We've got a plan. And I would say, wonderful. Welcome into membership. Right? I think

00:15:07.040 that that's the way I would handle it. All right. All right. All right. Stop twisting my arm. I know

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The NXR Podcast - December 24, 2022

QUESTIONS - Should Churches Deny Membership To Families That Use Public Schools？

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