11 May 2012

Stop with the Salt and Light

Yikes! WHAT is she going to write about with a title like THAT???
 
I got an indirect jibe this week via Facebook. Some people are so passionate about what they believe that they simply aren't capable of opening their minds to the possibility that another way of doing things just might be okay,or, dare I say, better? I have learned not to close my mind to the possibility that I might not have everything 100% figured out. Or 50% figured out. Or...at all figured out.

Christians are called to be salt and light. To have an effect on the world, we must be in the world and not of it. Have you heard all of this, Christian readers? Sure you have. This is one of the basic truths of our mission as Christians.

What is not a basic truth of our mission as Christians is that our children are supposed to be evangelizing the world. Children are put into our lives for us to evangelize and disciple them, not for them to be evangelizing others. There are countless scriptures that support this truth. COUNTLESS.

Would you send a child into any other vocation to do an adult's job? Nope. Sure wouldn't.

I'm not saying that a child can't have a heart for evangelism. I'm just saying that God did not design for children to be doing what they have not yet been prepared to do. It is our job as parents to train them up in the way they should go and to protect them until they are ready.

So don't use "salt and light" as your excuse to put your kids in public school, and please don't even think of trying to tell me that I should put my kids in public school so they can be salt and light either. 

And...for the record, this isn't an anti-public school, all Christians should homeschool kind of post. This is a "stop the salt and light" guilt trip. It simply isn't true. It doesn't hold up to scriptural truth. So...don't do it.

4 comments:

  1. Amen! And I will add - from me, of course, not you - that I don't think there are many Christian kids truly called into public schools. Just like Moses is the only person Scripture specifies as having been specifically called to be raised/educated in an ungodly environment, so, too, I think it's the rare kid indeed who can be "out there" in that environment. Yet so many Christian parents use public schools as the default, using the faulty salt and light argument to justify their...okay, I'll say it - spiritual laziness. Ugh. Only 15% of kids from Christian families who attend public school will come out with their faith intact. Now that's beyond scary.

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    1. I agree with you. Most Christian parents believe that their child will be the one who makes it through with their faith in tact, or they take an even more worldly approach & accept that all adolescents are rebellious & need to act out. I don't want to take that risk with my children. God didn't give them to me for me to risk their souls.

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    2. I agree with you. Most Christian parents believe that their child will be the one who makes it through with their faith in tact, or they take an even more worldly approach & accept that all adolescents are rebellious & need to act out. I don't want to take that risk with my children. God didn't give them to me for me to risk their souls.

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  2. "What is not a basic truth of our mission as Christians is that our children are supposed to be evangelizing the world." so true! and btw... the last line should be like this: "So...don't. do. it." ;)

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