Mr. Worldly Wise
by Denise Sproul

One of the delights of homesehooling is the maintaining of innocence. Look into the eyes of just about any homesehooled child, whatever his age. Compare what you see there with what you would see looking into the eyes of someone not home-schooled. You know what I'm talking about — that purity and cleanness is undeniable. Of course we understand that we were all conceived in sin, including homeschooled kids. Not one of us stands innocent before the throne of God. Not one of us goes one single day without sinning myriad times in thought, word and deed. When we talk about this innocence in the eyes we are not talking about ignorance; we are referring to a look of openness and trust. This trust is a deep trust in God and in one's parents as the ones leading them into wisdoni. The cause of this trust would be hard to trace specifically, but a big part of it is a lack of exposure to the folly of the world, the refusal to allow our children to be seduced by Mr. Worldly Wise. This is why we are all accused of sheltering our children. Don't forget the succinct way to reply: "Next you'll accuse me of feeding and clothing them too!"

We know that too often when children are age- segregated what results is pooled ignorance. They all seem to descend to the lowest common denominator. As Chuck Swindoll so ably said, "when a glove falls into the dirt, the dirt doesn't get all glovey!" We know also that it is often the most worldly in the crowd that will draw the biggest crowd. Even little children are titillated by the sins of their peers. Even the times they wouldn't think of committing a particular sin, they usually will enjoy watching someone else do it. Probably we are all like that, in our heart of hearts. And just as with Pilgrim, we too often confuse worldliness with wisdom, ennui with sagacity.

We too have drunk from the well of worldliness in that we have adopted a moral egalitarianism. If I let my child play with this one, then all of my children have to be able to play with any of them. But the Bible tells parents to teach their children to choose their friends wisely— Proverbs 13:20. That means helping them learn how to distinguish which friends will encourage them to godliness. That necessitates making distinctions. Yes, you may play with Suzy Q and her sisters because they obey their parents. No, you may not go to the skating party of the girl you met at the horse show who rolls her eyes and talks ugly to her mother. We must teach them to distinguish between the wise and foolish. You might, with the last scenario, give your child the picture of the "ravens of the valley plucking out" that rolling eyeball.

We start the process of shunning worldliness by not succumbing to age-segregation. Mommy and Daddy, while an authority and not the children's 'buddy' are the source of the child's identity. That's part of why God puts us in families and doesn't put our daughter Erin Claire in a group of other two-year-olds to raise her. Can you imagine? The invitation to worldliness is in invitation away from the child's own self-consciousness. Isn't part of worldliness wanting to blend in and be like everyone else? Disobeying Mommy and Daddy, when you identify with them, is like disobeying yourself.

Next in the anti-worldliness crusade is not being shy in talking to our children. We first distinguish between the children of God and the children of the devil, not being too politically correct to refer to them that way. After all, that's how God's Word terms them. They need to be told that there are non-Christian kids out there who can lead them astray. Until you know your children have self-control of their tongues, you might not want to name any names lest they inappropriately announce that information to one and all.

Here, though, comes the hard part (hope you didn't think we got to that already—this needs to be done in the church as well. We warn our children, in humility, and in the context of our own repentance, "Be careful with pew-neighbor b; he has a tendency not to be gentle with girls." "Be careful with sister c, she likes to keep secrets and encourages others to do the same." It might be a general warning about these types of sins, or it might involve naming names. While doing this, we need to also remember our own weaknesses and particular sins, teaching that except for the grace of God we would be committing those sins also and that we all do sin daily. We can also warn them against self-righteousness and point out different bad things that others could learn from following us! All of this means grace toward and honesty with other parents. That is, we do not say, "My child cannot play with sinners because we are all sinners. But it may mean, if I'm that concerned about the influence of this child, I need to not he afraid to say to my sister in Christ (or ask my husband if he thinks it would be appropriate for him to talk to her husband) that perhaps that child's weakness needs some attention. I need to also remember that another parent might at some point be coming to me also with similar concerns and I would hopefully be gracious in welcoming this warning from a fellow believer. We all can have blinders on at times and faithful is the friend who helps us remove them.

Last, once again, steep them in the real deal so they can recog nize the fake. No one who has biblical wisdom will fall for worldly wisdom. Especially helpful is their understanding of this wisdom: we are pilgrims on our way to the Celestial City , and so don't live for the approval of men. How much heartache would we all he saved if we truly understood this and lived it? We must end where we start—the beginning of wisdom and the end of wisdom is to fear God. When we fear God, we fear nothing else.