Be On Guard Against Unbiblical Ideas Creeping into Your Homeschool Material

Preparing for a new school year is a perfect time to evaluate materials for unbiblical content. It’s wise to look over all resources with a critical eye—and not just for obvious subjects like science, history, and literature. Our task is to evaluate materials from our child’s viewpoint. Because they’re actively building their worldview, even subtleties can impact their thinking. In the past, I’ve found unbiblical ideas in the most unlikely places, including in a student book about apologetics of all things. The book contained wrong information about genealogies in the Bible—content that could easily lead a student to doubt Scripture’s trustworthiness.

It’s worth taking the time to look for unbiblical content. There’s always a risk our children will blend unbiblical ideas they encounter into their worldview. Blended worldviews usually come about unintentionally when unbiblical ideas seep in unnoticed. Unbiblical science content can have an especially damaging influence on a young mind, simultaneously weakening confidence in the inerrancy of God’s Word while building trust in man’s ideas.

Dealing with Unbiblical Ideas

Just because we spot an unbiblical idea in a resource doesn’t necessarily mean we need to toss the resource out. First consider your child’s age and maturity level. With that in mind, here are some options for handling harmful content.

1. Talk about it. It’s important to talk with our students about worldviews and explain that people have different ways of seeing the world around them. We should impress upon them the importance of a biblical worldview. Understanding the concept of worldviews will help them be more aware of the impact that ideas have on their own views. It can also help them be more careful to avoid the mistake of blending unbiblical ideas with scriptural truth.
2. Train them. In addition to talking about worldviews, we should train our students to spot different worldviews. The world around us is full of examples! We can train our children to spot worldview in ads, websites, movies, video games, etc. This activity can even be made into a friendly competition to see who can spot an unbiblical worldview first. For older students, worldview analysis makes an excellent topic for a project or writing assignment.
3. Prepare them for life. As our children grow, we should prepare them for the challenges they’ll face in the years to come. As they mature, warn them about the dangers of unbiblical ideas and the Genesis 3 attack where Satan got Eve to doubt and then disobey God’s Word. Point out the many warnings against false teaching in the Epistles and show them how to follow the Berean example by carefully examining Scripture.

At least twice, Jesus cleansed the temple—at the beginning and at the end of his earthly ministry. In just a few years’ time, objectionable things had found their way back in. It’d be nice to think that our work is done once we evaluate our homeschool materials for unbiblical content. Unfortunately, this housekeeping task is ongoing work. Thankfully, our cleaning skills improve over time. As we continue to attune our hearts to the truth of God’s Word, we get better at spotting compromise, and our children do too.

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