But here are the videos. Below is the quoted commentary.
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I find both of these videos to be highly disturbing. The first one quotes scripture, but without citations. My question for Mark Driscoll would be this: Scripture says that men must provide for their family. Is financial provision the only possible meaning of that passage? I'm not sure that I can agree with that interpretation. It may very well be that the circumstances of a person's life are such that the husband staying at home, allowing the wife to work, is actually a bigger financial provision than the husband working. This turns out to be happening quite a bit.
In both of these examples, I think that they hold up an ideal that is correct. Husbands should provide for their families. Parents should actively insure that their children are being descipled under the biblical worldview.
Now the challenge is that many of us fall short. We live in a fallen world, and we are being rescued from a fallen culture – one that doesn’t necessarily prescribe to the same values as Voddie and Mark. The values being espoused should be something that we can aspire to, not something that we need to feel unchristian about because we are not fully sanctified yet. If you are 18 years old, just setting out on your own, don’t go and aspire to find a Doctor wife so you can stay at home and play all day. Aspire to be a primary provider. But if you are a father of 4, and your wife has a long established career, give yourself some slack… Try to conform to the ideal as much as it is practical. Your situation isn’t ideal, but few are.
Many folks tend to say “Oh, he is just too radical on that issue” and throw out the advice altogether. I do not think this is wise. When we are in less than ideal circumstances we need to understand that. We need to try to compensate for that, and when practical we ought to consider making sacrifices to get ourselves into a more ideal situation.
When it comes to homeschooling, I'm really at a loss for words. The quote that is mentioned from Luke comes in the middle of a passage about judging others. Here's the full context. That passage, to me, says this: don't let people teach you to judge. I don't think it says, "don't let your kids go to public school."
Here's a basic fact, that seems indisputable to me, both biblically, and empiracally: we are each given different skills in life. Bibically, these are called gifts or talents. Empiracally, this is called the division of labor. And both theology and economics find that these differentiated gifts are very, very good things. What if our skills are not in giving our children an education in basic skills like math, reading, writing, history, etc? What if they are best served learning those fields from others with gifts and talents in those areas? Yes, we as parents, are to lead them spiritually, but do you really think that the only way to do that is to extract them from public school and provide all of their education at home? Really? I don't.
I would like to take the advice of the blogger above: and not throw out the advice in these two videos. And I think it's wise to be humble. But I am finding myself, more frequently of late, thinking that a lot of pastors have a difficult time differentiating what works for them with what ought to be prescribed for everyone. And I think the above two videos may be doing that. I think they're interpreting scripture in light of their personal circumstances and coming up with what it means they are to do for their family. But I suspect that they're also then saying, and you ought to do this too, without considering the possibility that each family's circumstances are different.
But I'm willing to listen to others who think differently. Please share your thoughts.
