Luke 1:80 :

The child was growing, and becoming strong in spirit, and was in the desert until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

I think that the leading complaint I hear today about homeschooling children is that they will become underdeveloped socially. I believe that we have a great example right here that becoming well developed socially involves your relationship to God more than it does your relationship with people.

Here we read that John the Baptist was raised in the desert until he became an adult. This is pretty interesting because John spent his adult life interfacing with many people who admired him dearly. I wouldn’t be surprised if certain people, who didn’t like what John was preaching, accused him of being socially out-of-place. It is true that he lived off of the land and didn’t really care what people said but does that mean that he had a problem? Or, did he just challenge the exiting powers because he was so “strong in spirit?”

I think that arrogance and jealousy are deceptive to the rich and powerful. They seem to automatically use their positions of power to attack what appears to go against their pride or threatens their income. Perhaps those people who fight against homeschooling are doing it because it has been so much more successful than the methods that are employed by the public school system. The humanist would expect that a system that was made by humanity for the benefit of humanity should be more successful than a system that depends upon God.

I’ve also noticed that some are using it as an excuse to indoctrinate youth in ways that their parents would not approve. Governments often strive for control over people against the will of God. Instead of humbly taking the power and using it to help bring justice to the poor, they defy God and use it as a way to bring glory to themselves at the expense of justice. We are about to read how the Roman government decided to take a census which forced people to travel at their own expense. I guess things have changed little in all of mankind’s effort to save themselves. We cannot defy God and expect to live well, because He is our creator. We will be strongest in spirit when we take the time to concentrate on His word.