These chapters contain the Ten Commandments as well as the heart of one of the main reasons we decided to homeschool our daughter:

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
⁶ “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Whenever I question homeschooling…I look back at these verses.  I am not abdicating my daughter’s education to a state institution that teaches her whatever the modern government thinks ought to be taught.  I am teaching her the Lord’s commandments.  We view education with an eye to the command to love the Lord with all our hearts.  This love is the filter through which we view our academic subjects, and it helps shape our character.

I am so thankful for the blessings promised in these chapters…blessings promised to those who obey.

As we teach our daughter, we give the Lord the opportunity to work through us…from His heart, through ours, and onto hers.  I can’t think of a better privilege…or of a clearer mandate for my family to homeschool than those given in the verses above .