Supplement vs. Supplant

Homeschool. Christian School. Government School. Private School. Does God’s Word provide any instruction as to who carries the responsibility for training children? Among those who answer here in the affirmative, there is an on-going dialogue (sometimes bickering) regarding the extent to which God’s Word reigns in the realm of child-rearing.

Team Home-Only says that God’s Word is very clear and that those who delegate too much of the training are in sin, regardless of which alternative is chosen. Team Home-Is-Nice says that God’s Word provides helpful suggestions but that parents are granted discretionary power as to allowing their children to be trained in a well-reputed Christian School of some sort. Team Home-Is-Kooky says that God’s Word allows for children to be raised by anyone, including Caesar, as long as parents are diligent to provide regular debriefings.

I am not here attempting to provide a thorough essay on why Team Home-Only is the grand champion, but I do want to single out three words from their description, “delegate too much.” It is my point that the ever-illusive line which should not be crossed is found between the terms supplement and supplant. (Yes, the alliteration is intentional.)

Otherwise stated, when a homeschooling advocate uses a term like “non-delegable” in reference to training, he does not mean to say that a child cannot read a book written by an author outside the family, or that a child cannot attend a course offered by his pastor on Church History. What is meant is that delegation which tends more toward abdication is beyond the “line in the sand.” A Team Home-Only member might give the example of a parent who sends their child to classes at ‘school’ for 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, or the parent who reduces education to reading and completing workbooks and watching videos but leaves out all notions of discipleship, or most obviously the parent who sends a child to be raised by the civil government (even under the semblance of evangelism).

Supplement connotes an addition to right parental training, whereas supplant is to completely substitute (or to overtake the primary role of) parental training by whatever means.

Three wise men recently composed “The Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy,” within which they make simple and clear declarations as to the teaching of Scripture with relation to biblical patriarchy. For instance, it is stated that the family, church, and state each have “real but limited authority in its ordained sphere.” So, yes, church and state have real God-given authority, but the training of children falls within the family’s ‘ordained sphere.’

Later sections in the same document read this way:
“Christian parents must provide their children with a thoroughly Christian education, one that teaches the Bible and a biblical view of God and the world. Fathers are sovereign over the training of their children and, with their wives, are the children’s chief teachers. Christian parents are bound to obey the command personally to walk beside and train their children. The Christian should build his educational methodology from the word of God... Biblical education is discipleship, a process designed to reach the heart. Since the educational mandate belongs to parents and they are commanded personally to walk beside and train their children, they ought not to transfer responsibility for the educational process to others. However, they have the liberty to delegate components of that process. While they should exercise great caution and reserve in doing this, it is prudent to take advantage of the diversity of gifts within the body of Christ and enjoy the help and support that comes with being part of a larger community with a common purpose.”

Does your understanding of God's Word allow for delegation which seems more like a supplement or supplanting?