Rewritten into the modern vernacular by yours truly:)
Part 2 --In a Nutshell: "Stop talking about 'Me Time', pick up a book, and learn something."
Longer Version as Follows:
If you want to train up your children in the way they should go, Ladies, you have to be devoted to the cultivation of your own minds.
You must take the rare, golden moments of leisure that come to you as a woman and a mother and use them with wisdom and discernment. Read meaty, substantive books when you can--even if it is one or two pages here and there between other tasks.
Attune your ear to issues of global, local, and cultural importance. Listen to good sermons and lectures. Engage in challenging conversations. Place yourself near wise teachers.
In other words, you have to actively seek out and store up useful knowledge in your own sweet head before you can impart it to your children.
Really, this ought to have been done before you took up the position you now hold, but sadly, the "education" which most of us received in our youth has left many of us in intellectual poverty--deficient and ill prepared to mold the minds of the next generation.
A hammer in the hands of a toddler is not a tool, it is a weapon. In the same way, knowledge without wisdom is a weapon.
Education, properly defined, is "the training of the intellect, the conscience, and the affections."
Does this describe your youthful educational experience? If not, how do you propose to inform, instruct, and enlighten your children?
You, Mothers, are the ones who must equip your children, not only to gain knowledge, but to use it wisely and for good, and you cannot give what you do not yourselves possess.
Are you comfortable with leaving them to the the methods and models of an educational establishment that is content to feed children a trickle of facts, but neglects to explain how to use that knowledge in a moral context?
**Note--In the original sermon, there followed a warning about the dangers of then-current educational practices for young women; namely, the emphasis on a woman's value being tied to her ability to look pretty and possess certain ornamental accomplishments, "securing admiration and applause" while allowing her mind to languish.
I will attempt to update the warning to fit the even more dire circumstances in which we now find ourselves:(
As it did in the 1800's, our culture still puts a young woman's value on being pretty and popular, although we have now allowed it to strip her of modesty, dignity, and propriety, laying her open to every selfish abuse of soul and body imaginable.
Modern society frustrates her with unattainable images of beauty, venerates female vapidity, and denigrates the value of traditional virtues.
It mocks religion, and lies about the soul-searing consequences of sin.
And then, after 12 years of telling a girl to kill every natural instinct and inhibition, it sets her loose to complete her own destruction, bruised, naked and snarling--ludicrously crowing about how powerful she has become.
Mothers, can you speak with wisdom and clarity to your daughters about how and why they should ignore the incessant crooning of a pop culture that is obsessed with their bodies? Can you help them overcome the temptation to become an object, valued only for it's beauty and the pleasure it can give?
Can you tell them why they shouldn't be satisfied with cheap admiration and shallow praise? Can you ignite their passion to become women of strength and character--culture shapers instead of zombies of conformity?
How about your sons? Do you know how to instruct them in godly manhood? How will you equip them to walk through minefields of perversity, to recognize righteousness and unmask falsity unless you are willing to learn those skills yourself first and then articulate them?
Do not forget the primary end of education! Above all else it is to "know God, and make Him known." We are to be teaching with a view to the future duties of our children, not just imparting dusty facts.
Reverend Cameron wrote, "People, in order to find pleasure in duty, must have been trained to consider their duties as pleasures," and he urges women to continue, for as long as they live, to educate themselves, adding to their mental resources in order that they may equip their children to be over-comers.
It is cruel to lay up for your children a store of future wretchedness by giving them bits and pieces of an education--hints of a cohesive world view, but not the whole picture--while all the while the world is relentlessly emphasizing and rewarding their ability to dazzle and charm, creating in them an appetite for applause, winking at youthful selfishness, lavishing praise on rebellious behaviors, and undermining parental authority.
Do not be satisfied with a mere "2 + 2=4" view. Go a step further!
"Dear Child, here is how math works--and here is how you can best use your knowledge of math (or science, or writing, or art, or philosophy) to communicate the truth of God to a waiting world."
That is education. And it is not something that anyone else will do for your children.
It is your job.
In fact, the educational establishment, by removing the moral and religious element from public education, has created a vacuum which is being filled by a relentless stream of cultural sewage--airbrushed visions of sexual satisfaction, the worship of physical perfection and athletic prowess, the puffery of pop-stardom, the exaggerated importance of self-esteem, self-love, self-indulgence, and self-satisfaction.
It is a constant, hypnotic thrumming in their ears. Are you loud enough to overcome it? Do you even know what to say?
Who else is going to educate them on how to pick a spouse? How to be a good mother or father? What it means to "love your neighbor as yourself", or how to be an honorable employee?
How will they discern the proper (and improper) uses of science, or art, or medicine? Who will introduce them to the hard blessings of duty? Honor?
What are the ethics of running a business, or running for office, or practicing law? Why should they care?
They will flounder under anything less than purposeful, passionate, consistent, cohesive, persuasive, biblically based teaching, and it must start with you.
And so I repeat, Mothers, you must actively cultivate your own minds.
Unfortunately, this does not happen while you are watching your favorite TV shows, scrolling through Facebook posts, reading novels, or vegging out in front of a movie. Nor does it happen while you are out shopping, puttering around in the garden, redecorating your mudroom, paying bills, baking, mopping your floors, or while you are taking care of the many other tangible needs of your households.
Hours must be carved out of your busy lives and devoted to your own continuing education, somehow. No more excuses.
Bottom line--you must be willing to be ruthless with your "Me Time," if it is standing in the way of your study of the Scriptures, meditation, and prayer, or if it is preventing you gaining knowledge in other areas.
Please do not be content with a superficial exposure to the things of God! "Seek to know them in all their depth and fullness, tracing their bearings and connections, studying their harmonies and proportions" so that by having the Word of Christ dwelling in you, you might be "thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
And do not stop with Scripture! All knowledge is God's knowledge. Let your mind take in as broad a range of material as time and circumstances permit, from a wide variety of sources, but then be sure to take your learning to the foot of the Cross and "there let it be solemnly dedicated to the service of Him who died that sinful men might live."
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Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress
them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when
you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
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