We find that our Lord Jesus, in consummate glory, will be Shepherding His people for all eternity. The Apostle John tells us that in glory, “the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them [i.e. the redeemed] and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” After all the under-shepherds have come and gone we will see that the Shepherd, who became the Lamb that was slain for the sheep, will continue to shepherd His people by giving them everlasting joy and peace in His presence. 

As we consider the many biblical theological themes that are unfolded throughout the Scriptures, our minds ought to be drawn to many of the passages in OT historical narrative and the prophetic literature in which we discover a synthesis of typological imagery brought under the light of prophetical fulfillment. Ezekiel 37:24-27 is one such passage. There, we find the Lord promising to raise up a Shepherd-King–under the typical name of David–to shepherd His people in the New Covenant–to dwell with them and protect them:
“David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore” (Ezekiel 37:24-27).
This succinct New Covenant prophecy combines the most prominent biblical-theological themes of redemptive-history (i.e. king, land, covenant, descendants, presence of God and dwelling place) in typological prospective. What is striking is that Shepherd is included among the other well known BT themes. On one hand, this ought to be surprising to us; on the other, it ought to be one of the most naturally anticipated. Consider the following biblical-theological developments regarding the Shepherd theme in Scripture:
The Scriptures draw our attention, at the beginning of redemptive-history, to the fact that the very first person martyred for his faith in Christ was a Shepherd. Abel was a righteous Shepherd who was envied, despised and murdered by his brother. Jesus is THE RIGHTEOUS SHEPHERD who was envied, despised and murdered by His brethren (Matthew 21:38; 27:18; Mark 15:10 ). Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the Sheep. Additionally, the fact that Shepherding was one of the very first occupations in human history shows us that it was God’s plan to set this apart for an analogy to reflect His relationship to His people.
In his departing covenantal blessing pronounced on Joseph, Jacob addressed God as being his Shepherd when he said: “God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day” (Gen. 48:15). One of the chief characteristics of a Shepherd is that he feeds his sheep. God feeds His people with the rich food of His word. He feeds us also with His own flesh and blood in the Person of His Son. In the subsequent blessing on Joseph he spoke of the coming Redeemer by the name of “the Shepherd:” Again, Jacob alludes to the LORD as Shepherd when he pronounced a covenant blessing on his son prior to his death: “But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob (From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel)” (Genesis 49:24).
The patriarchs are said to have been shepherds. When Joseph is speaking to his brothers about what they are to say to Pharaoh, we read: “Then Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, and say to him, ‘My brothers and those of my father’s house, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me.’ 32
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When a culture loses its grip on those foundations, the “experts” (or, as C.S. Lewis called them “conditioners”) step in. They loudly suggest that a college degree in education and a place on the government’s payroll gives someone the vocational and moral authority over kids. Don’t buy it. That authority belongs to God, Who assigns it to parents, along with the responsibility to educate children. If we believe that, we should also trust Him to equip us to rise to the occasion of raising our children.

On Tuesday, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated incumbent Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor race. The issue that gave Youngkin the edge was education, something that Republicans in Virginia typically do not perform as well on. Things have apparently changed in the Commonwealth, however, after a year and a half of school shutdowns, heated disagreements over masking policies, debates over whether Critical Theory should be taught in the classroom on issues of race and LGBTQ, a horrific cover-up by the Loudon County school board, and, especially, Governor McAuliffe’s comment during a September debate that parents ‘shouldn’t be telling schools what to teach.’ 
As shocked as Virginians were by the statement, the view of education it reflects has a storied history. The late sociologist Christopher Lasch described it in his 1979 bestseller, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. Lasch believed that when industrialization took labor outside of the home, it led many Americans to question whether other responsibilities should leave home, too. Lasch quotes two national education officials who, in 1918, said, “Once the school had mainly to teach the elements of knowledge; now it is charged with the physical, mental and social training of the child as well.”
Around the same time, Sigmund Freud was psychoanalyzing parenthood, often casting parents in the role of villain. This was also the era in which the modern concept of social work was born, and when America launched the juvenile justice system. Entire industries were built upon the premise that parents were largely unqualified to raise their kids, or at least needed a lot of help from the state. In the late 1800s, Ellen Richards, the founder of modern social work, suggested that “in a social republic, the child as a future citizen is an asset of the state, not the property of its parents.”
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The Left may want your compliance, but it wants your children’s minds and hearts. They consume your children by keeping them away from you and immersing them in an education and culture soaked with their ideology. Your responsibility as a parent is to remove them from the jaws of this monster and place them on the solid foundation that you create, with your family, in your home, defended by your community.

The Left desperately needs to convert your children. While the Right is open to children and supportive of large families, the Left is increasingly anti-childbirth (“Want to fight climate change? Have fewer children,” writes the Guardian’s Damian Carrington). So unless our new woke Left finds young converts to fill its ranks, it will die. They are working hard at this conversion project everywhere. Leftism is rampant in public schools, of course, but also in many private schools, religious institutions, youth programs, social media, movies, advertisements, music, billboards, and likely even in the minds of your kids’ friends.
How can parents protect their children against this all-consuming indoctrination? In a hostile society, one of the most viable options is homeschooling—as a lifestyle. Homeschooling makes parents into their children’s primary educators, as they should be. Hence homeschooling grows ever more popular as the Left grows ever more aggressive.
Sure, your kids might turn out alright in school—but why take the risk? It might be more difficult than the drop-off/pick-up ritual, but if you care about your kids’ formation, don’t let logistics be the thing that stands in the way. With this in mind, here are a few practical tips for how and why to make it happen.
Taking Charge as Your Children’s Primary Educator
Homeschooling doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to design a curriculum from scratch or teach every subject to your child. What it does mean is that you are free to choose your child’s curriculum and who teaches it. With a little research you can find plenty of good resources to help you form a curriculum and instructions on how to get started homeschooling. The key is that you’re the one in charge. As school principal, dean, and teacher, you have the power to replace problematic textbooks, discipline your children, and indoctrinate them in the way you see fit. You don’t have to go through a bureaucracy to make any necessary adjustments.
In the early years, being your child’s instructor—the one with the answers—builds your child’s instinct to come to you with their questions, doubts, and problems. As your children get older, they increasingly learn to take responsibility for their own education—planning out their own school (and work) schedule and learning to learn without someone holding their hand every step of the way. All this takes place within the environment of the home—where it is safe to fail and learn from mistakes without suffering the worst consequences.
Functioning as a Family
Of course, education is about much more than just academics. The education a child receives involves how they learn to live life—whom they associate with, what they believe, and how they behave. The freedom that comes with homeschooling allows parents to center their schedule around their family life. Your children need to know how to put family before themselves. Doing this isn’t only a tool for educating them: it’s a valuable life lesson.
Do not underestimate the importance of doing things together as a family. My parents continue to make sure we do as many things as possible together—going to church, shopping, taking walks and hikes, and prioritizing events that every member of the family can attend. My mother leads us in morning prayer before we all eat breakfast. Our family has an hours-long evening routine, beginning with dinner, then flowing into stories for the younger kids, prayer time, and finally some time for the older children to listen to and discuss a book or two with my mother (currently it’s Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies).
When your actions make it clear that your priority is your family, your children, too, see that your principles and priorities should be theirs. By learning to sacrifice personal pleasures for the good and unity of the family in small ways, your children learn to become better husbands and fathers, wives and mothers.
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