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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Reading your Bible saturates your mind and heart in the love of God for you, which will motivate you to even greater obedience in the future. Though you may not get a nugget of practical application right now, the good news will inflame your desire for such obedience in perpetuity.

I believe in practical application. Here are more than ten biblical reasons why you should do it. But the dangers are legion if you come to your Bible reading with nothing but practical application on your mind. You might rush—or even worse, skip!—your observation or interpretation for the sake of that practical nugget. Your application might come unmoored from the text and take you in exactly the wrong direction. You might fall into the well-worn path of failing to identify any applications beyond the Big Three.
And there is a major opportunity cost involved. Treat personal application as the only consistent outcome for your Bible reading, and you may simply miss out on these other benefits the Lord wishes for you.
1. Storing Up Now for the Coming Winter
A regular habit of Bible reading is worth maintaining, even when no urgent or timely application comes readily to mind, because you are depositing divine truth in the storehouses of your soul from which you can later make withdrawals. “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Ps 119:11). “My son, keep your father’s commandments … bind them on your heart always … When you walk, they will lead you … For the commandment is a lamp … to preserve you from the evil woman, from the the smooth tongue of the adulteress” (Prov 6:20-24).
We ought to consider the ant and be wise (Prov 6:6-11, 30:24-25), not only with respect to our work ethic but also with respect to our truth ethic. It is foolish to abstain from Bible reading because it’s not practical enough for today. When the time of temptation arrives, you will have an empty storehouse—an empty heart—with no stockpile of resources available to supply your resistance.
2. Receiving Comfort Amid Sorrow
It is true that suffering people need time and space to process. Yet may it never be that our “time and space” isolate us from the Lord, when they ought to bind us more tightly to him. The laments of the Bible are wonderful for giving us words when we don’t know what to say, and feelings when we don’t know what to feel. The Spirit who intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Rom 8:26) is the same Spirit who inspired the words of the prophets and apostles to give expression to such groanings (1 Pet 1:10-12).
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God enriched my life not only with friends like Dorie Howell, but with friends of so many different nationalities and diverse races.  My life has been etched time and again with such diversity.  But the most important etching in my life and on my heart is that of my most beloved Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I must have seen it a thousand times over, my name, Helen Louise, etched in glass on a flower vase.  Above my name is etched a small songbird with flapped wing sitting on a small branch.  It sits holding pale artificial flowers on the sink in my bathroom.  Every time I wash my hands, wash my face, put on makeup, comb my hair or push it into its waves after shampooing, I see it. And yet this morning, it was more than seen.  It was a reminder of a very dear friend who gave it to me as a gift.
That dear friend was Dorie Howell, a graduate student I met in college my freshman year as an undergraduate student at our Christian college founded by an Irish Presbyterian minister in Columbia, South Carolina.  Dorie was one of those delightful people who was always cheerful—one might even call her the “life of the party.”  She was quite tall, while I was so short.  We only knew each other there for a year and a half, as she returned to California to begin teaching kindergarten.  Through correspondence, our friendship grew and became punctuated with visits to California, to her family’s cabin in Colorado, and her visits to her sister and family in St. Louis.  Dorie was also a twin whose sister was named Lorie.  Dorie and Lorie.  Another interesting fact about Dorie was she and her sister, as toddlers, were babysat by Marilyn Monroe when she was still Norma Jean before becoming a star.
Our friendship continuously grew and endured many years until God took her home following a long bout with ovarian cancer.  I had visited her in California less than a year before she died sensing what the outcome of her medical battle would be.  One day while at work, I telephoned her in the hospital from my office when one could charge calls to one’s home telephone.  I felt compelled to call her and to attempt to encourage her.  That very day a few hours later when I returned home, her twin sister telephoned me to let me know Dorie passed and was with the Lord.  I was so struck that I called her only a few hours before her departure.  God has a way of letting us know what we must do and when.
This morning seeing that etched vase reminded me that not only was my name etched on a vase; my friend remains etched on my heart.  So many years later, I recall so many conversations and experiences with this dear friend and sister-in-Christ—conversations and experiences that not only formed a deep and rich friendship but edified us both in the Lord.  We both shared a deep and rich love for our mutual Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  We both sought to serve Christ by making Him known to others.  Dorie, remaining single, loved children and gave them her all teaching kindergarten in a Christian school.  She served Christ in many other ways as well through her church and in community service to many.  She was completely spontaneous in talking about God.
A short while after her death, I was informed she made travel arrangements for me and others to go to California to attend her memorial service.  So a plane ticket was made available to me to go, and I was able to spend time with her twin sister, Lorie, and her family with whom I remained in contact all these many years after Dorie’s death.  A healthy friendship is not exclusive; it invites many others into it.
As I am reminded of this very dear friend who remains etched in my heart, along with so many more of diverse nationalities and races, my thoughts take me to our relationship with Jesus Christ and our Triune God.  Just as my name is etched on a vase and a dear friend is etched on my heart, what about Jesus Christ?  Is He etched on our hearts? Biblically, the word “etched” does not appear.  But there are not a few references to Christ being written on our hearts:
“You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3: 2-3).
As a Christian woman, I have many very dear friends etched on my heart.  In fact, the plaque to be placed on my grave reads “Devoted daughter and friend.”  I want to leave behind the legacy that my parents and my friends were most important to me.  God enriched my life not only with friends like Dorie Howell, but with friends of so many different nationalities and diverse races.  My life has been etched time and again with such diversity.  But the most important etching in my life and on my heart is that of my most beloved Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The etched vase that caught my attention this morning reminded me, yes, of a very dear friend; but it also reminded me of an eternal relationship that matters the most in life and for eternity.  Is He and His sacrificial death on the cross for you and His resurrection etched upon your heart?
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
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