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- "An All-Out Attack" On Homeschooling, Age of the Earth Debate, and Samson's Riddle
"An All-Out Attack" On Homeschooling, Age of the Earth Debate, and Samson's Riddle
The model legislation seeking to regulate (overregulate?) homeschooling in states across the nation, a debate on whether biblical inerrancy necessitates a particular view of the age of the earth, how to understand Samson’s riddle in Judges 14, and more.
Anthony Langer
March 08, 2025
It’s Saturday, March 8, 2025.
Today’s edition covers the model legislation seeking to regulate (overregulate?) homeschooling in states across the nation, a debate on whether biblical inerrancy necessitates a particular view of the age of the earth, how to understand Samson’s riddle in Judges 14, and more.
“Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.” (Proverbs 23:23)
Of Christian Concern
“AN ALL-OUT ATTACK ON HOMESCHOOL LIBERTY”: STATES SEEK TO CRACK DOWN ON HOME EDUCATION
Photo: Kaboompics.com
A model piece of legislation called the “Make Homeschool Safe Act” (MHSA) could inspire “a major push against homeschool freedom,” says the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). Reportedly, at least five states—Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, and Oklahoma—are developing versions of the act or have added parts of it to related bills.
Offered by the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE), the draft legislation would seek to regulate homeschooling heavily. The recommended regulations, which HSLDA argues are harmful, include:
Prohibiting parents who are investigated by child protective services (CPS) from moving their children from public school to homeschool for three years, regardless of the investigation’s outcome.
Requiring annual notice for homeschooling families and immediate referral to CPS for failure to provide notice within the 30-day window.
Mandating instruction in particular subjects or even matching public school curriculum requirements.
Requiring 875 hours of instruction per year (averaging to almost five hours per day)
Requiring annual assessments to be submitted to the local superintendent, including an in-person meeting without the parents between the student and a “qualified educational professional”
Giving a local superintendent the power to singlehandedly determine that a student is not making sufficient progress and put the homeschool program on probation. Plus, if the superintendent “determines that the home educator is not cooperating” with this process, he or she “may require the child to be enrolled in public or non-public school and remain enrolled for at least two years...”
Requiring annual submission of immunization records or exemption.
Given this avalanche of regulations, which could place potentially insurmountable burdens on home educators, HSLDA calls the act “an all-out attack on homeschool liberty from beginning to end.”
Illinois’ version of the act (HB 2827) is scheduled to be heard on March 12.
Learn more about this issue here.
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Also Noteworthy
Photo: Brett Sayles
→ Transgender individuals are set to be removed from United States military service within 30 days.
→ Over 60 Christians were arrested in Thailand after fleeing there from Vietnam to escape religious persecution.
→ The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that a Washington church cannot sue the state over a law forcing employers to pay for abortions. The opinion effectively requires churches’ health plans to pay for abortions of their employees and denies churches’ ability to protest it in court. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) “is exploring all legal options” on the church’s behalf, stated CEO Kristen Waggoner in a post on Thursday.
→ ADF is also set to argue two cases before the Supreme Court this year: one fighting for an Oklahoma church’s right to operate its virtual school as a charter school and the other fighting for South Carolina’s right to render Planned Parenthood ineligible for Medicaid funding.
→ Baptists “continue to be the single largest Protestant denominational family in America” but constitute only 12 percent of the U.S. population, down from 15 percent in 2014, according to Pew Research’s latest Religious Landscape Study.
→ March 25 is the UK’s National Day of Prayer Against Assisted Suicide, led by The Christian Institute in collaboration with other Christian groups.
→ Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reports 222 “violations of freedom of religion or belief” in Nicaragua last year.
→ The Global Times, a Chinese government-run news media outlet, boasted last month: “China’s public security authorities intensified efforts to dismantle cult organizations in 2024.” The term “cult organizations” includes Christian churches.
→ Four Nigerian states are closing schools “for up to five weeks” in observance of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, sparking an uproar from Christian organizations, International Christian Concern reports.
Content Catch-Up
Recent, notable content of Christian interest.*
Screenshot from the debate.
Biblical Inerrancy and the Age of the Earth: In a formal debate at Southern Evangelical Seminary’s Steadfast National Conference this past October, apologist Frank Turek moderated as researcher Terry Mortenson and astrophysicist Hugh Ross took up the question, “Does Biblical Inerrancy Necessitate A Young Earth?” (Full Debate)
*Not necessarily an endorsement
The Bible, Briefly
Samson’s Riddle
Gustave Doré’s illustration of Samson killing the lion with his bare hands (1866)
“Out of the eater came something to eat;
out of the strong came something sweet.”
Christians often consider Samson, the ancient Israelite judge (Judges 13-16), a dumb brute. Given some of his decisions, that criticism may have some validity, but it isn’t the whole truth.
One evidence that Samson had more intellectual prowess than he’s often given credit for is his use of a riddle to confound the Philistines. As the Lexham Bible Dictionary explains, riddles in the ancient world were associated with wisdom.
We see this association throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, the book of Proverbs notes that “the wise” have “riddles” (Proverbs 1:6), and 1 Kings describes how King Solomon, in his wisdom, answered all the Queen of Sheba’s hard questions (same Hebrew word for “riddles,” חִידָה, chidah, 1 Kings 10:1).
However, the answer to Samson’s riddle (“What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?,” Judges 14:18) was impossible to know by mere deduction and has therefore been described as “unfair” (e.g., by commentator J. Alberto Soggin). It refers to a personal experience Samson had in which he tore a young lion to pieces with his bare hands and later found bees and honey in the lion’s carcass. He had told no one about this occasion, not even his parents (Judges 14:6, 9, 16), so no one could have guessed the answer.
However, Soggin writes, “it should be remembered that the case of the impossible riddle is not unknown in antiquity and is therefore part of the rules of the game.” There was a belief at the time “that bees can be born from corpses,” and there are other ancient examples of riddles whose solutions could not be known except by awareness of particular occurrences. “So according to the criteria of the time, Samson’s saying should not be considered unfair.”
If it makes the modern reader feel any better, the Philistines solved the riddle by unfair means, too: extorting Samson’s wife to press him until he told her (Judges 14:15-17).
Perhaps all of this should be understood in light of the fact that Samson was a judge appointed by God to deliver His people from the Philistines. Samson was strategically “seeking an opportunity against the Philistines” (Judges 14:4), so this and subsequent events became occasion for him to lash out against the enemies of God’s people, which he did.
Smart?
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