Grandparents Need to Teach Their Grandchildren the Bible and… Everything Else
Side‑by‑Side: How Grandparents Can Shape Faith and Knowledge
In the Christian schools where I have served, grandparents performed key roles. They helped with carpooling, substitute teaching, and many provided scholarships or even all of a grandchild’s tuition. When I became an administrator, the grandparents I valued most were those serving on the prayer team they had organized. They were my always-on-call prayer warriors! But this essay focuses on a role that deserves far more emphasis because of its disciple‑making potential. The conversation below illustrates this:
My wife and I entered the gym to watch our granddaughter’s volleyball game at a familiar place, the school where I had served as the administrator. As we headed toward our family’s usual seats, I noticed our middle son’s father-in-law sitting alone.
“Pieter, where’s Alice?” I asked.
“She’s in Arkansas helping Grace and Isaac with homeschooling and anything else before the baby comes,” he replied.
“That’s wonderful! I’m so glad she can help.” There was certainly a lot to do. Grace and Isaac had two teenage daughters involved in sports and other extracurriculars, as well as a two‑year-old who required daily speech therapy.
I knew Alice well. She had retired from teaching math at this same school. I use retired loosely—she had only stopped teaching in a school building. Alice was a go-to tutor for the homeschooling community, and “Oma Alice” had already been teaching those same granddaughters’ math and piano via Zoom.
Grandparents helping with the academic and vocational education of their grandchildren is largely untapped. Deuteronomy 4:9 is clear about the responsibility grandparents have in the discipleship of their grandchildren, but the possibilities of grandparents partnering with parents in academic and vocational formation need to be emphasized.
Consider how encompassing the education mandate of Deuteronomy 4:5–9 (ESV) actually is:
“See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me… Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples… Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen… Make them known to your children and your children’s children.”
When we encourage grandparents to teach their grandchildren God’s ways, many immediately think of Bible stories, memory verses, and spiritual conversations. Those are essential but consider the phrase “wisdom and understanding.” Biblical discipleship is much broader than religious instruction alone.
Scripture teaches that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). The Bible is not a textbook on science, math, engineering, geography, or literature, yet it speaks truth about the world God made. Its wisdom provides the foundation for every field of human knowledge. A grandparent who loves language can demonstrate the power of words and explain how the devil attempts to manipulate communication. (Genesis 3:1–7) A grandparent with farming expertise can talk to a grandchild about soil conservation, fertilizer chemistry, and production costs.
Wisdom and knowledge, combined with your time and attention, are game-changers in a grandchild’s learning.
Academic instruction and biblical instruction are not competitors.
It’s not either/or—it’s both/and. These complement and reinforce one another. Grandparents possess decades of expertise that schools alone cannot provide. Grandparents are or have been biologists, chemists, nurses, coders, electricians, welders, machinists, mechanics, fabricators, ironworkers, farmers, contractors, artists, accountants, entrepreneurs, teachers, or homemakers. Others have mastered skills through experience rather than formal education. Each has accumulated wisdom that needs to be transferred to the next generation.
For instance, I recently sat at a banquet table with a grandparent who retired from Intel. He told me that he and his development team had been wrestling with the ethics of artificial intelligence twenty years before most of us even knew the term. I urged him to talk about biblical problem-solving and moral responsibility with a grandson studying computer engineering. He said he had never thought of that and agreed it was a particularly good idea because his sister was an athlete receiving a lot of attention while the grandson’s academic successes were rarely recognized. What a great way to encourage his grandson in a cutting-edge career and introduce Biblical ethics into his thinking!
Psalm 78:3 stresses grandparents telling their grandchildren all they have “heard and known.”
Some grandparents may feel far more confident teaching a child how to plan nutritious meals, fix a lawn mower, identify garden plants, or wire a room than leading a formal Bible study. When this information is shared in the context of a biblical worldview, it is all discipleship. God wants us to use the knowledge we have as pathways for passing on truth and building meaningful relationships.
I look for opportunities to be intentional.
My first academic love was marine invertebrates. We have a grandchild studying deep-sea ocean science. Even though these days I might talk more about Jonah and the whale, the two of us have bonded over divine design and the ability God gave invertebrates to survive at depths of 6.8 miles. As the genetic ethicist on the Recombinant DNA Research Review Committee at the University of Kansas, I have had meaningful conversations about the ethics of genetic manipulation with another grandchild studying microbiology. As a former biology teacher, I have guided many homeschool students through animal dissections pointing out the marvels of anatomy and function. (However, I am still waiting for our homeschooling children to ask me to do a dissection with our grandchildren.)
Grandparents who can connect everyday knowledge to eternal truth may be God’s most useful apologists.
When grandparents combine their loving relationship with a grandchild to help them understand science, mathematics, engineering, geography, agriculture, technology, craftsmanship, or vocational skills through the lens of God’s design and purpose, they help raise a generation that sees Christ as Lord over every area of life.
Grandparents are called not only to help grandchildren know God, but also to help them think Christianly about their interests and future work.
The task of grandparents is not merely helping parents teach grandchildren about God. It is helping grandchildren learn to see God’s hand, wisdom, and purposes everywhere. Grandparenting is not limited to teaching children how to get to heaven. It also involves equipping them to live wisely, work skillfully, think biblically, and steward God’s world faithfully until they get there.
By the way, I plan to ask my children about a possible frog dissection. Maybe if I promise to provide the frogs… So, here’s to learning and using everyday academics to connect the generations and build an enduring legacy of faith in Jesus, one lesson at a time.