Basic HTML Version
The Essential Knowledge
Higher education is an experimental knowledge of the plan of
salvation, and this knowledge is secured by earnest and diligent
study of the Scriptures. Such an education will renew the mind
and transform the character, restoring the image of God in the soul.
It will fortify the mind against the deceptive whisperings of the
adversary, and enable us to understand the voice of God. It will
teach the learner to become a co-worker with Jesus Christ, to dispel
the moral darkness about him, and bring light and knowledge to
men. It is the simplicity of true godliness—our passport from the
preparatory school of earth to the higher school above.
There is no education to be gained higher than that given to
the early disciples, and which is revealed to us through the word
of God. To gain the higher education means to follow this word
implicitly; it means to walk in the footsteps of Christ, to practice
His virtues. It means to give up selfishness and to devote the life to
the service of God. Higher education calls for something greater,
something more divine, than the knowledge to be obtained merely
from books. It means a personal, experimental knowledge of Christ;
[12]
it means emancipation from ideas, from habits and practices, that
have been gained in the school of the prince of darkness, and which
are opposed to loyalty to God. It means to overcome stubbornness,
pride, selfishness, worldly ambition, and unbelief. It is the message
of deliverance from sin.
Age after age the curiosity of men has led them to seek for the
tree of knowledge, and often they think they are plucking fruit most
essential, when in reality it is vanity and nothingness in comparison
with that science of true holiness which would open to them the
gates of the city of God. Human ambition seeks for knowledge that
will bring to them glory, and self-exaltation, and supremacy. Thus
Adam and Eve were influenced by Satan until God’s restraint was
snapped asunder, and their education under the teacher of lies began.
14