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Teachers and Teaching
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They should be refined in manner, neat in dress, careful in all their
habits; and they should have that true Christian courtesy that wins
confidence and respect. The teacher should be himself what he
wishes his students to become.
Teachers are to watch over their students as the shepherd watches
over the flock entrusted to his charge. They should care for souls as
they that must give an account.
The teacher may understand many things in regard to the phys-
ical universe; he may know about the structure of animal life, the
discoveries of natural science, the inventions of mechanical art; but
he cannot be called educated, he is not fitted for his work as an
instructor of the youth, unless he has in his own soul a knowledge of
God and of Christ. He cannot be a true educator until he is himself
a learner in the school of Christ, receiving an education from the
divine Instructor.
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God Our Dependence
God is the source of all wisdom. He is infinitely wise and just
and good. Apart from Christ, the wisest men that ever lived cannot
comprehend Him. They may profess to be wise; they may glory in
their attainments; but mere intellectual knowledge, aside from the
great truths that center in Christ, is as nothingness. “Let not the wise
man glory in his wisdom: ... but let him that glorieth glory in this,
that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which
exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth.”
Jeremiah 9:23, 24
.
If men could see for a moment beyond the range of finite vision,
if they could catch a glimpse of the Eternal, every mouth would be
stopped in its boasting. Men living in this little atom of a world are
finite; God has unnumbered worlds that are obedient to His laws and
are conducted with reference to His glory. When men have gone as
far in scientific research as their limited powers will permit, there is
still an infinity beyond what they can apprehend.
Before men can be truly wise, they must realize their dependence
upon God, and be filled with His wisdom. God is the source of
intellectual as well as spiritual power. The greatest men who have
reached what the world regards as wonderful heights in science are