Chapter 5—The Education of Israel
“The Lord alone did lead him; ” “He instructed Him, He kept Him as
the apple of His eye.”
The system of education established in Eden centered in the family.
Adam was “the son of God” (
Luke 3:38
), and it was from their Father
that the children of the Highest received instruction. Theirs, in the
truest sense, was a family school.
In the divine plan of education as adapted to man’s condition after
the Fall, Christ stands as the representative of the Father, the connecting
link between God and man; He is the great teacher of mankind. And
He ordained that men and women should be His representatives. The
family was the school, and the parents were the teachers.
The education centering in the family was that which prevailed
in the days of the patriarchs. For the schools thus established, God
provided the conditions most favorable for the development of charac-
ter. The people who were under His direction still pursued the plan of
life that He had appointed in the beginning. Those who departed from
God built for themselves cities, and, congregating in them, gloried in
the splendor, the luxury, and the vice that make the cities of today the
world’s pride and its curse. But the men who held fast God’s principles
of life dwelt among the fields and hills. They were tillers of the soil
[34]
and keepers of flocks and herds, and in this free, independent life, with
its opportunities for labor and study and meditation, they learned of
God and taught their children of His works and ways.
This was the method of education that God desired to establish in
Israel. But when brought out of Egypt there were among the Israelites
few prepared to be workers together with Him in the training of their
children. The parents themselves needed instruction and discipline.
Victims of lifelong slavery, they were ignorant, untrained, degraded.
They had little knowledge of God and little faith in Him. They were
confused by false teaching and corrupted by their long contact with
23