Chapter 17—A Divine Example
From the earliest times the faithful in Israel had given much atten-
tion to the matter of education. The Lord had directed that the children,
even from babyhood, should be taught of his goodness and his great-
ness, especially as revealed in his law, and shown in the history of
Israel. Through song and prayer, and lessons from the Scriptures,
adapted to the opening mind, fathers and mothers were to instruct
their children that the law of God is an expression of his character,
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and that as they received the principles of the law into the heart, the
image of God was traced on mind and soul. In both the school and the
home, much of the teaching was oral, but the youth also learned to read
the Hebrew writings; and the parchment rolls of the Old Testament
Scriptures were open to their study.
In the days of Christ, the religious instruction of the young was
thought to be so important that the town or city which did not provide
schools for this purpose, was regarded as under the curse of God. Yet
in both the school and the home, the teaching had become mechanical
and formal. Since “in all things it behooved him to be made like unto
his brethren” (
Hebrews 2:17
), and Jesus gained knowledge as we may
do, the intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures, which he evinced in
his ministry, testifies to the diligence with which, in those early years,
he gave himself to the study of the sacred word.
And day by day he gained knowledge from the great library of
animate and inanimate nature. He who had created all things, was now
a child of humanity, and he studied the lessons which his own hand
had written in earth and sea and sky. The parables by which, during
his ministry, he loved to teach his lessons of truth, show how open
his spirit was to the influences of nature, and how, in his youth, he
had delighted to gather the spiritual teaching from the surroundings of
his daily life. To Jesus the significance of the word and the works of
God unfolded gradually, as he was seeking to understand the reason
of things, as any youth may seek to understand. The culture of holy
thoughts and communings was his. All the windows of his soul were
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