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Chapter 5—The Education of Israel
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 humanity’s condi-
tion after the Fall, Christ stands as the representative of the Father,
the connecting link between God and the fallen race. He ordained
that men and women should be His representatives. The family was
the school, the parents were the teachers.
The education centering in the family was that which prevailed
in the days of the patriarchs. The people who were under God’s
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 their splendor, luxury, and vice.
But the families who held fast to God’s principles lived among the
fields and hills. They were tillers of the soil and keepers of flocks
and herds. In this free, independent life, with its opportunities for
work 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 the parents themselves
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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 heathenism. God wanted to
lift them to a higher moral level, and to this end He endeavored to
give them a knowledge of Himself.
In His dealings with the wanderers in the desert, in their exposure
to hunger, thirst, and weariness, in their peril from heathen foes,
and in the manifestation of His providence for their relief, God was
seeking to strengthen their faith by revealing to them the power that
was continually working for their good. And having taught them to
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