Study Notes and Questions on Education ch. 7 and ch. 16

Biographical Studies

  1. Consider the five men Ellen White speaks of in chapter 7. Three of them were removed from home earlier than they would have chosen to leave…Moses at ages zero and again at 12, Joseph at 17, and Daniel at about 17. These later became the worlds “greatest statesmen” and its “wisest legislator.” Thought question: What does this say about the importance of early education?
  1. What lesson, in regard to the power of temptation, does Ellen White draw from the flower on the mountain?
  1. Joseph and Moses had alike been shepherds. If the goal of education is the harmonious development of the mental, the spiritual, and the physical, how might this occupation have been of their greatest assets? What does EGW say about the development of these three powers in Daniel and his friends?
  1. At what point in his life did Joseph make the resolve to prove himself true to God?
  1. What evidences did Daniel and his friends face that seemed to indicate that the religion and culture of the Babylonians was superior to their own?
  1. What would have been wrong in eating food offered to idols (in the case of Daniel) when we consider Paul’s counsel that idols are really nothing?
  1. Daniel 1:9 says that “God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love” with the man over him. Ellen White writes more. How did this favor and love come to be?
  1. How did men honor Daniel for his faithfulness? How did God honor him for the same?
  1. Daniel and Joseph were great aids to the empires with which they were associated. In this sense you might say that they were adding power and efficiency to paganism’s governments. Be prepared to discuss the ethics of this kind of work.
  1. From this chapter would you expect that faithful SDA youth might be quickly raised to position of important political trust?
  1. Memory work: (if you have memorized it before in your life and want to be challenged, you may memorize the following paragraph instead.) “The greatest want…..the heavens fall.” This will be due at the quiz preceding Class 11.
  1. What was the “rule of daily life” in Elisha’s home?
  1. When God called Elisha from his home and put him to a special work, what kind of work did God have him do for the first period of his ministry?
  1. Contrast Elijah’s call of Elisha and your personal of idea of how you would appeal to someone to do God’s work. Why did Elijah bid Elisha to return home?
  1. Where did Elisha learn “not to fail nor become discouraged”? Notice: He would not have received a double-portion of Elijah’s spirit if he had not learned that lesson.
  1. Elisha took up his final call after Elijah was translated. Contrast their work. Today, do we need men like Elijah, or like Elisha?[1]
  1. How did Jochebed’s foreknowledge of Moses’ future separation from her affect her training of him? God chose Moses from among tens of thousands that could have been chosen. Thought question: If a mother today was as earnest in teaching her child, as earnest as she would be if she knew her child would leave home as a pre-teen, would their be more Moses-like souls today?
  1. Moses and Daniel both served the world’s greatest empire (of their respective times) while their own nation suffered as a defeated body of servants. Discussion question: Why was Moses called to reject the leadership of the nation and free the Jews, while Daniel was called to accept the leadership and leave the Jews in captivity?
  1. When did God, in a “special sense”, undertake Moses’ training?
  1. When God specially undertook Moses’ education, were his next steps great successes or terrible failures?
  1. In what particular ways did sheep-raising qualify Moses for a great leadership role?
  1. Did his time in the Egyptian palace, his education there, shorten or lengthen the amount of after-education that Moses needed before entering on his great call? After answering this, think about it a bit. Heaven thought 40 years was worth it to teach and unteach Moses.
  1. Describe the faith of Moses. Was it a “leap in the dark?”
  1. “Saul of Tarsus shared to the fullest extent the pride and the prejudices of his nation.” As for his education, his teachers were ruled by “self-aggrandizement, love of domination, jealous exclusiveness, bigotry and contemptuous pride” In God’s system, where character is everything, why was a man like this chosen to do a great work?
  1. Both Moses and Paul had to learn a type of administration that differed widely from the one they were taught. In one word each, describe the laws that governed the two systems of education.
  1. What asset allowed Paul to learn in days what Moses had taken years to learn? In other words, what special tool did the Holy Spirit, in Paul’s case, have to work with that was not available in the case of Moses? After his days of blindness, where did Paul go to continue his education?
  1. Other than a need for money and a desire to support himself, what other factor inclined Paul to labor at the trade of tent-making?
  1. Modern Psychology has dappled with the idea of multiple-intelligences. That is the idea that we have several nearly-unrelated types of intelligence. A man may be wise with numbers but poor with spatial concepts. He may have a great mind for music but poor reasoning as a strategist. Ellen White seems to allude to an idea like this in the life of Paul. He had strong “intellectual endowments.” But he had a “rarer wisdom.” In your own choice of two or three words, how would you characterize this type of wisdom?
  1. In Adventism today there is a conflict over Allah. When ministering to Muslims, should we confess that their Allah is our own loving Heavenly Father? Or is Allah a name for an ancient moon-god? What help might the story of Paul in Athens provide to this issue?
  1. Briefly, how would you characterize the contrast between the greatness that could have been Moses’s and Paul’s and the greatness that is theirs now?

On Chapter 16

  1. How does Ellen White contrast the biographies of the Bible with those from other sources? What does this have to say about the nature of inspiration and the question of whether a prophet’s opinions may color his wording and story telling?
  1. What truth is taught with greatest clarity in the Bible, according to Ed. 146? Think about this statement “Terrible is this truth.”
  1. This chapter covers lives like that of Jacob where cause and effect did not play out so happily. How did Jacob reap what he had sown as a young man?
  1. When did Jacob gain victory over the evil in his character? Is that when he stopped reaping the results of what he had done wrong?
  1. Describe how God related to the curse on Levi when the tribe repented and turned away from its evil.
  1. What story does EGW use to illustrate Pr. 23:7?
  1. Sister White wrote “No truth does the Bible set forth in clearer light than the peril of even one departure from the right.” But she gives two examples. What is one other example that you can think of that illustrates this principle?
  1. What kind of life qualifies as the “strongest bulwark of vice in our world?”
  1. God did not originally ordain to translate Elijah when He did. What act of Elijah hastened or postponed his translation? After this act he was called to anoint ______.
  1. You have likely heard of the School of Christ. What department of that school does Ellen White mention that all must be trained in before they “render true service”?
  1. Many dream of having power like that of a king. After witnessing the position first-hand, how did David feel about that kind of power? How did he feel about going back to take care of sheep?
  1. What positive qualities arose through David’s hardships when fleeing Saul? Thought question. . .what ill qualities might have risen had he reacted differently to the same?
  1. Solomon had much of the same genetic material as David, but lacked the early discipline. What difference did this, apparently and according to Education, make in his life?
  1. Who recorded the history of Solomon’s apostasy? Think about that.
  1. In these chapters Ellen White draws many lessons from the lives of Bible men. If you were to characterize these lessons at one time, what kind of lessons are they? What kind of thing do they teach? (not “what things” but “what kind of things”….science? math? History is the mode, but what do the ends have in common?
  1. According to Job’s faith, so was it unto him. What faithful thing did he say that was fulfilled in his own experiences.
  1. In your own words, what lessons does EGW bring out from the lives of Jonathan and John the Baptist?

[1] "In every age, the call of the hour is answered by the coming of the man. The Lord is gracious. He understands the situation. His will today is that for the present time the lamb-like kindness of Elisha shall exceed the severity of Elijah. {SpM 231.2}

"The man that can build up, and create a fragrant, grateful atmosphere, is not yet presented by God. Whether the present work be to break down or to build up, to reinstate the old or to give place to the new, to enforce the demands of equity and judgment or to encourage hope and courage, and faith, the Lord knows what is needed. He is looking on. He, the great Master worker, is sure to have the very man for the place ready to do the work, when those connected with the work are ready for the change. {SpM 231.3}