Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
A new “Adult Sabbath School Study Guide” lesson quarterly for our last quarter of 2020 titled “Education”. So important. Education may be thought to be merely informing. But the dictionary has this definition of education; “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life”. So much more than merely informing. Actually the root word for our English word “education” is the Latin word “duc” meaning “to lead”. Sounds like something a “Good Shepherd” would do… and He does.
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Education in the Garden of Eden”. The “Garden” is a perfect place to see God’s ideal plan for education. A combination of theory and practical “hands-on”. He gives the “holy pair” ample time to experience the information and handle it for themselves. Yet enough instruction so that what is learned makes sense, too. And of course, He allows dissenting views to be present (in the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil). But He does not allow this dissenting (and oh so very deadly dissenting) view to just be presented to the pair without warning. He cautions them about this unholy “education” and protects them from acquiring it accidentally or experientially. The tree in the Garden was not so much to test them as it was to protect them. “Satan was not to follow them with continual temptations; he could have access to them only at the forbidden tree” (Patriarchs and Prophets Pg. 53). God would not shelter them from alternative views, but would surely caution them and protect them from acquiring this deadly education… from personally experiencing this information (we get our word “experience” from the Latin meaning “to test”. Hence the idea of “test” in connection with the tree… to personally experience it). He never wanted them to have that experiential knowledge. And restricting Satan to the “tree” protected the pair, as much as possible, even as the experiential “test” allowed them to decide how to handle this Divine restriction.
So with us this day and every day since then. He will not deny us the exposure to deadly information. But He will do all He can to protect us and caution us from personally experiencing that deadly information. Hence the warnings against “sin”. The Bible is full of God’s council and commands to stay away from sin. That we dabble in it to our own peril. We are warned against sin… not warned against God. We are not warned that God will need to punish all who sin but warned that it is sin itself that destroys us… not God.
It is true that sin is not so much what we do as how we think. The quarterly so rightly says in its introduction that true knowledge is “learning truth about the character of God” (quarterly pg. 2). It is our misunderstanding of God that has darkened our minds, just as it darkened the minds of Adam and Eve. How we think is skewed due to our rejection of God. And so this life of ours on this sin-scarred world is our education. Education that is not only theory and information, though, but education that is truly experiential (test) in nature. Personally experiencing the things of God we have learned (obeying) is how it becomes part of us… not just theology and head-knowledge but true education, true knowledge. Obeying God in order to truly know Him focuses us on Him, and “ipso-facto” by default prohibits us from obeying the promptings of the “world”… prohibits the experiential education that fastens our minds in the path of sin.
As He did in the Garden, so He does to us today. He warns us about experiencing sinful activity even as we are warned about sin itself (irrational, illogical, rebellious thinking). The only antidote for this sinful activity and sinful thinking is to be intimately connected to our God. To allow Him to educate us truly. The world’s education can and will destroy us… and the most deadly worldly education is that which we experience ourselves. So with God. The most effectual heavenly education, is that which we experience ourselves. Education that is merely information, theory or head-knowledge is not entirely effectual. Hence God’s injunction to obey. Obedience is experiential learning… actually handling the things of God… and experiencing those things first hand. God challenges us, “and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). Can we really claim to know and love God if we continue to handle the things of the world while refusing to handle the things of God? By default, if we do not obey Him, we are obeying the “world”.
Let us not minimize the destruction of sinful actions nor disparage the importance of obedient actions either. True obedience is God’s appointed means of proving Him true… experiential education in those things that lead to our true contentment, peace, joy and a purposeful life… in Him. Will we not obey in order to know Him? If we do not personally experience and live the things of God (obey) but keep experiencing and live the things of this world, believing we are “saved”, we are willingly deceived and will hear the proclamation, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23).
With brotherly love,
Jim