Two Questions Education Must Answer

“Two Questions Education Must Answer”

Or 

“Education in the Garden of Eden”

 

October 3, 2020

 

Sabbath School 

Larry R Evans

 

Pre-Class Questions

1.   Would the Bible be complete without recounting what happened in the Garden of Eden?

2.   What motivated the “serpent” to attempt to deceive Eve? 

3.   Where did Eve go wrong? Is that likely to happen today?

4.   What was lost in the Garden?

5.   What does it take to regain what was lost? 

6.   What does “true education” attempt to accomplish? 

7.   What education takes place if “true education” doesn’t?

 

Introduction

 

This quarter our focus will be on education and we begin our study in the Garden of Eden.  It may seem a bit strange at first, but let’s begin our study with Isaiah 14:12-14.

“How you are fallen from heaven,

O shining star, son of the morning!

You have been thrown down to the earth,

you who destroyed the nations of the world.

For you said to yourself,

‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars.

I will preside on the mountain of the gods

far away in the north.

I will climb to the highest heavens

and be like the Most High.’

While I can’t prove it, I suspect God’s teaching approach in the Garden had the fall of Satan in mind.  He knew what would be coming.  He knew what caused the downfall of Satan and the host of angels that followed him. God knew what it would take to counteract the accusations and temptations that Satan would bring with him. When the Bible says, “For God so loved the world . . . “(John 3:16) we get a glimpse into all that took place not only in creation but also in the first classroom called the Garden of Eden.  What and how he taught was meant not only to prevent the Fall but restore mankind should the Fall happen. What we are suggesting, then, is that the principles of education found in Genesis 1 and 2 have a wider implication than simply the creation and habitation of a newly formed earth.  It would be helpful, then, to see what the problem Creation and the first classroom sought to address.

 

C.S. Lewis wrote,

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; whichever one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves.

Lewis certainly got my attention!  There is something about being a Christian that helps a person to see something in himself or herself that others may not see in themselves.  He resolved the riddle this way.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. . . . Pride is essentially Competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident.  Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. (C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, pp.108-109)

What we see in our text, (Isa. 14:12-14) certainly bears that out. Lucifer/Satan compared himself to God and became dissatisfied. His self-absorption became the source of his downfall. Pride destroyed him on the inside and led him to be cast out of heaven (Rev. 12:3,4).  He saw God as his competitor rather than as his Creator and Sustainer.  To be self-absorbed is to see someone or something being admired and appreciated as a threat. It awakens a competitive spirit and the desire to dominate, to accuse, and destroy if possible. It is no coincidence, then, that the first two chapters of the Bible find a response in the last two chapters. God’s plan may have been interrupted but it has not suffered defeat.

 

The Tempter & the Art of Temptation

It happened in the classroom, God’s carefully designed classroom.  Even in the sacred “halls” of the Garden, Satan was free to work and so he did. 

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

“Of course, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” (Gen. 3:1-5, NLT)

Observations: Steps to the Fall

 

1.    The woman entered into a conversation with the serpent.

2.    God’s instructions were challenged by the serpent

3.    God’s word was contradicted and Eve listened.

4.    The serpent used God’s word to cast doubt in order to deceive the woman. Eve accepted the speech as valid.

 

And so, Eve looked at, reached for, touched, ate, and experienced the lie, and then shared it with her husband.  The pandemic of sin had begun. However, they did not die. Had she proven God wrong? Note Genesis 3:6 (NKJV)

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

After listening to the serpent, Eve redefined God’s instructions. God had done the defining because He knew “good and evil” (Gen.32:17; 3:5,22). God had seen the course Satan had taken. He knew evil would result and he sought to protect Adam and Eve from the consequences of such a choice. Eve chose the “wisdom” of the serpent and redefined what God had said. Eve’s actions underscore three very important principles that Christian education must teach in both word and life.

 

1.    Eve redefined what was “good for food.”  -- God had told her that a specific fruit was not good for food. She was in a garden with abundance of food, but she focused on what she could not do! God had defined what was good for  (Gen. 1:31) and then immediately provided a day with Him for a special reflection (Gen. 2:1-3)

2.    Eve found the forbidden fruit to be “pleasing to the eye.” Pleasure became the defining principle. What looks good, tastes good, feels good became the determining test.

3.    Eve redefined the source of wisdom—the serpent not God had the final word.

 

As Angel Rodriquez has pointed out, 

“They ate of the fruit of the tree, not because they were rejecting God’s gift of life, but because they wanted to appropriate and enjoy it in total independence from God.” (Stewardship Roots, p.26)

The same characteristics of the tempter that led to his fall were adopted by the tempted.  With this in mind, it is not difficult to see why Genesis 1 and 2 are laid out the way they are. God is the Creator and Sustainer of life.  Genesis 1 makes it clear that God is all powerful (Elohim) and Genesis 2 reminds us that God is all caring and trustworthy (Yahweh). What He had created was “very good.” There was not only beauty; there was harmony.

 

In Genesis 3 an attempt to disrupt this harmony came by presenting an incomplete picture of God—only Elohim was referenced (the power and magnificence of God) by the serpent.  The trustworthiness and personal caring of God (Yahweh) shown in chapter 2 was omitted. (See Gen. 3:5).  Genesis 1 and 2 each have a key theme to emphasize and are thus told differently. They are one unit but emphasize two critical points.  Without chapter 2 the serpent could try to portray God as a bully, a dictator. Independence from God while focusing on self, proved to be the formula that led to Satan’s expulsion from heaven. It also became the reason for Adam and Eve being ushered out of the Garden (Gen. 3:24) just as Satan had been cast from heaven (Rev. 12:9).   Adam and Even discovered that independence from God led to feelings of guilt, shame and independence from each other. There was no longer harmony on earth (Gen. 3:10). Did hope leave when Adam and Eve left the Garden?

Regaining What Was Lost

 

Describing how Satan viewed his victory with the fall of Adam and Eve, Ellen White summarized it this way,

Satan exulted in his success. He had tempted the woman to distrust God’s love, to doubt His wisdom, and to transgress His law, and through her he had caused the overthrow of Adam. – Patriarchs and Prophets, p.57.

QUESTION:

Given what happened in the Garden of Eden, what should the ultimate objectives of education be? 

 

1.    Trust in God’s love restored.

2.    Trust in God as the source for true wisdom.

3.    Trust in God and obey His law.

 

QUESTION:

If all three were practiced would the curse of sin be removed? Why not? If not what more is needed?

 

What provisions did God make to assist us in that education?  

 

What do the following passages suggest as God’s provisions for this kind of education?

 

1.     Genesis 3:15 (NKJV):  

And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her Seed;

He shall bruise your head,

And you shall bruise His heel.

Genesis 3:15 is known as the first gospel promise! The battle between Satan, the serpent, and Christ, the woman, would end with the poisonous influence of Satan being crushed.  While Christ would be “bruised” He would triumph!   Note how Adam and Eve took the news of God sacrificing Himself for them.

The sacrifice demanded by their transgression revealed to Adam and Eve the sacred character of the law of God; and they saw, as they had never seen before, the guilt of sin and its dire results. In their remorse and anguish they pleaded that the penalty might not fall upon Him whose love had been the source of all their joy; rather let it descend upon them and their posterity. (Patriarchs and Prophets, p.66)

2.     2 Peter 1:2-4

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

3.     Philippians 2:5-8 (NLT)

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God,

he did not think of equality with God

as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;

he took the humble position of a slave

and was born as a human being.

When he appeared in human form,

he humbled himself in obedience to God

and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

The Day “Education” Failed

 

A primary role of education is to learn to think differently. The Apostle Paul put it this way,

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2, NLT)

In the 1920’s, the philosopher of American Communism was a Jew named Mike Gold. After communism fell into general disrepute in this country, the memory of Mike Gold faded away. He wrote a book entitled, A Jew. Without Knowing It.  He described his childhood in New York City.  He tells of his mother’s instruction never to wander beyond four certain streets. She could not tell him that they lived in a Jewish ghetto. She could not tell him that he had the wrong kind of blood in his veins. Children do not understand prejudice. Prejudice is a poison that must gradually seep into a person’s blood stream.

 

Mike Gold tells of the day that curiosity lured him beyond the four streets.  When he stepped outside the boundaries of his ghetto he was confronted by a group of older boys.  They asked him a puzzling question:  “Hey, kid, are you a “kike?” “I don’t know,” he replied. He had never heard the derogative word for a Jew before. The older boys came back with a paraphrase of their question. “Are you a Christ-killer?” Again, the small boy responded, “I don’t know.” He had never heard that word either. 

 

The older boys asked him where he lived. He recited the address—something all small boys were told to do should they become lost. The response was quick and loud, “So you are a kike; you are a Christ-killer. Well you’re in Christian territory and we are Christians. We are going to teach you to stay where you belong!”  And so they beat the little boy, bloodied his face and tore his clothes and sent him home to the jeering litany: “We are Christians and you killed Christ! Stay where you belong! We are Christians, and you killed Christ . . . “

 

When he arrived home, Mike Gold was asked by his frightened mother: “What happened to you, Mike?”  He could answer only: “I don’t know.” Who did this to you, Mike?” Again, he answered: I don’t know.” And so, the mother washed the blood from the face of her little boy and put him into fresh clothes and took him into her lap as she sat in a rocker.  She tried to soothe him.  Mike Gold recalled so much later in life that he raised his small battered lips to the ear of his mother and asked: “Mama who is Christ?”

 

Mike Gold died in 1967.  His last meals were taken at a Catholic Charity house in New York City.  It was run by Dorothy Day. She once said, “Mike Gold eats every day at the table of Christ, but he will probably never accept him because of the day he first heard his name.” And so, he died.

 

That day, in the back streets of New York, Mike Gold was educated. He was taught about Christ but not about the Jesus whom Mike Gold needed to know--the One who was “bruised” and died for him.  The serpent in the Garden is still at work.  He is an experienced teacher. The grand purpose of education whether teaching is in the classroom, the home, or in the back streets of a city was described this way,

The great principles of education are unchanged. ‘They stand fast for ever and ever’ (Psalm 11:8); for they are the principles of the character of God. (Ellen White in Education, p.30)

The two questions education must answer: Who Is God and How Then Should We Live?