Tuesday, May 11, 2010

THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE BIBLE

Our journey began at GENESIS through EXODUS. On the way we saw LEVITICUS recording of people at DEUTRONOMY while JOSHUA was waiting at the beautiful gate for JUDGES to see RUTH calling loudly “SAMUEL; SAMUEL”

At that, the first and second KINGS of CHRONICLES were coming to visit EZRA ,NEHEMIAH and ESTHER for the misfortune of JOB, their brother. Then they noticed that Mr PSALMS was teaching his children PROVERBS concerning ECCLESIASTES and SONGS OF SOLOMON.

This coincided with the period that ISAIAH and JEREMIAH were engaged in LAMENTATION for EZEKIEL and DANIEL their friends. At that time, AMOS and OBADIAH were not around. Three days later HOSEA,JOEL and JONAH travelled in the same ship with MICAH and NAHUM to Jerusalem. More so, HABAKKUK visited ZEPHANIAH who introduced him to HAGGAI a friend of ZECHARIAH whose cousin is MALACHI.

Immediately after the old tradition, MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, and JOHN got involved in ACTS with ROMANS who were behaving like CORINTHIANS, who were also at loggerheads with GALATIANS.

At that time too, the EPHESIANS realizing that the PHILIPPIANS were closed to the COLOSSIANS, suggested to the THESSALONIANS that they should first see TIMOTHY who was gone to the house of TITUS to teach PHILEMON his younger brother HEBREW. On hearing this, JAMES asked PETER to explain to him how the three JOHNS had disclosed to JUDE the REVELATION of our LORD Jesus Christ.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

POWERFUL LESSON ON SERVICE AND MANUAL TRANING

INTRODUCTION
Christ's followers have been redeemed for service. Our Lord teaches that the true object of life is ministry. Christ Himself was a worker, and to all His followers He gives the law of service--service to God and to their fellow men. Here Christ has presented to the world a higher conception of life than they had ever known. By living to minister for others, man is brought into connection with Christ. The law of service becomes the connecting link which binds us to God and to our fellow men. To His servants Christ commits "His goods,"--something to be put to use for Him. He gives "to every man his work." Each has his place in the eternal plan of heaven. Each is to work in cooperation with Christ for the salvation of souls. Not more surely is the place prepared for us in the heavenly mansions than is the special place designated on earth where we are to work for God.--Christ's Object Lessons, pp. 326, 327. {WM 52.1, 2}


THE TRUE DIGNITY OF SERVICE

The youth should be led to see the true dignity of labor. Show them that God is a constant worker. All things in nature do their allotted work. Action pervades the whole creation, and in order to fulfill our mission we, too, must be active. In our labor we are to be workers together with God. He gives us the earth and its treasures; but we must adapt them to our use and comfort. He causes the trees to grow; but we prepare the timber and build the house. He has hidden in the earth the gold and silver, the iron and coal; but it is only through toil that we can obtain them. {Ed 214. 2, 3}


WHAT HAS TO BE INVESTED IN THE YOUTH

The youth need to be taught that life means earnest work, responsibility, and care-taking. They need a training that will make them practical--men and women who can cope with emergencies. They should be taught that the discipline of systematic, well-regulated labor is essential, not only as a safeguard against the vicissitudes of life, but as an aid to all-around development. Notwithstanding all that has been said and written concerning the dignity of labor, the feeling prevails that it is degrading. Young men are anxious to become teachers, clerks, merchants, physicians, lawyers, or to occupy some other position that does not require physical toil. Young women shun housework and seek an education in other lines. These need to learn that no man or woman is degraded by honest toil. That which degrades is idleness and selfish dependence. Idleness fosters self-indulgence, and the result is a life empty and barren--a field inviting the growth of every evil. "The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned." Hebrews 6:7, 8. {Ed 215.2, 3}


SERVICE IN A HOME EDUCATION

Many of the branches of study that consume the student's time are not essential to the health and happiness of the whole family nothing is more vital than skill and intelligence on the part of the cook. By ill-prepared, unwholesome food she may hinder and even ruin both the adult's usefulness and the child's development. Or by providing food adapted to the needs of the body, and at the same time inviting and palatable, she can accomplish as much in the right as otherwise she accomplishes in the wrong direction. So, in many ways, life's happiness is bound up with faithfulness in common duties. Since both men and women have a part in home-making, boys as well as girls should gain knowledge of household duties. To make a bed and put a room in order, to wash dishes, to prepare a meal, to wash and repair his own clothing, is a training that need not make any boy less manly; it will make him happier and more useful. And if girls, in turn, could learn to harness and drive a horse, and to use the saw and the hammer, as well as the rake and the hoe, they would be better fitted to meet the emergencies of life. {Ed 216.2,3}

For every child the first industrial school should be the home. And, so far as possible, facilities for manual training should be connected with every school. To a great degree such training would supply the place of the gymnasium, with the additional benefit of affording valuable discipline. {Ed 217.3}


MANUAL TRAINING

Manual training is deserving of far more attention than it has received. Schools should be established that, in addition to the highest mental and moral culture, shall provide the best possible facilities for physical development and industrial training. Instruction should be given in agriculture, manufactures,--covering as many as possible of the most useful trades,--also in household economy, healthful cookery, sewing, hygienic dressmaking, the treatment of the sick, and kindred lines. Gardens, workshops, and treatment rooms should be provided, and the work in every line should be under the direction of skilled instructors. The benefit of manual training is needed also by professional men. A man may have a brilliant mind; he may be quick to catch ideas; his knowledge and skill may secure for him admission to his chosen calling; yet he may still be far from possessing a fitness for its duties. An education derived chiefly from books leads to superficial thinking. Practical work encourages close observation and independent thought. Rightly performed, it tends to develop that practical wisdom which we call common sense. It develops ability to plan and execute, strengthens courage and perseverance, and calls for the exercise of tact and skill. The physician who has laid a foundation for his professional knowledge by actual service in the sickroom will have a quickness of insight, an all-around knowledge, and an ability in emergencies to render needed service--all essential qualifications, which only a practical training can so fully impart. {Ed 220. 2, 3} {Ed 218.1}

The minister, the missionary, the teacher, will find their influence with the people greatly increased when it is manifest that they possess the knowledge and skill required for the practical duties of everyday life. And often the success, perhaps the very life, of the missionary depends on his knowledge of practical things. The ability to prepare food, to deal with accidents and emergencies, to treat disease, to build a house, or a church if need be--often these make all the difference between success and failure in his lifework. {Ed 221.1}

In acquiring an education, many students would gain a most valuable training if they would become self-sustaining. Instead of incurring debts, or depending on the self-denial of their parents, let young men and young women depend on themselves. They will thus learn the value of money, the value of time, strength, and opportunities, and will be under far less temptation to indulge idle and spendthrift habits. The lessons of economy, industry, self-denial, practical business management, and steadfastness of purpose, thus mastered, would prove a most important part of their equipment for the battle of life. And the lesson of self-help learned by the student would go far toward preserving institutions of learning from the burden of debt under which so many schools have struggled, and which has done so much toward crippling their usefulness. {Ed 221.2}

Let the youth be impressed with the thought that education is not to teach them how to escape life's disagreeable tasks and heavy burdens; that its purpose is to lighten the work by teaching better methods and higher aims. Teach them that life's true aim is not to secure the greatest possible gain for themselves, but to honour their Maker in doing their part of the world's work, and lending a helpful hand to those weaker or more ignorant. {Ed 221.3}

One great reason why physical toil is looked down on is the slipshod, unthinking way in which it is so often performed. It is done from necessity, not from choice. The worker puts no heart into it, and he neither preserves self-respect nor wins the respect of others. Manual training should correct this error. It should develop habits of accuracy and thoroughness. Pupils should learn tact and system; they should learn to economize time and to make every move count. They should not only be taught the best methods, but be inspired with ambition constantly to improve. Let it be their aim to make their work as nearly perfect as human brains and hands can make it. {Ed 222.1}

Such training will make the youth masters and not slaves of labor. It will lighten the lot of the hard toiler, and will ennoble even the humblest occupation. He, who regards work as mere drudgery, and settles down to it with self-complacent ignorance, making no effort to improve, will find it indeed a burden. But those who recognize science in the humblest work will see in it nobility and beauty, and will take pleasure in performing it with faithfulness and efficiency. A youth so trained, whatever his calling in life, so long as it is honest, will make his position one of usefulness and honour. {Ed 222.2, 3}

The third angel is represented as flying in the midst of the heavens, showing that the message is to go forth throughout the length and breadth of the earth. It is the most solemn message ever given to mortals, and all who connect with the work should first feel their need of an education, and a most thorough training process for the work, in reference to their future usefulness; and there should be plans made and efforts adopted for the improvement of that class who anticipate connecting with any branch of the work. Ministerial labor cannot and should not be in trusted to boys, neither should the work of giving Bible readings be in trusted to inexperienced girls, because they offer their services, and are willing to take responsible positions, but who are wanting in religious experience, without a thorough education and training. The missionary operations are constantly embarrassed for the want of workers of the right class of minds, and the devotion and piety that will correctly represent our faith. {FE 113.1}

OUR SCHOOLS

Our schools are to be educating schools and training schools; and if men and women come forth from them fitted in any sense for the missionary field, they must have impressed upon them the greatness of the work, and that practical godliness must be brought into their daily experience, to be fitted for any place of usefulness in our world, or in the church, or in God's great moral vineyard, now calling for labourers in foreign lands. {FE 114.1}


CONCLUSION

Life is not given to us to be spent in idleness or self-pleasing; but great possibilities have been placed before every one who will develop his God-given capabilities. For this reason the training of the young is a matter of the highest importance. Every child born into the home is a sacred trust. God says to the parents, Take this child, and bring it up for Me, that it may be an honor to My name, and a channel through which My blessings shall flow to the world. To fit the child for such a life, something more is called for than a partial, one-sided education, which shall develop the mental at the expense of the physical powers. All the faculties of mind and body need to be developed; and this is the work which parents, aided by the teacher, are to do for the children and youth placed under their care. {FE 416.1}