Importance of Education
Read Ezra 7:6 and 10. What do these texts teach us about the impor-
tance of proper religious education?
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Ezra’s wholehearted devotion to God and his decision to study,
practice, and teach the Word of God (Ezra 7:6, 10) prepared him
for greater ministry in Israel. The biblical text literally states that he
devoted himself to the studying, doing or making, and teaching of the
law of the Lord.
Ellen G. White provides an important insight: “Born of the sons of
Aaron, Ezra had been given a priestly training; and in addition to this
he had acquired a familiarity with the writings of the magicians, the
astrologers, and the wise men of the Medo-Persian realm. But he was
not satisfied with his spiritual condition. He longed to be in full har-
mony with God; he longed for wisdom to carry out the divine will. And
so he ‘prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it.’ Ezra
7:10. This led him to apply himself diligently to a study of the history
of God’s people, as recorded in the writings of prophets and kings. He
searched the historical and poetical books of the Bible to learn why the
Lord had permitted Jerusalem to be destroyed and His people carried
captive into a heathen land.”—Prophets and Kings, p. 608.
“The efforts of Ezra to revive an interest in the study of the Scriptures
were given permanency by his painstaking, lifelong work of preserving
and multiplying the Sacred Writings. He gathered all the copies of the
law that he could find and had these transcribed and distributed. The
pure word, thus multiplied and placed in the hands of many people,
gave knowledge that was of inestimable value.”—Page 609.
Notice that though Ezra had learned of the ways of the pagans, he
saw that they were not correct; thus, he sought to know the truth from
the source of truth, which was the Word of God and the “law of the
Lord.” He had to unlearn a great deal of what he learned at the worldly
universities, because, no doubt, much of what they taught was wrong.
After all, how much good were “the writings of the magicians and the
astrologers” going to do him?
In what ways, even today, might we need to unlearn a lot of what
we have been taught from the world?
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