In Luke 18 we read of a story about a widow who kept going to see a judge in a city. This judge just simply gets tired of her because every day she comes in and asks, “please get rid of my enemy, please do something about my enemy, please do something about him.” Every day she comes back with the same question, “please take care of my enemy.” This judge, who is not particularly religious or kind, gets worn down by her persistence. Eventually, he grants her request. He takes care of her enemy and she is happy and he has peace.
This is a parable, but it refers to us as well, because we are like that unfortunate widow and we are pressing our request to God. In the end, Jesus said, “And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bare long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:7–8
Let us tie this in now with the raising of our children, because as members of the church, as Christians, we want our children to also have faith. God is looking for faith on this earth. He will look not only at us, but he will also look for it in our children. Let us explore two sets of parents and the work that they did. These parents are mentioned by Sister White as two of the most faithful parents.
“But through no other woman (Jochebed), save Mary of Nazareth has the world received greater blessing.” –Education, p. 61
We have Jochebed and Amram and we have Joseph and Mary. Both are very powerful examples of godly parenting and preparing children of faith and raising children to be servants of God. Let us take a look first at Amram and Jochebed. What do we know about them? Well, we know that they are both the descendants of Levi. Levi was the tribe that became the religious leaders of Israel. Interestingly enough, Jochebed is the aunt of her husband Amram. She is the daughter of Levi, obviously of his old age and Amram is the grandson of Levi. His father and his wife were siblings but Jochebed and Amram were both slaves. They were slaves in one of the most powerful countries or empires of that time, Egypt. They were under a very strict government law, which is that anyone who has a son, that son was under a death decree. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.” Hebrews 11:23. We are given an example of the faith of Amram and Jochebed. They feared God more than they feared the king of Egypt, the pharaoh, who is a very powerful man. It was Pharaoh who had put these very strict laws upon the Israelite people. The king’s command is found in Exodus 1:15–16, “And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.”
God had a greater answer to their prayers. Jochebed continued to hide Moses for three months until it was impossible to hide him any longer. God continues to lead step-by-step on this path of faith that they have to follow. Jochebed has a plan, and I am sure this was not her own plan. God impressed her with the idea to build a little boat of bulrushes and cover it with tar and to place her precious baby into the river. This river goes past the house of the princess, Jochebed is praying for a miracle and now is when her miracle happens. We see that God is never too late, He is never too early, He is right on time and so her miracle comes.
When the princess comes out and lifts up the lid of this little basket, she sees a little Hebrew baby. She hears his cry. It is hard to be angry or to have hatred in your heart for an innocent little baby and so God uses the tenderness of this young princess’s heart and the cry of a baby, to fulfill His plan. Miriam, who has been hiding nearby, comes and asks the princess if she would like to have a nurse for the baby. The princess of course agrees and Jochebed is given permission by the government to raise her son, the very child that the king had commanded to be killed. She is now given support and freedom to raise this child. Now she understands that this is not an accident, this is not something that has just happened by chance. God had a plan and so she does not waste time as she does not know how much time she has. She does not waste a minute but puts as much into her son as she possibly can. Jochebed instructs him, she teaches him, she spends with him every moment that she has. She is dedicated to instructing her son to love and follow the Lord.
“The instructions he received from his parents were such as to fortify his mind and shield him from being lifted up and corrupted with sin and becoming proud amid the splendor and extravagance of court life.” –The Story of Redemption, p. 108
Jochebed knew that at some point she was going to have to let her son go. Her son was given to her on loan and she was going to have to release him, not to another believer’s home, but into a very pagan environment; and so, she instilled in his mind as much as she could to safeguard him from the temptations that he would be faced with. “Those principles of truth that were the burden of his mother’s teaching and the lesson of her life, no after influence could induce Moses to renounce.” –Education, p. 61. What was the result? We read in Acts 7: 22, “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.”
Jochebed had taught him well, and he was able to adapt to the school of the Egyptians. Moses transferred schools, he transferred from a homeschool to now this government school, and he did very well. Nevertheless, we read in Conflict and Courage, page 86 that “Moses had been learning much that he must unlearn.” He came to the palace very young, and he did not have all his filters in place. At the age of 40 he kills an Egyptian. He believes that the way Israel is going to be set free is by force, and he knows he is the one to do it, but he does not rely on God. He does it himself, with his own power and he makes a terrible mistake. Now at 40 years of age he is gone from the palace into the wilderness and he is running for his life, afraid that Pharaoh is going to kill him. Again, this is all part of God’s plan. God says “OK now we’re going to take some intense courses in how to lead and we’re going to practice by leading sheep,” because, as we know, people are very much like sheep.
He learned lessons in patience, leadership, and protection, all the things that he would need to lead a group of people. “Although he was ‘learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,’ while in the service of Pharaoh the character of Moses received a mold that disqualified him for the wonderful work he was to do, making him weak where he should have been strong.” –The Youth’s Instructor, January 29, 1903. At this time he must unlearn many things and remember that foundation that his mother and father had given him while he was a young child. God had been preparing him since conception and Moses does a mighty work and he goes on to write at least the first five books of The Bible. He is the first author of The Bible and leaves behind the legacy of law, of order, justice and of faithfulness. He does much for the children of Israel.
We will now switch and focus on the childhood of Jesus. We are going to compare the two. Jesus was placed into a family of humans. Jesus, we have to remember, comes from heaven. He came from perfection, from purity, from a place of wealth, and beauty. He is placed on this planet with simple people. Which of those simple people does God choose to raise His child, to raise His son, to be responsible for the Son of God? What an awesome task were Joseph and Mary called to do! I cannot even imagine, so let us look at Joseph and Mary.
We know that they are descendants of the tribe of Judah. Both of them are poor. Joseph was not wealthy, he was a carpenter. Mary, we do not know exactly at what age, becomes a single parent to Jesus because Joseph, at some point, dies. Again they are under another powerful Empire. They are under the control of Rome and under their yoke. Jesus is raised in a town that is not where we would choose as parents. It is a place of crime, a place where you would not expect to find the Son of God being raised. What we find, is that while Mary had been presented with this plan of being the mother to the Son of God, when Joseph finds out, he is not exactly on board. He does not understand that this is the Son of God. He is under the assumption, and understandably so, that Mary has been unfaithful to him. He decides that he is going to just divorce her quietly, not make a big deal about it. He would just part ways from her, but God intervenes.
In Matthew 1:20 we see that God sends an angel to go to Joseph and explain things to him to show him the plan. Mary was not unfaithful, but that the Son of God has been implanted in her womb. God needs Joseph to be the
adoptive father, the stepfather of Jesus. He was to help raise the Son of God and because he is also a faithful man he agrees. He goes against, probably, the advice of most of his family and decides to marry a woman that is pregnant with a child that is not his.
Together they raised Jesus. What was the education of Jesus? There were schools at that time that He could have attended—religious schools. They were not the government schools like Moses had to attend but they were religious schools. Yet He did not go. “The child Jesus did not receive instruction in the synagogue schools. His mother was His first human teacher. From her lips and from the scrolls of the prophets, He learned of heavenly things.”–The Desire of Ages p. 70. Even though they had religious schools, Mary takes control of the education of Jesus. She teaches Him to read. He learns about God and the history of Israel. He learns about His people and also about the prophecies of the Messiah.
Jesus also loved studying the wonderful things which God had made in the earth and in the sky. Day-by-day He watched them and tried to learn lessons from them and to understand. Jesus uses the Bible and nature in His schooling. Jesus helped His father and mother with chores, in taking care of the house. He was also granted time to explore in nature. He is running through the field, He is climbing trees, He is doing what little boys loved to do, and He is everywhere. Jesus is running and looking at nature, the animals, the little fish, insects, the clouds in the sky and He is learning.
Through the book of nature we are given valuable lessons about God. We look at what was the result of this instruction that Jesus received at home with His mother and father, away from the church schools of that day. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” Luke 2:52. Jesus was a responsible young man; God was pleased with His development and the people who knew Him. They knew He was kind, gentle, He was polite, responsible, hard working and He was a diligent student.
Margie Seely Education Department Leader & Director of Orion Christian Academy
Homeschoolers are often asked, “are you doing as well as you would if you went to a public school or government school?” The Desire of Ages, page 80 reads, “The rabbis knew that Jesus had not been instructed in their schools; yet His understanding of the prophecies far exceeded theirs. In this thoughtful Galilean boy they discerned great promise. They desired to gain Him as a student, that He might become a teacher in Israel. They wanted to have charge of His education, feeling that a mind so original must be brought under their molding.” This quote really strikes me. There are a few phrases here, but I want to look specifically at that part that says, “a mind so original”. In schools today, they have cookie cutter methods of teaching, they want to have cookie cutter students that graduate and know A, B, C, and D, yet there is much more to education than that. We may say “well, it’s good that He knew the prophecies”, but it was not just the prophecies. Jesus could read extremely well. He could reason extremely well, He knew science extremely well. He knew math well because He was working in the workshop of his father so He learned measurements, He knew how to build furniture. He had all these practical skills, academic skills, \he was a well-rounded young man. So much so that the rabbis wanted Him in their school. We know that \he did not attend the school of the rabbis because they would have ruined what God was trying to do. What they were teaching was custom and tradition, and that is not what God wanted Jesus to be learning. He wanted Jesus to learn the truth and Jesus did.
Now. what can we learn from these two childhoods, these two ways of educating and raising children? When we look at the childhoods of Moses and Jesus, we can see very many similarities. They are the products of faithful parents. We see Jochebed and Amram, and Joseph and Mary, their willingness to go against what is being promoted and to do what God calls them to do, to raise their children. They are willing to risk everything, they are willing to go the extra mile to invest in their children and God blesses their efforts. We also find that the foundation of both Moses and Jesus is laid at home. The parents are the first teachers. They are at home for a good chunk of their childhood. Jesus much longer than Moses. We also see that The Bible is an integral part of their education, it is the cornerstone of what they are learning. Everything that they are learning is tied into what The Bible says. The Bible is their main textbook and the other things that they learn are supplementary to what the Bible says.
We also know that these parents prayed greatly for their children. They did not stop praying. Especially after Moses left home. I am not sure if Jochebed and Amram were able to see him and visit him, but we know, because we know who they are, that they prayed daily for their son Moses. They prayed that the angels of God would protect him, that what they had taught him would not be forgotten. There are some differences too. One is the age at which Moses leaves home education and goes into the government school. He was young, he was not an adult when he left home. He was a young child., around the age of 12. We can see that it did have an influence on him, that God had to take him away so that he could unlearn what he had learned. The time that he spent unlearning was 40 years, 40 years to outgrow and overcome the influences that the Egyptian schools had implanted in him.
God did not take any risks with Jesus, we see that Jesus stays home until He is 30 years of age. Until He is ready to go into His ministry, He stays home. There is not much in the Bible that talks about that time but the snippets that we do get is that it was a time of preparation, a time of His learning. Everything that He learned was brought into play in that brief ministry that He had. That time before His ministry was vital to those few years of ministry that He served here on earth.
Now, let us bring it to today. What about your children? What about my children? From those who are reading, I know your children are different ages and at different levels and different abilities. Some of you have home-schooled, some of you have not home-schooled. Some of you maybe have been able to send your child to a Christian school, some have not been able to do that. But what do we do at this point? Where do we go? Acts 2:17 tells us, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” In the end days, God is going to call on young people. God is pointing to the future, the last days. Who is He going to call upon? He is going to call upon young people, He is going to call upon our children. but there is a caveat here: God could not use Moses without the instruction of Amram and Jochebed. Jesus would not have been able to have the ministry that He had without the instruction of Joseph and Mary.
“Children who are properly instructed will be witnesses of the truth. . . . Let us in our educational work embrace far more of the children and youth than we have done, and there will be a whole army of missionaries raised up to work for God. In the last days children’s voices will be heard proclaiming the message.” –Home and Church School Manual, p. 40. The last days are here and we are raising an army of workers, we are raising young missionaries who will go out and share the gospel to a dying world. These are your children; these are my children. But what comes before the mission work? What came before Christ’s mission? It was the instruction He received from the Bible. His own Bible study, of course, but before that from His parent’s instruction. What preceded the work of Moses? It was the instruction at home, the instruction within the family.
Do we have faith? Do we have faith to do what God is asking us to do? To raise our children to follow Him? Do we have faith to go against the norms of society, to go against what our family is advising maybe, and do what God is asking us to do? Back in 1873 Sister White was given a message and this was only 11 years after the Adventist church was formed. The message that God gave was that it is no longer safe to send our children to the public schools. That was in 1873. What about now? What about today? I went to public school when I was a child and I can tell you that they were not horrible, we had some things that happened, people were a little more godly. What are the examples that our children are learning today? What are they hearing from their schools? When I went to school we had two genders, you were either male or female, no questions asked. It was simple, everybody knew. Now nobody knows. The things that are being taught about what the family is, one of God’s two institutions that He started in the garden of Eden, the family and Sabbath. Now the family is under attack, Sabbath is under attack. All these things are under attack and they are being included as part of a child’s education. Do we have faith to raise our children so that they will have faith? The children that we spoke about, Moses and Jesus, impacted the world. Our children also need to impact the world. They have something that they are being called to do. Jesus says to His disciples, “Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” Luke 18:16. How do we forbid children from coming to God? For one, it is our lack of faith. When we have faith, we can move mountains, because with faith all things are possible. With God all things are possible. If we trust in Him, He will lead us to where we need to go, He will show us how we can raise our children for Him. He will give them a work that they can do that will impact the world for Him. Amen.
This article is based on the Family Program “Children of Faith” aired on the 4Truth.ca YouTube channel. We pray this has been a blessing.
Canadian Field Family Department.