“If numbers were an evidence of success, Satan might claim the pre-eminence; for in this world his followers are largely in the majority. It is the degree of moral power pervading a school that is a test of its prosperity.”[1]
Judas, like many ambitious students, applied to the school he thought held the most promise of worldly success. The Messiah’s mission school was certainly no Ivy League university, but Judas thought that “by joining the apostles,” he would “secure a high position in the new kingdom.”[2] The other disciples looked at Judas’ external appearance and extensive accomplishments and “commended him to Jesus as one who would greatly assist Him in His work,”[3] but were surprised by Jesus’ lack of enthusiasm since, of all His apostles, Judas seemed the most promising. But Jesus saw beyond the outward appearance, for “the Lord looks at the heart.”[4] The great Teacher saw what His pupils couldn’t: moral corruption concealed beneath a facade of external attainments. Could it be that we, like the disciples, fall prey to popular ideas of success which crowd out heart conversion in our schools? Like Christ’s graduating class of A.D. 31, do we look at the externals–like enrollment numbers or prestigious diplomas–claiming that by these, Christ’s kingdom will be built up most effectively? Like Judas’ qualifications, these things aren’t in themselves sin, but they are mere externals which often conceal corruption within. Like Christ, we must look beyond outward adornment, maintaining a focus on the heart. The best news is that, like the disciples, Christ can change our focus. He can grant us true conversion–but only if we allow Him.
Perhaps it’s just because I was ‘sheltered,’ but the first exposure I ever had to illicit drugs was actually in one of our SDA institutions of higher education, a place where pastors, teachers, and nurses are trained—a school equipping future leaders in our churches, schools and missions! In numerous purportedly Christian schools, worldly entertainment and carnal practices pervade our campuses, much to the disappointment of consecrated staff and teachers, fellow students, parents, and even outside onlookers. We must recognize that even Jesus’ school was not exempt from immorality, such as the disciples’ quarrelling and Judas’ thievery; Jesus Himself reminded us in a parable that sometimes it is necessary to tolerate weeds, “[lest] you also uproot the wheat with them.”[5] Yet, in being tolerant of the evildoers, have we become tolerant of their deeds? Thankfully, God reminds us that even though “our institutions of learning may swing into worldly conformity . . . they are prisoners of hope, and God will correct and enlighten them, and bring them back to their upright position of distinction from the world.”[6]
In contrast to many of our own universities, the schools of the prophets were small and family-like.[7] The students and staff built the facilities with their own hands[8] and sometimes even gathered their own food.[9] Externally there was nothing to boast about, but because these schools followed the plan of true education, their campuses received the blessing of God and were filled with moral power. Such conversion was not the result of teachers with more advanced degrees or better equipped laboratories, but the result of teachers taking the time to build intimate, heart-to-heart connections with their students, teaching the lessons of Christ from nature while doing practical work with them. Like a family, with teachers as spiritual fathers and mothers, these schools fostered mental, physical, and, most importantly, spiritual growth in students, enabling them to become Spirit-filled missionaries for the upbuilding of God’s work.
From a careful study of the Old Testament, we find that God accomplished through these schools what we desire God to do through ours: Students took on death-defying missions as their capstones,[10] saw the Holy Spirit move powerfully even upon stubbornly irreligious rebels,[11] and heard the very voice of God revealing to them prophetic truths.[12] In a large degree, we are told, the prosperity of the kingdoms under David and Solomon was owed to the schools of the prophets.[13] The accomplishments of these graduates attest to the power of a school which prioritizes true education. The program followed by these schools was effective because it produced students who were truly converted and filled with the Spirit of God, for it is not the degree one may possess that grants him eternal success, but the degree to which He is filled with the Holy Spirit.
Through these schools, God demonstrated what can be accomplished through true education–an education that leads to heart conversion. Such fruits are not, as some may erroneously conclude, relegated to the distant past. If adopted today, God promises an even richer blessing: a generation rightly trained and filled with the Holy Spirit through which the gospel will reach every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.
The Avondale school in Australia stands as a modern example of what God can and will do in a school that patterns itself after the schools of the prophets. Externally, it was a small school that ignored the popular methods of granting advanced degrees, choosing rather to focus on training students for missionary work. Instead of sports teams and theater clubs, Avondale emphasized agricultural training, mission-focused business, and literature evangelism. Academic scholarships were nonexistent, but students were encouraged to work their way through school. Whatever they lacked in outward accolades, God made up for in the conversion of the student body—the “degree of moral power”[14] which pervaded the school.
Contrary to the practice of rebellious educators back in the United States who chose to build Battle Creek College in the city with a curriculum devoid of manual work, Ellen White labored alongside other daring pioneers to make Avondale a “school [established] on right principles.”[15] She built up the school–its program and core values–according to the model given in the schools of the prophets. Before the first classes were held, she pushed for the planting of fruit trees[16] and encouraged the weak faith of naysayers who claimed nothing would grow in the Australian soil.[17] She cast a vision which exalted foreign mission work, saying that students would be sent from Avondale to the “heathen lands and to the islands of the sea.”[18] The Lord crowned the faithfulness of these servants with success—not mere worldly success, but spiritual success. God made Avondale a school of revival.
In 1901, Ellen White returned to the United States bearing a triumphant testimony of the educational work carried on during her time abroad. She spoke of revival on the fledgling campus, not just a one-time revival during a week of prayer but a sustained revival that kept burning term after term, for nearly a decade. “Every term of school which we have held at Avondale has resulted in the conversion of nearly every student in the school.”[19] Businessmen, she said, would send their children from the city in order that they might not be corrupted by the influence present in other schools.[20] Avondale was a campus filled with the Holy Spirit—a modern school of the prophets.
Imagine our campuses so filled with the Holy Spirit, His influence so strongly felt, that nearly the whole student body is converted as a result of His convicting power on the heart. Doubtless this showing came as a result of fervent prayer, as well as diligent faithfulness in following God’s plan for true education. In the testimony Ellen White shared before the General Conference of 1901, she made the connection with unmistakable clarity between the sustained revival at Avondale and the divine blueprint for true education. While she spent most of her address encouraging people to do literature evangelism by selling Christ’s Object Lessons, she emphatically declared that we should also live out these object lessons by including them in the curriculum. “Our schools should be located away from the cities, on a large tract of land, so that the students will have opportunity to do manual work. They should have opportunity to learn lessons from the objects which Christ used in the inculcation of truth. He pointed to the birds, to the flowers, to the sower and the reaper.”[21]
Too many parents and educators seem to think that Bible classes, outreach programs and corporate worships are more effective ways of promoting spirituality than useful labor—that “practical labor is a thing of the past and doesn’t have anything to do with religion, at least not in the 21st century.” These well-meaning naysayers fail to observe that Jesus spent much more time doing actual labor with and teaching lessons from nature to His disciples than He spent lecturing them. While classes are good and necessary, the time spent doing useful work with students is the best time to nurture their character, and one of the primary modalities for promoting their spiritual growth. Therefore, it should never be omitted. The schools of the prophets followed God’s blueprint in every particular and He in turn blessed them with a large measure of moral power which benefited the whole nation of Israel. They no doubt attained this power in part through didactic studies and especially the study of the Bible, but not by these alone. True education, exemplified in both the school of Christ and the schools of the prophets, involved practical lessons from nature, not just classroom studies. The benefit of outdoor labor is both physiological and spiritual, for we are told that to reach high moral standards (conversion) the body must not be neglected. “There is an intimate relation between the mind and the body, and in order to reach a high standard of moral and intellectual attainment the laws that control our physical being must be heeded.”[22]
It’s easy today to boast about external accomplishments. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has the second-largest educational system in the world.[23] In the United States, Adventist students “outperform the national average across all demographics.”[24] These claims are indeed true, but we must evaluate more than just the numbers. Ellen White observes that “if numbers were an evidence of success, Satan might claim the pre-eminence; for in this world his followers are largely in the majority.”[25] Even numerically, however, our educational sector is facing major challenges. My division is currently grappling with an impending pastoral shortage, with some of our schools now granting theology majors free tuition in an effort to meet the need.[26] Beyond this, we have six thousand unreached people groups yet to reach with the everlasting gospel in the Three Angels’ Messages.[27] As the price of education continues to climb and more and more of my Adventist colleagues opt out of Adventist education in favor of a more affordable and perhaps prestigious secular education, the number of graduates willing to work for the upbuilding of this prophetic movement continues to dwindle. We may give any number of reasons for the lack of young people planning to work for the church or become missionaries, but perhaps we can all now agree that a more faithful incorporation of true education would lead to true conversion. If our schools were filled with more of God’s Spirit, such a revival would bring great benefit to the church as a whole.
We may be the lukewarm Laodicean church, but we can’t afford to settle; we can’t be satisfied with mediocre spirituality on our campuses. We could, like Judas, be satisfied with externals—after all, he too was a well-educated Sabbathkeeper—but God calls us higher: to be entirely converted. Jesus is coming soon, and asks us to demonstrate true conversion by faithfulness in every aspect of life—especially in education, where character is formed. Even if it means external sacrifices and a far more humble showing by the world’s standard, we believe spiritual revival, like that which Avondale experienced year after year, is worth every apparent loss to pride and external show. While many of our schools have opted out of practical training programs and distinctly missional learning outcomes in favor of worldly academic adornments, we see the necessity for each of these components and trust God to bring spiritual revival. We believe God’s promise that when we clear the way and remove every hindrance, choosing to follow His footsteps and counsels in every particular, He will pour out His Holy Spirit in our schools to make us the generation of youth to finish the work.
[1] Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6 (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1900), 143. Emphasis supplied.
[2] Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1898), 293.
[3] Ibid, 294.
[4] 1 Sam. 16:7
[5] Matt. 13:29 (See Matt. 13:24-30.)
[6] Ellen G. White, “January 9, 1894.” The Review and Herald (Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1851), par. 12. Emphasis supplied.
[7] See 2 Kgs. 4:43; schools with approximately 100 students are small by today’s standards.
[8] See 2 Kgs. 6:1-4.
[9] See 2 Kgs. 4:39.
[10] See 2 Kgs. 9:1-4.
[11] See 1 Sam. 19:19-24.
[12] See 2 Kgs. 2:3, 5.
[13] See Ellen G. White, Education (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1903), 47.
[14] Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 31 (Oakland, CA: Pacific Press, 1882), par. 27.
[15] Ellen G. White, “April 14, 1901.”, General Conference Bulletin, vol. 4 (Silver Spring, MD: Ellen G. White Estate, 1901), 215.
[16] Ellen G. White, Life Sketches of Ellen G. White (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1915), 359.
[17] Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Australian Years: 1891-1900 (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1983), 156.
[18] White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, 473.
[19] White, “April 14, 1901.”, General Conference Bulletin, vol.4, 215.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1890), 601.
[23] “Who We Are | Adventist Education,” NAD Office of Education, accessed May 21, 2024, https://www.adventisteducation.org/who.
[24] Elissa Kido, “For Real Education Reform, Take a Cue from the Adventists,” Christian Science Monitor, November 15, 2010, accessed June 14, 2024, https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1115/For-real-education-reform-take-a-cue-from-the-Adventists.
[25] White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, 143.
[26] Shane Anderson, “Free Cash, Priceless Calling,” Adventist Review, March 15, 2024, accessed June 13, 2024, https://adventistreview.org/magazine-article/free-cash-priceless-calling/.
[27] Bryan Hill, ed., “2024 AFM Snapshot,” Adventist Frontiers, April 1, 2024, accessed June 14, 2024, https://afmonline.org/resources/detail/april-2024.