And “if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” Herein lies the value of this lesson to us. We are his heirs if we link ourselves to the power of the Infinite by that cord of faith. Only by a life and an education such as his can the kingdom of Christ be set up within. Such lessons made Abraham a successful teacher.
Abraham’s school
Those who wished to worship the true God gathered about the tents of Abraham, and became pupils in his school. God’s word was the basis of all instruction, as it is written, “These are the commandments, ... which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it.”
This word was the basis for the study of political science, and Abraham’s “methods of government” were “carried out in the households over which they [his students] should preside.” The equality of all men was a lesson first learned in the home. “Abraham’s affection for his children and his household led him ... to impart to them a knowledge of the divine statutes, as the most precious legacy he could transmit to them, and through them to the world. All were taught that they were under the rule of the God of heaven. There was to be no oppression on the part of parents, and no disobedience on the part of children.” His was not a school where theory alone was taught, but the practical was emphasized. In studying political science they formed the nucleus of a divine government; in the study of finances, they actually made the money and raised the flocks which brought recognition from surrounding nations. “The unswerving integrity, the benevolence and unselfish courtesy, which had won the admiration of kings, were displayed in the home.”
This school was the beginning of a nation
The influence of country life and direct contact with nature, in contrast with the enervating influence of the city with its idolatrous teaching and artificial methods, developed a hardy race, a people of faith whom God could use to lay the foundation for the Israelitish nation. We see, then, that when God founds a nation, he lays that foundation in a school. The nation of which Abraham and his followers formed the beginning, prefigured the earth redeemed, where Christ will reign as King of kings. The education of the school of Abraham symbolized Christian education.
“If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise,” not only of the kingdom, but of the education which prepares the inhabitants for that kingdom.
As faith was the method employed in teaching in the days of the patriarch, so in the schools of to-day faith must be the motive for work, the avenue to the fountain of wisdom. There are to-day those who can not harmonize their feelings and their ideas of education with the plan which God has committed to his people. Likewise in the days of Abraham there was at least one family which withdrew from the influence of the school.
Lot chose a worldly school
Lot had felt the effects of the teaching of Abraham, but through the influence of his wife, “a selfish, irreligious woman,” he left the altar where they once worshiped together, and moved into the city of Sodom. “The marriage of Lot, and his choice of Sodom for a home, were the first links in a chain of events fraught with evil to the world for many generations.” Had he alone suffered, we would not need to follow the history; but the choice of a new home threw his children into the schools of the heathen; pride and love of display were fostered, marriage with Sodomites was a natural consequence, and their final destruction in the burning city was the terrible but inevitable result.