2 Kings 6:2, commentary and pictures

The students found their lodging too small and asked to go to the Jordan where each man would cut a beam and all would build a larger dwelling together, and Elisha told them to go and went with them to encourage and guide the work. Their doing their own building work shows that practical manual labor to supply their needs is an honorable part of student life and training. Teachers and pupils shared together in that outdoor work, uniting physical labor with mental and spiritual instruction as the pattern for school training. The schools of the prophets are thus the order and pattern for schools today, to be built up in many places in simple, humble form rather than concentrated in a few large centers. Their aim is to educate learners of all ages in Bible lines, combining physical, mental, and spiritual powers with the Word of God at the foundation, so that they become trustworthy, skillful workers who can teach and help others.

The Proposal at Jordan

The place where the sons of the prophets lived had become too small for them, and as their community grew they needed expanded facilities for living together in an organized place of instruction. They proposed going to the Jordan and making a larger dwelling there where they could live together, and this planning illustrates the building up of schools modeled on the schools of the prophets. Their proposal was for small, locally established communities rather than concentrating in one large center.

Their plan was that every man should take a beam from the Jordan, with all gathering timber and building together. They went to the Jordan to cut beams and gather timber to build the place to live, taking part in practical, useful work as part of student life. This united manual labor in cutting beams and building the dwelling is the ancient pattern for joining physical work with school teaching.

Elisha approved the plan, told them to go, and gave them permission to go to the Jordan and build there. He went with them himself, encouraging and instructing them as they worked, with teachers and students uniting together in the labor. When distress arose as they enlarged their dwelling, God helped them, showing that He is an ever-present helper in difficulty and trial.

Manual Labor in Training

The verse shows the students themselves taking part in practical, useful manual labor to provide their own dwelling, going to the Jordan to gather beams and build a place to live with the prophet's approval, and this honors ordinary labor as a fitting part of student life and training. Pupils in those prophetic schools sustained themselves by such labor, learning farming or a trade by which they could support themselves. Manual work in that setting was regarded as honorable rather than degrading.

Teachers and students united together in this manual work, combining physical work with mental instruction and training for practical life. That going to Jordan to cut beams and build a dwelling is the ancient pattern for uniting agricultural and other physical work with school teaching, so that learning is joined with useful employment and students can study even while at the plough and engaged in practical work. Publishing houses are to be the same kind of training schools for practical life and work.

That united outdoor work gives vigorous exercise in the open air that strengthens the muscles, encourages proper circulation of the blood, helps preserve the body from disease, gives the animal passions a healthy outlet and keeps them in proper bounds, and greatly helps spirituality. Such training formed men who were trustworthy, true to principle, and quick of understanding, skillful workmen who could teach others how to work. Apprentices and other workers trained in this way are not to be rushed and hurried with no time to pray, but are to be educated as those youth were educated, so they are prepared to take hold of the work in new places as the sons of the prophets sought to make a place to dwell by Jordan, and to serve others in Bible principles.

Pattern for Present Schools

The schools of the prophets seen in the proposal to go to Jordan are the order and pattern for present schools, including church schools, Christian worker-training schools, conference schools, and training in publishing houses and institutions such as the Review and Herald office. Conference schools are to be conducted after that order on a high spiritual plane, and apprentices and other workers are not to be rushed and hurried with no time to pray but are to be educated as the youth in the schools of the prophets were educated so they are prepared to take hold of the work in new places. Building schools modeled on them is part of the Lord's instruction and human prohibitions should not hinder that work, for the planning of a dwelling by the Jordan illustrates the building up of such schools.

The account supports establishing modest, small, locally established schools in many places rather than concentrating educational facilities in a few large centers, with teachers who are missionaries educating children in different localities. Schools formed after that pattern are established in a simple style with humble buildings rather than in an elaborate way. A true school after this order does not copy the plan of many schools in introducing worldly customs and ideas, does not give a worldly training, and does not require study of many things required by the world's schools. It combines physical, mental, and spiritual powers, joins learning with useful employment so that students can study while at the plough and engaged in practical work, gives the study of the Bible a large place, lays God's Word at the foundation, has its precepts and principles prayerfully and daily studied, teaches facts and doctrines with a plain Thus saith the Lord every day, has students learn the lower steps before attempting advanced studies, and prepares teachers and students for the higher school in the heavenly courts.

Teachers in such schools are to be God-fearing, self-denying, consecrated missionaries and doers of the Word who commune with God and answer with It is written. Only a sufficient number of salaried teachers and instructors is to be kept, not a long list or too many, distributed according to need rather than concentrated disproportionately in one place while other places where the work is just as essential lack helpers and directors and watchmen and teachers. The purpose is to educate children, youth, and older learners in Bible lines to understand the Word so they can teach others and do all-sided missionary work. Students are prepared through connection with God and purification from sin, with every effort of attention fixed upon Jesus Christ and unseen things rather than letting visible things absorb the mind, and missionary work for the fallen, degraded, wounded, bruised, perishing and ready to perish is always connected with the school. Success requires self-sacrificing, intelligent, devoted, interested effort by teachers and all connected with the school, with the help and cooperation of the churches under God's blessing and the Spirit of God resting in large measure upon teachers and students.