In order to do the will of God, we must search His word, that we may know His doctrine, and put to the task all our entrusted ability. We must be diligent in prayer, and fervent in simple, wholehearted service to God. Those who are engaged as teachers in the Sabbath school should hunger and thirst for divine truth, that they may impart this Spirit to those under their care, and lead their pupils to seek for truth as for hidden treasure. We do not want our Sabbath schools conducted in such a way as to make hypocrites of the pupils; for such cannot advance the interests of true religion. Then let there be more attention given to seeking God, that the Spirit of the Lord may be in your school, than that you may have every mechanical arrangement you desire. High pretensions of any kind are out of place in the Sabbath school work, and the mechanical working of the school is of little value if the Spirit of God does not soften and mold the hearts of teachers and pupils.—Testimonies on Sabbath-School Work, 76.
(CSW 73.1)
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In all true teaching the personal element is essential. Christ in His teaching dealt with men individually. It was by personal contact and association that He trained the twelve. It was in private, often to but one listener, that He gave His most precious instruction. To the honored rabbi at the night conference on the Mount of Olives, to the despised woman at the well of Sychar, He opened His richest treasures; for in these hearers He discerned the impressible heart, the open mind, the receptive spirit. Even the crowd that so often thronged His steps was not to Christ an indiscriminate mass of human beings. He spoke directly to every mind and appealed to every heart. He watched the faces of His hearers, marked the lighting up of the countenance, the quick, responsive glance, which told that truth had reached the soul; and there vibrated in His heart the answering chord of sympathetic joy....
(CSW 73.2)
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