Parents should make it their first business to understand the laws of life and health, that nothing shall be done by them in the preparation of food, or through any other habits, which will develop wrong tendencies in their children. How carefully should mothers study to prepare their tables with the most simple, healthful food, that the digestive organs may not be weakened, the nervous forces unbalanced, and the instruction which they should give their children counteracted by the food placed before them. This food either weakens or strengthens the organs of the stomach and has much to do in controlling the physical and moral health of the children, who are God's blood-bought property. What a sacred trust is committed to parents to guard the physical and moral constitutions of their children so that the nervous system may be well balanced and the soul not be endangered! Those who indulge the appetite of their children, and do not control their passions, will see the terrible mistake t…
"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s."
The EGW passage directly reflects the principle of 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, emphasizing that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and that we are bought with a price. The EGW passage applies this principle to the context of parenting, urging parents to care for their children's physical and moral health as a sacred trust.
"Did the Lord make these youth corrupt? Oh, no! He made them in His image, a little lower than the angels. Who, then, has done the fearful work of forming the life character? Who changed their characters so that they do not bear the impress of God, and must be forever separated from His presence as too impure to have any place with the pure angels in a holy heaven? Were the sins of the parents transmitted to the children in perverted appetites and passions? And was the work completed by the pleasure-loving mother in neglecting to properly train them according to the pattern given her? All these mothers will pass in review before God just as surely as they exist. Satan is ready to do his work and to present temptations which they have no will or moral power to resist. 3T 568.2"
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
The EGW passage directly references the creation of humans in God's image, echoing the language and concept of Genesis 1:27.