Nothing to be Proud About

Twice this week, i heard a comment that troubled me. It went something
like this "I have not been to bible school".
While being a rather ordinary sounding statement, it is more frightening
when it comes from a person whose current position gives them a sense of
superiority and autonomy over others based entirely of some notion of
current progress and movement.
The first time you hear this, it often comes from miracle workers or
people who have amassed a good following in an age of limited religious
numbers.
A link with the supernatural, a touch of oratory skill, the possibility
of a large population of very needy people makes for a healthy mix of
trouble.

The broader message is very simple. A lack of education is nothing to be
proud about...regardless of which sphere ones speaks from.


The line from which most of these justifications comes from seems to
come from the book of Acts.
Acts 17:6b "...These that have turned the world upside down are come
hither also..."

"Acts 4:13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and
perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men they took knowledge
of them, that they had been with Jesus."

The First Scripture is normally used to justify ones ministry based
sorely on the Acts and the miracle which one performs. The Second serves
the same purpose but provides a distinction between the Peter and John
and the rest of us-that these men had spent some time with Jesus in the
Flesh.

If the claims that he had made previously in John are anything to go by,
then what he was saying is that they had sat under the tutelage of God.

John 6:45 "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be taught of
God. Every man therefore that hath never learned of the Father, cometh
unto me"

Or later the reference to the a different kind of knowledge.
John 7:22 "And the Jews marveled, saying, How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned?"

We therefore find ourselves in a dilemma similar in part to that of the
Pharisees and the Sadducee of the time. Like the Jewish Rabbis of Today
or the Muslim Sheiks, they were used in the interpretation of the law at
a time when so much depended on the law and its effects.

There is a core of the church that is standing guard over sacred
scripture while a new fresh breed of Messiah has emerged from the wood
works.
This new group is more vibrant and lively and commands the masses. It
promises to fill the gaps in the hollow building with fresh recruits
and
once in a while seems to have an knack for the supernatural.

Should it be allows to live or should it be managed and even curtailed?