To Spiritual Leaders Who are Afraid of Formal Education...
I have learned to become the kind of person who will confront my friends with honesty when they talk about their philosophies. I learned this from Israelis when I worked in Jerusalem. Israelis have the most directly confrontational culture in the world (according the book The Culture Map by Erin Meyer). Of course, some of you have experienced my confrontation, and even my rebuke, and it hasn’t always been pleasant. I’m talking specifically to my American and Canadian friends, because I know how much our cultures lack a framework for healthy confrontation, and how much we need it. And because of this lack, our only tool to confront tends to be passive aggression, and we only know how to take direct confrontation as an attack. Our usual response is to lash out bitterly, and it’s not pretty. So, I’m grateful for those of you who have assumed the best of me and taken the time to wrestle with me about these themes. If I’ve confronted you with honest inquiry or critique, it’s only because I believe in you, because I care about you, and I think it's important to address what you’re talking about…
So, with that said, many of my friends were or have become Christian spiritual leaders, and I have confronted several of them in the last half decade. And among all these conversations, I’m now noticing a trend. When I start to argue points by bringing in information that comes from my education on the material we are dealing with, I have gotten the same frustrated response from those who are not formally educated, which is a phrase like this: “But Susan, you don’t have to have a university degree to understand the Word of God.” I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this over the years. Technically, I agree with this statement. The Bible is accessible to everyone, and contains a very simple message; it’s mostly comprised of stories and pictures so that even a child can learn something. But there should be a massive difference between a child and a spiritual leader. What I really hear is an excuse for not knowing what they’re talking about.
When we identify ourselves as spiritual leaders, teachers, or preachers of the Word, we need to be at a level beyond the layperson's understanding of the word. Years of experience in church is good, but it's not enough for teaching if we never learn the basic practice of good hermeneutics. And I'm realizing this is rarer than I'd hoped...
Sure, it’s very possible for one to be well educated without having obtained a formal university degree. However, people who can do this—and do it well—are rare. Just developing a good standard for what resources are legitimate and which ones are not is half the battle. Most of us need to be guided along so we don’t stray too far into the pseudo-sciences, or away from foundational Biblical principles, thinking we know more than even the educated. How can we know if we’re on the right track without fellow believers to challenge and sharpen us? If every church is turning you away, either all the churches you've approached are wrong—or you're wrong! If "no one else" is teaching this stuff, you've probably veered from the center. There is a scholarly way to study and interpret the Bible that has been well-established over time (it's called hermeneutics), and those of us who teach should seek to be educated in this practice. You must first learn the rules to understand why you might choose to break them. This is true of almost every worthy pursuit.
Those who identify themselves as teachers of the Word should never use the above excuse--that the word should be easy to understand--to validate their lack of education. And unfortunately, I know too many spiritual leaders and lone wolves trying to preach their message, who are proud that they don’t have a formal education. They see themselves as somehow untainted by the “problems of the mainstream church” (another oft-thrown-around phrase). They think they have avoided being influenced by Satan. And listen, I am well aware of the problems, and I know there are massive trends that can go wildly wrong. But if we set ourselves against the church, we are setting ourselves against the body of Christ itself. And the problems that touch our universities and mainstream churches are the same ones that are embedded in our society, and all of us are touched and tainted by them. One must either get a quality education or leave his own society for some years (or both!) in order to properly see what those problems are, and some of us still never see them. At least one of the big problems in our society is this very pride and lack of education, which usually leads us—and consequently our followers—away from our Biblical foundation.
Make no mistake; the goal of the church is to preach the gospel and make disciples. That is our primary directive from Jesus himself. Of course, we’re allowed to preach and teach about every part of scripture, and it’s all valid. We’re welcome to have a very specified or even obscure expertise and teach about it. But if your life’s main message and/or focus is not about the gospel—specifically the person of Jesus Christ and the good news about his death on the cross, his resurrection, and the dispensation of Holy Spirit—if this is not your life’s main focus as a pastor or teacher or just as a Christian, you have strayed away from your foundation. I hear many people say “those are just the basics,” and they feel that mature Christians should move past this basic gospel teaching, looking for something “deeper,” to learn or teach about in order to grow or gain maturity. But the gospel is at the center of everything. It is both simple and deep. There are layers upon layers that can be unfolded. The gospel is the basis of our worship. The Old and New Testament scriptures all point to Christ. If you are a New Covenant Christian, every part of scripture should be read through the lens of the cross. Every prophetic inkling should in some way point us to Christ.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2, “And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (NIV)” This is one scripture that many use to justify not being educated. And it's true; Paul may not have had all the human wisdom and eloquence. But let’s not forget, Paul only began preaching the gospel after spending years studying it with disciples who learned from Jesus. And Paul was a very well-educated Jew before he began preaching the gospel. He understood the scriptures extensively, which was why he had a unique ability to explain the significance of Old Testament themes and how they point us to the cross. God knew what he was doing when he chose Paul. Paul was not as erudite as, say, Apollos, but he was indeed educated.
God expects teachers of scripture to have a deeper, more expansive knowledge of the Word. James 3:1 says “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (NIV)” If we truly value God’s word, and aspire to teach it, we should be devoted to the proper study of it. 2 Timothy 2:15 also says, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (NIV)” Because in the end, we are accountable to God, and no one else (Hebrews 4:13).
I know that formal education doesn’t guarantee you will know the right things... or that you won’t stray into problems, heresy or even bad doctrine. We are all susceptible. And plenty of schools out there are in many ways compromised. I am not blind to that fact. But there
are problems and strengths on both sides of the camp. The real
sin is pride: whether you have no formal education and that makes you proud you’re “unsullied” by the doctrinal pitfalls
of the educated, or you're proud that you are "better" than others because of your education. Both are sinful attitudes. Once you’ve reached this
point of pride, you become rigid and cease to be teachable. In this state, the educated become hypocrites
and the unlearned become stubborn. It requires humility to learn something new. And with scripture, we can never fully "arrive" at all the knowledge of it. We can, however, learn the foundations of it, upon which we can build. And God can use both conventional and unconventional ways to teach us. Nothing is
beyond his reach.
But I am talking more specifically to those who avoid education. I am pointing out the irony of a teacher who hasn't learned. You don't even know what you don't know. Many people have gone before you and done the very same things you are doing, teaching the same themes you are teaching, but you don't know about them because you haven't studied church history. And that means you will repeat their mistakes; you can't even see how far you are straying, or what fruit your message brings forth, or the destruction you will bring upon the people you influence...
We need Biblical scholars! We need to learn from them! They teach us how to properly interpret the word, because they know it backwards and forwards. They have contended with the theologians of the past, and studied how the books of the Bible came together. They can teach you how to do this!
Scholars know why certain writings and teachings were rejected by the church over the years. They see what truths have remained stable across the centuries. They can see the overall picture of how churches and even societies become stale and how God brings about revival. They teach us how our predecessors understood the word, all the way back to the apostles. They show us how other ideologies and philosophies have influenced Christianity in different cultures over the centuries. They show us how we have been influenced by our own culture. They help us to understand the Jewish mindset so we can properly understand Jesus, and what he and all the Jewish gospel writers meant in their day. They bring us back to the original meanings of scripture in the Hebrew and Greek, and open our eyes to the truths embedded within; what these verses truly meant before we imposed our Western and Greco-rational thinking upon them. Good Biblical scholars call us back to our foundations. These are people who have seen real ancient Biblical manuscripts with their own eyes, studied every millimeter of the pages in fear and reverence, compared them with others, learned the original languages, and wrestled with the meanings and translations in prayer. They are among the most qualified to strengthen our understanding and to help keep us from falling off the theological wagon.
Satan wants us to think everyone everywhere has been corrupted so we are too afraid to reach out to others and learn the deeper depths of scripture. He wants us to trust only obscure sources so we are distracted and led away from the truth. He wants us to end up alone, paranoid, and afraid of challenge which would make us stronger. We wants us to become useless to the world. If you want to teach, but are too stubborn to learn the established way to properly study the Bible, or are too afraid to search for a good school or training program, I dare say that Satan’s work has succeeded in you. Take this as an honest rebuke from a friend.
It takes faith to trust that God will lead us through our studies, and faith to trust that God will bring us good teachers. Contrary to what it may seem, not all schools have succumbed to the pressures, and not all teachers have bowed to the demands of the mob. Not all churches have bowed to the “mainstream” ideas. There are still amazing, Christ-centered people out there; people still doing God's work. If God exists, then these good and faithful people exist all over the world. If we are called to teach, we should join their ranks. We should seek out their knowledge. We should treasure their knowledge!
We should ask God for the faith to believe that He can and will preserve His word, and for the faith that he has preserved it throughout the centuries. And we should ask God that our faith in His ability to do so is stronger than our faith in Satan’s ability to obscure it.
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