The Ivy League of Illiteracy ...

Imagine what happens to the quality of education at Harvard, if the minimum requirements for entry were reduced to a third-grade literacy standard.  The teachers do not change.  The exorbitant price does not change.  But the quality of the students drops from “the perceived best-of-the-best” to nearly illiterate students.  How could a class progress without at least some semblance of a baseline education?  Imagine Oxford trying this out.  Would parents who fund a “prestigious” education continue to be willing to fund one at Oxford if the caliber of the people went from blue-blood to blue-collar?  If Yale did this, could even the sports or music programs survive?  While there are many talented people who can run or sing without the benefit of “much” education; lowering that bar all the way down to third-grade, are they still teachable or coachable at that level?  The reason why the ivy league remains the ivy league (apart from the small fortune it takes to attend them weeding out those ‘less desirables’) is the purported high academic and social activity bar they all set.  Being exclusive tends to foster exclusivity in us all, and so the economics of exclusivity remain largely untarnished.

But the economics of brilliance are not truly confined to the halls of ivy league institutions.  Many a man or woman who has yet to step upon an ivy league campus will find themselves having accomplished so much, or innovated so much, or inspired so much; that the first time they step on campus at Harvard will be as a guest lecturer.  And while ivy league engineers (or drops out of) continue to produce technology that enables entire populations to advance, the economics of those made rich by technology advances are not constricted only to the ivy league alumni.  They extend into the populous of “regular” people who come up with “good” ideas.  The good idea that pans out in the realm of technology can produce a level of wealth the inventor hardly imagined.  Is he solely dependent on his own prowess to achieve this, perhaps not.  But if the wealth created is possible without benefit of the ivy league student debt (or absent parents of sufficient means), then is the need for these vaunted institutions still as high?

Yet the common perception remains, the person with the highest formal education is most likely to succeed.  People who have attended an ivy league institution for that education are even more likely to succeed.  Statistics bear that out.  At least the statistics of common intuition, or perception by those who are not as high on the social or educational rung.  And let’s face it, it is hard for someone who did graduate from Harvard not to think of themselves as having achieved something the “common man” will never be able to do.  This self-perception will only be enforced by their peers who are forced to admit it is probably true.  So when you go to the doctor, and you see the certifications from Harvard on his/her wall; don’t you feel just a little bit better?  Oh sure, other doctors can achieve brilliance in any field, and not all of them are ivy leaguer’s – but if you don’t know them that well, an ivy league diploma does inspire a little more confidence than a night-school equivalent.

And where we understand this phenomena in our social world, we seem to have taken it into our spiritual one.  The “masters of divinity” educational title, as taught by institutions of higher learning, that enforce rigorous educational standards like an understanding of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.  Deep intensive studies of the Torah, or prophetic interpretation are standard fare.  The life of Christ is a big topic.  And most institutions that are affiliated with a particular denomination, teach that denomination’s doctrinal interpretations on many matters, expecting a deep level of understanding of these interpretations before graduation is possible.  Ministers, evangelists, or workers in the gospel who have graduated with these types of degrees and diploma’s are thought to be well prepared, and perhaps so they are.  It is as if, our Pharisee and Sadducee forefathers were still writing the scripts and setting the social expectations of our day.  And the same self-perceptions of arrogance that are easily adopted from colleagues in our ivy league institutions in the secular world, give way to our colleagues in the spiritual world who complete their education in this manner.  And in the spiritual realm, there is deference by the “common” man, to the well-educated one.

But is this how it was meant to be?  This is how traditional Jews expected it in the days of Christ, and perhaps how we continue to expect it now.  As Matthew continues to write his gospel to his fellow Hebrews he knows what they will expect.  It has been the societal norm for generations.  And what he is about to recall is going to upend it.  Picking up in his gospel in the last part of chapter eleven, Matthew begins to relay a message to his fellow Jews they may not enjoy, and neither will we by the look of it. Beginning in verse 25 he continues saying … “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”  Yikes!  This is earth shattering.

The most brilliant religious truths that will ever be understood are “hidden” from the wise and prudent.  No amount of preparation will make them ready to receive or understand this Truth.  In fact, it has worked to keep them from understanding.  Think of it.  All that education.  All those hours studying the Torah, and reviewing the scrolls of the minor and major prophets.  All that time debating with peers about the meaning of scripture.  The right scripture by the way, not something from a different god’s agenda.  But it did not matter.  When the time came to see the Truth, the wise and the prudent, the best prepared of Jewish society, the most likely to succeed, saw nothing.  The Truth was hidden from them.  But not as punishment, as cause and effect.  When my education leads me to believe I “know” what is true, instead of forever being dependent upon God to show me what is True; I block myself from the Truth.  This is the danger in thinking that permeates our society and our church to this day.

The people who should know the Truth, do not.  And how do you know?  The measure of the yardstick is love.  How much a person loves, is an indicator of how much they know the Truth.  It is not the depth of the doctrinal understanding, but the depth of the love that bubbles over in them.  For it is the second part of what Jesus says that confirms it.  What was hidden from those who believed they had no need, was revealed unto babes.  Babies have no doubt of their need.  They respond to love and offer love in the only ways they know how to do.  They are not deep in other knowledge, but essentially empty vessels, who know nothing, and are ready to learn everything.  They do not teach anything but learn everything.  They observe everything.  They notice everything.  And they are so dependent, they would die without being taken care of.  This is the state of people God the Father chooses to work with, because this is the only state of people ready to hear what God has to say.  It is as if the “common” illiterate man, is capable of learning more from the mouth of God, than is the doctoral candidate.  Let that sink in for a while.  The Jewish community to which Matthew was writing was sure to have a field day over it.  But these were the words of Jesus, who was in fact the Truth.

Jesus then continues in verse 26 saying … “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. [verse 27] All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.”  This was even more mind boggling.  The Jews had made a lifetime of knowing the Father God through the scriptures.  They simply presumed that is who scripture revealed.  The Messiah was somewhat of a mystery to them.  They had little expectations of really getting to know the Messiah, He was simply supposed to come in and overthrow the Romans, and usher in an era of Jewish supremacy for all time.  This Jesus was clearly NOT doing that.  Ep-so-facto this Jesus could not be the waited for Messiah.  But in addition, the Jews felt like they knew God the Father already, Jesus had nothing to teach them on that score.  They simply did not need Jesus, they already had a direct connection to the Father by birthright and by study.

What they missed in their “infinite wisdom”, was that scripture revealed Jesus, was inspired by Jesus, and it was Jesus who had the direct connection to mankind all throughout scripture.  Jesus in the Garden of Eden walking with Adam and Eve in the evenings.  Jesus walking to Sodom before it would be judged, sitting with Abraham and having a meal, telling Sarah she would give birth at 90+ years old even while she giggled at the thought of the shear mechanics.  Jesus wrestling with Jacob at night.  Jesus revealing his back to Moses on Mt Sinai, and His finger writing out the Ten Commandments.  Jesus in the fiery furnace with the three Hebrews who would not bow.  Jesus throughout all the stories, and now here in the flesh.  Jesus the embodiment of God’s love for His people.  Later Jesus who stopped Saul and made him Paul.  And Jesus who would be revealed in prophecy through the remainder of time by John at Patmos.  Scripture does offer us insight as to who God the Father is, but only through the lens of Jesus Christ. 

The learned Jews felt no need of Jesus to see God, so they did not see Him.  And the learned Christians in our day seldom recognize how much baby they are, and so see the Truth very little.  We have supplanted birth right with self-awareness.  We are now self-sufficient in our salvation, and therefore have little need of Jesus to save us, trusting to our knowledge to take care of that.  And so we see little of the Truth.  We have replaced the Truth with our collective wisdom.  And what happens in the modern secular economy of brilliance happens in the sacred one as well.  Men and women arise, who have very little formal education, and wind up accomplishing so much, inspiring so much, innovating so much – that we admire them long after they leave the world stage.  The 12 disciples carried with them the Holy Spirit, their lack of education was no impediment to creating the first church.  Obscure heroes since like a teenage girl who carried the gift of prophecy and penned so many books and testimonies they can hardly be counted.  The babes see, where the prepared of us, do not.

Then as if with laser vision, Jesus looks right at the Pharisee and Sadducee who can hear Him speak.  He speaks to their greatest need, and to ours.  He continues in verse 28 saying … “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [verse 29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. [verse 30] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  This message may apply to the common man, but the common man Jesus was just speaking about is already being given the revelation of who Jesus really is.  The message is spoken to the church leadership who needs it the most.  Stop trying.  Stop taking the burden of your salvation and your education upon yourself.  Bring it to Me instead.  The greatest promise in nearly all of scripture was not meant in a physical context, but in a spiritual growth one instead.  See the baby you are, and find rest letting Jesus be the Parent He is.  Letting Jesus teach you is easy, and light.  Letting Jesus be your tutor will bring rest unto your soul.

It does not take your self-dependence and self-reliance to achieve greatness and see truth in the spiritual context.  It takes your recognition of your complete baby-hood.  No matter how far you think you have come.  No matter what you think you have learned or wisdom you have amassed.  You know nothing.  You have no wisdom.  You have only the loving eyes of a very small child that Jesus longs to pick up, cradle, hold, feed, and protect from the world around you.  Your every care is in the hands of an unfailing parent who loves you more than His own life, something He proved.  Think not to teach, but to learn.  Think not to speak but to listen to the still small voice yearning to share with you Truth beyond your wildest imagination.  The vehicle for learning is not an institution of higher learning, governed by a bunch of other babies.  It is the source of education in the Truth, who alone can reveal what you need to know, in the only way you would understand it.

There is rest in this approach.  There is peace in this approach.  It is promised by Jesus Himself.  And it is waiting for you, in the dependence you have only to recognize, discover, and embrace …

 

A Basis For Truth ...

Logic dictates a few truths about the nature of a Supreme Being we call God. Evil self-destructs over time, so a true God must only contain what we call good, no evil of any kind. As we can see that both evil and good exist in our world, something must have gone wrong with the plans of God. A God of love could not demand our affections but only ask for them. A God of love must somehow let us know what is going with Himself and with evil in order for us to make an informed choice of whether to love Him or not. Obviously someone chose not to love Him as evil now exists.

The question for us is where to go to find this communication from God to us regarding the state of things. In the beginning of our world, when man used 100% of his brain instead of the meager percentage we use now, God spoke directly with mankind. He walked with Adam and Eve in the perfection of the Garden of Eden in the evenings together. Adam and Eve passed their knowledge of God down orally to their children, and children’s children. Even Noah lived for 400 years after the flood. But in the years that followed, man’s life expectancy was greatly reduced, and his knowledge of God began to fade from the earth until Abraham. Abraham began a quest to find God once again, and God heard his pleas. God spoke directly with Abraham, and even visited him a few times in person in the guise of a traveler.

Abraham was blessed of God and began passing his information on God down through his genealogy who also had a few personal experiences with God (Jacob wrestling with the Angel, and dreaming of the ladder to heaven; Joseph interpreting dreams to pharaoh, etc.). But over the years the children of Israel became slaves in the land of Egypt, and began losing sight of God once again. Moses came and restored the reality of God in the eyes, minds, and hearts of the people once again. Moses in the time He spent with God in the mountains of Sinai began writing the first few “books” of the Bible, originally called the Torah. This was the first written manuscript of communication between God and man. It was written by Moses but inspired by God. The man was not perfect, but the communication would have to be, or the message of God would not come cleanly to His people and we would be misled. We cannot make an informed decision to love someone, based on half-truths, innuendo, or outright lies and misrepresentations. Therefore Logic again dictates that God must be accurate in His communication with us, or the point of communicating itself would be lost.

Over the next few centuries as the history of God’s originally chosen people would unfold. Leaders, Prophets, Judges, Priests, Kings, and humble servants would arise and chronicle the interactions of God with His people. Their hope was founded in the original promises of God to Adam and Eve, that a Messiah would come. The Messiah would take away the sins of the people, redeem them to God, and be our deliverer. Many prophesied about the details a Messiah would fulfill in His lifetime. But by the time of his predicted appearing the children of Israel had so degraded their view of God, that they wished only for a deliverer from the bondage of Rome. They had lost sight of the greater mission of the promised Messiah, to redeem them to God. So when Christ appeared on the scene, the religious leaders of the day thought only to maintain their power and control over the masses, and rejected the cornerstone of their faith.

After the ascension of our Lord to heaven, His disciples began once again chronicling the interactions of our God with His people, as well as His extension of Salvation to ALL men, not just those of Israel. Many new books were written, generally carrying the name of the Author, again inspired by the Holy Spirit but written by men. In roughly 325 AD the council of Nicaea under Roman emperor Constantine, sifted through the manuscripts of the day, sorting out the historical from the sacred and compiling what is now known as our Bible. Our Bible is then a collection of smaller books, written by authors from time of Moses until the time of the disciples, last of which was John the Revelator who penned the last book from the Isle of Patmos.

There were always books that claimed divine inspiration but for one reason or another were not included in the 66 volumes that now comprise our Bible. Might we have lost something important in the collecting process? Possibly. But remember the point of communication from God is to allow us to make an informed decision about whether to love Him or not. If what we were missing were critical enough to affect that decision, our decisions would be moot. Therefore Logic dictates that the information included in the Bible must be accurate and complete enough to make our informed decisions. And so we now use the Bible as our basis of truth. We compare new communication with the messages we read within it to determine the validity of the new information. If it builds upon what we know, we tend to be accepting, if it destroys what is written, we tend to reject it.

Logic dictates other less positive news for us as well. The presence of evil in our world creates a virtual guarantee that despite its final outcome in loss, it will nonetheless war with fervor against all that is good. One of the most effective ways of countering the influence of good in the world is to develop alternative ideas to it. People will not choose pain if the alternate choice of joy is available. But people may become confused if there are several choices available which all claim to result in joy, when in fact only one does. And so comes the invention of counterfeits, items that resemble the original, but are lacking in the quality or content of the original masterwork. In the spiritual world, this required counterfeiting the mission of our Messiah. Horace was introduced in Egyptian religions with many of the same characteristics we were to expect in our Messiah. But Horace does not meet all the requirements and so the counterfeit is revealed. Still, just the existence of a single counterfeit is enough to destroy the faith of many in what is real.

So where Good offers us the volume of the Bible, Evil must also present some alternatives to keep us confused. Enter all the other competitor books claiming divine inspiration for their origin, but all have one single element in common; they each and every one – undo principle teachings of the Bible. The Quran may be the most insidious. This is because outright lies are easier to detect, and dispute. But lies mixed with half-truths are much harder to ferret out and reveal the distinctions that cause the errors they produce. The Islamic faith traces back its God to the same God of Abraham. The Quran accepts many of the Biblical patriarchs as “prophets” of God, including Christ. So by not denying Him outright, the Quran attempts to reduce His role in our Salvation, denying His divinity. But the end result of this teaching winds up with the same religious basis of every other counterfeit religious system – the idea that man can save himself and achieve perfection by sheer will and the actions he performs.

Evil must attack the key principles of our Salvation in order to defeat it. Evil first attacks the idea that we even need to be “saved”. Evil markets evil to us as fun, excitement, and the only reason for living – why would anyone want to be saved from that? Next, for those who see through the illusions that evil presents in its marketing, evil suggests that if you do need to be saved, you can do it yourself. This idea of self-reliance, and focus on self, is the base principle for all that is evil in the first place. Keeping self at the center of our religion, defeats Christ’s ability to offer us real change. If we believe we can in effect, save ourselves, we do not need a Savior, and therefore are excellent candidates for religions systems such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, or even New Agers. Then for those who see through this illusion of self-based salvation, evil offers competing Saviors. Enter the dynamic cult figures such as Jim Jones or David Koresh; men who use the Bible to mislead sheep into following them hook, line, and sinker. Though the numbers are smaller, the principle of counterfeiting what God offers is an effective strategy against the good our God offers.

Next, in order to muddy the water further, evil introduces external written manuscripts as having equal weight with what is found in existing scripture. The gospel of Judas was recently discovered in Palestine, and as such it is immediately offered equal weight with any other gospel by those who do not believe in the scriptures anyway. The same phenomenon happens with the gospel of Mary Magdalene, and Mary the Mother of Christ. There is no way to verify the authors are who they claim to be, in addition, like always, these “gospels” disagree with the truths we know from the real Bible. But it is not just with old texts that falsehood arises, ideas like those of Joseph Smith and the Mormon faith arise. More modern texts have arrived that offer alternative ideas to those of the original scriptures.

And this entire conversation to this point has only dealt with the written forms of communication between God and us. There is an entirely different method that He sometimes, albeit rarely employs, that is face to face communication through prophecy, dreams, and real world encounter. Many claim to have heard from God directly, and most then usually begin by telling us how scripture is mistaken. That of course is the first clue the source of their supernatural experience is probably NOT of God. Truth as we have discussed can deepen, but not be overturned in its fundamental form. I make a distinction between the doctrines we may cling to that are supposed to be ideas that help us understand some characteristic about God, and the idea that our God exists, and is who He says He is. The latter is fundamental and cannot be undone, the former is more subjective and may in fact completely change as our knowledge of truth deepens. The idea that you can save yourself is a fundamental lie that cannot be altered, while the process for how Christ removes sin from you is up for much further discussion.

We should be open to finding more meaning in the scriptures we read than just what meets the eye. For example there are those that suggest the story of the flood is not literal, but only an allegory about the eventual destruction of evil in our world. This is one of those deceptive half-truths. The story is an excellent allegory, and could be used to teach us real world lessons for life right now. But it remains also a literal story of the history of God’s interaction with us. Where prophecy is concerned often there is more than one meaning that could be applied. Perhaps this is just another deepening of truth rather than discarding of it. Perhaps we should apply multiple meanings and see where each leads. As discussed before the most effective part of the process of studying truth begins with submitting the will, the ideas, and the dreams of the student to the Master – Christ.

Logic allows us a degree of certainty that our Bible is accurate, literal, inspired of God, preserved by Him over the years, and given to us as a gift to discern truth from error. Without this fundamental tool we would not have a basis to make an informed decision regarding the character of God who offers us unconditional love and hopes to see it returned. We can safely place our faith in both our God and His written word to us, and safely ignore what we come across that lies in conflict with what we know to be true. While it is good to evolve doctrines, and deepen truth, it will not ever change the fact that Christ is our Lord, Son of the living God, and Savior. Our Bible established this fact, and our lives will affirm it when lived in submission to Him.