day seventeen of the fast

Day seventeen of the fast

And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. (1 Corinthians 12:28)

Today we pray for our Bible colleges and institutes (that the Lord will use all of our educational and training centers to equip, encourage and release the next wave of pastors, church planters, worship, youth and children, evangelists, missionaries and other ministers).

Christian colleges and the like are responsible for my education. I appreciate them. I guess the only problem is that they were all from a radically different denominational group that the one in which I am today. The perspectives of my education and the place where I am with God today are poles apart.

It is an odd thing overcoming your educational bias. You are taught one thing by godly men and then you learn something better. But the men who taught you are still godly men, just with a different perspective. It does not make them better or worse than you, just different.

That is the beauty of the Christian faith. We can be different. That group was aggressively anti-Pentecostal. That was due somewhat to ignorance, as the Lord had not baptized them in his Spirit.

But I know for a fact that those men had the Spirit of God in them, even though they would have felt me to be a heretic today. And the sad thing is, they would have and many do.

Their teaching, however, set me on a course in life as a lover of knowledge. I love to learn things and I think I have a good grounding of the word of God, both linguistic and philosophical. If there is anything the teaching of a legalistic institution can give you, it is a definitive knowledge of the word of God.

I find as I get older, the knowledge I received from that schooling has been better, sheer knowledge wise, than any other I have seen from almost any other denomination. It was word heavy, memorization heavy, very comprehensive.

When we graduated from that time of study, we knew our Bible, we could quote it backwards and forwards. We were walking, talking, living preacher machines. We didn’t know social graces or pastoral ability, or anything else. But by the Lord above, we could preach and we knew what we were saying, at least in the context of that denomination.

We could debate and argue and 90% of the time could talk anybody, no matter their denomination or belief into a corner. Our sheer knowledge was amazing. Perspective was lacking, but a lot of that was that we were young.

In the ensuing years, I have had the chance to put it all in perspective, which is really what education is for. It is designed to give you raw materials from which you make your life philosophy. And the raw materials they gave were great amounts of raw, intensive Bible study.

Yes, it was slanted. All study is slanted because people teach it. You cannot help teaching your ideas and opinions. You are human. But other people can take your ideas and opinions and from their own maturity distill the truth.

I thank God for my teachers and my education.

Three different and disparate words from God in the past two days. Thank you, Lord I wait for more.

Father God, I ask you for power on the educational institutions of all churches, of all denominations that teach your word and the love of that word. Help them to also see you behind the word and teach love for you also. Hear me. Show me more. I am desperate for your affirmation. I praise you. Amen