Re: [TruthTalk] Narrow way not " loving"?

[Bill Taylor]

Terry wrote  >  Don't you suspect,Lance, that anyone who stays in the word daily has to be changed ?  Why is it that you would expect the most change from the most educated?  God hides things from the wise and reveals them to babes.   Lance wrote  >  Yes Terry, I would. In actuality, with some, this does not happen. I do not know why. By the by, education, as you and some others cite as problematic from time to time, is not the issue. The issue is the heart.   You are correct, Lance. There is no indication in Scripture that Christians are to remain in an uniformed and uneducated state, nor is there any virtue in ignorance. The devil has made major inroads with this lie. In fact, he gets more mileage out of it than any other lie in the church today; it is the one which reads something like this: "to be formally educated is to be spiritually obtuse." Read Wheaton College professor Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans:Grand Rapids, 1994); he maps the path of this movement. Read also Os Guinness' Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think And What To Do About IT (Baker Books: Grand Rapids, 1994).   The admonition which our Lord made to his followers, which anti-intellectuals miss, is that we are to be like little children -- not insensate, nor ignorant, not stupid, but able to learn. The word for "child" is paidion; it comes from a word which means formable or impressionable, able to be stamped by the character of another. Jesus warns the know-it-all religious-types of his day that they would need to repent and become like little children, in other words, teachable, or they would not inherit the kingdom of heaven. When Christians use statements like Matthew 18.3ff and the verse referenced above to elevate their ignorance and justify their unwillingness to learn from others, they establish themselves as the hard-hearted of our day; they are those who refuse to convert. In all actuality they are those who refuse to be like little children. And to their shame, Jesus also warned that, instead of chastising the impressionable, teachable ones among them, it is appropriate for his followers to welcome them into their midst, that they might observe them and learn from them in order to become learners like they are, because "whoever welcomes a little paidia like this in my name welcomes me" (Mat 18.5). So do not be discouraged by their baseless bravado, Lance. Know-it-alls have nothing more to learn; they refused to change their mind in Jesus' day as well.   Bill ----- Original Message ----- From: Lance Muir To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 6:13 AM Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Narrow way not " loving"? Yes Terry, I would. In actuality, with some, this does not happen. I do not know why. By the by, education, as you and some others cite as problematic from time to time, is not the issue. The issue is the heart. ----- Original Message ----- From: Terry Clifton To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org Sent: March 17, 2005 07:54 Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Narrow way not " loving"? Lance Muir wrote: David, you, Jt, and Kevin are all locked in a time capsule. You do most of your thinking/citing/interpreting from within. It (the capsule) is Greek in origin with some refurbishing done by the enlightenment rationalists. I used to believe that the one who could/should extricate himself from this static framework was David. I now see that it is 'Not gonna happen' GBSr. As Mike Myers used to say after picking a topic, any topic 'discuss amongst yourselves' ======================================================= Don't you suspect,Lance, that anyone who stays in the word daily has to be changed ?  Why is it that you would expect the most change from the most educated?  God hides things from the wise and reveals them to babes. Terry