Recently I heard a man say he was called to preach to the ignorant who wished to remain so. He declared that the Lord had called him to preach to those who were uneducated and ignorant and did not want to change. He was called to preach to those who had never had an opportunity to learn and didn’t want to. These people, he declared, were not interested in an education and felt that church was expecting too much of them with bible study.
My heart began to beat rapidly because I had heard another pastor say this before. He also was called to preach to the ignorant who wanted to stay ignorant. It was a statement that resonated in my heart. I thought our job was to preach the good news to the poor so that they would realize their destiny in Christ and would be then rich? I thought that we were supposed to illuminate lives with the word? I thought the good news was that there was a Savior who came to bring them out of ignorance of their state of being and into knowledge of who their Father in heaven had called them to be and what their dominion and authority would be? I thought that our job was not to teach legalism but to teach freedom? I am beyond saddened by this thought process because it seems so far from Christ I don’t even know what to think.
The word warns us about this. It says that there will be false teachers, I just never wanted to know one. To say that someone doesn’t need to know the word for themselves and doesn’t need to learn it makes me wonder what else in life they don’t need to know? To perpetuate ignorance with misused authority is not the understanding of the Bible I read. Some believe thinking puffs up a soul. On the contrary thinking releases a soul to their destiny.
Wisdom cries in the streets. Does God desire only a select few to answer her call? I don’t think that’s the God I serve. I believe the God I serve is pleased when we are a success. Not a success as the world sees it but a success in love. Sorry folks, this is a punch I will never drink. I believe as followers of Christ our attitude should be the same as Jesus when he said:
John 14:12 The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it.
What work had Jesus been doing? Giving revelation. Life changing knowledge, wisdom and power. Proclaiming that if you were poor you no longer had to be poor because he was bringing wisdom not of this world but wisdom eternal. That is the God I serve! The One who believes our future lies in salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
Pastor Susan 