Thursday, February 4, 2021

The Proud Arrogance of Scholars

"A man doesn't understand the Bible because he knows Greek and Hebrew; he understands the Bible because he's got the Spirit of God in him. The key to understanding the Bible is not a knowledge of the original languages; you can have that and still be ignorant of the message as so many are and have been, unfortunately. It's the man who has a spiritual understanding who understands the Word of God. To say that a man cannot read his Bible, and that a man cannot preach if he lacks knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, seems to me to militate against an understanding of the Bible and the true character of preaching." —Martyn Lloyd-Jones

How many "scholars" out there have decades of education? How many of them have degrees out the wazoo? How many of them have letters affixed before and after their names? Despite all their education, these "scholars" do not understand the Bible any better than any other man. Yet, because of their education and great achievements, they think they are somehow better than everyone else and that they are more intelligent, more knowledgeable, and more qualified to speak on things pertaining to the Bible. I am sorry, but all they are is proud, arrogant, and egotistical. Their degrees do not mean squat. You can be intelligent and yet lack sense. There is a vast difference between intelligence and wisdom. All the degrees in the world do not mean you are intelligent, knowledgeable, or that you know what you are doing (or that what you are doing is even correct). They might mean you are intelligent, but all they mean is that you are disciplined and able to retain and parrot information in order to receive your degrees and titles. A man fully immersed in the Scriptures, led by the Holy Spirit, has more education, understanding, wisdom, knowledge, and intelligence than any "scholar" with all his decades of education, all his degrees and titles, and all the letters before or after his name.

When you speak with such "scholars" and expose errors they teach, if they try to bully you with their education, ignore them, dismiss them, and write them off. They are not worth your time. Well-respected men, or well-educated men, out of their pride, cannot stand to be corrected by those they deem to be lesser than themselves, whether in prominence, prestige, prosperity, power, position, or pedagogy. They have a "How dare you try to rebuke or correct me" attitude. Out of their embarrassment, they will seek to destroy the person they deem to be lesser. This is the way of religious hypocrisy. A man with no knowledge of the Greek or Hebrew, or any other such religious fields, can know more about the Bible than any "scholar" who has all of these simply by yielding to the Holy Spirit. Be careful with your attitudes, "scholars," because "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

"How may the [Bible] college know if it is attaining this object and rightly dividing the word of truth? Those who are trained by such institutions should ask themselves these questions upon graduation. Are the men more certain of the truth at the end of their studies than at the beginning? Are they more steadfast? Do they know God better and desire to serve God better than when they came in? Have they a greater zeal for God? Do they have a greater love for the lost and the perishing? What is the purpose of doctrine and knowledge if it is not to know God?" —Martyn Lloyd-Jones