1 Corinthians 2:3-5 "…3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power."
One does not have to be a scholar using big words to understand the Word of God and to be a teacher of His word.
Hebrews 5:11-13 "11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain, because you are dull of hearing. 12 Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food! 13For everyone who lives on milk is still an infant, inexperienced in the message of righteousness."
We have no need for someone to teach us because we have the Holy Spirit, but we edify one another as each one grows in wisdom, we share with one another. This is different from requiring a degree to teach or depending on seminary-educated people to tell us what to believe.
John 16:13-14 "13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…"
Notice something in this passage in John, it is God Who is glorified, not the person who thinks of themselves as wise.
Sadly, in our day, modern scholars rely more on what others teach them than they do the Holy Spirit. The modern church system has deceived people into believing they must have more educated teachers, that the average man cannot gain wisdom without them.
This could not be farther from the truth. No one can teach better than the Holy Spirit, and anyone who possesses the Holy Spirit has wisdom to share.
May believers stop looking to men to prop them up, but seek the Holy Spirit to train and teach them.
John 14:26
"But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you."
Nowhere in the Scripture do we find God instructing us to find "highly educated" men to teach or have authority over congregations.
1 Corinthians 2:10-13
"But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us."
Too often, people look to that "educated" pastor for everything as though he were the mediator between them and God. Even if they say he is not, they treat him as the authority over them. There is only one mediator between the born-again believer and God the Father and that is Jesus Christ.
1 Timothy 2:5 "5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;"
John 14:6 "Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
Romans 5:10 "For if, when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!"
"Through His life", when we are led and trained by the Holy Spirit, He gets all the glory. No one should receive glory for their teaching because it comes from Christ, if it is Biblical.
Hebrews 8:6 "Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises."
When man preaches in his own effort through his own training, he glorifies himself. When a man teaches in the power of the Holy Spirit, he glorifies God.
The church is falling into great deception because they are listening to those who love the praise of men, influenced by their education.
Matthew 23:5-7 "All their deeds are done for men to see. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love the places of honor at banquets, the chief seats in the synagogues, the greetings in the marketplaces, and the title of ‘Rabbi’ by which they are addressed."
Men in our day do not "broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels" to impress others; they broaden their scope of education by man-made institutions to be revered by others. Because of this, they are using language no one understands while falling into doctrines and practices God never taught.
Our challenge is to follow Christ and not men.
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