Posted by Ray Kidder on 6/2/2009, 8:15 pm, in reply to "Re: Which educational systems?"
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Hal,
I do not disagree with your beliefs that people can overcome various forms of ignorance (that can lead to bad societal choices) through education obtained through church, public, private, and informal educational institutions.
I have to wonder how you view this passage from I Corinthians 3 (NKJV), which tells of the sorts of wisdom that are spiritual (as contrasted with the persuasive words of human wisdom):
1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,
8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written:
“ Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.
16 For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Verse 13 tells us of what the Holy Spirit teaches. I think another way of contrasting the human wisdom of excellency of speech with the wisdom of the Spirit is mentioned here in 2 Corinthians 3 (NKJV):
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God.
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Here is the contrast between the letter (of the law) with the spirit (of the law). I think this pertains to religious, as well as secular and societal laws. One problem I see with merely trusting governmental legal systems to promote good societal behavior is that it is based too much on fear of punishment and the alluring hope for rewards. The Spirit of the law is based on love, and how the giving and receiving of love has rewards that are not so much material, but are spiritual.
Do you agree with my comments on these two passages of scripture?
Ray Kidder
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