Arnie Manitoba said:
Maybe under-educated is the wrong word ..... the point I was trying to make is that some folks incorrectly read some verses .... then miss-apply them doctrinally ..... and things become messy (doctrinally)
Whereas a more learned scholar would seek out the proper context and interpretation
not to say that scholars are bulletproof either ... neither are all church leaders entirely correct .
Let me back up a little further to the time before the protestant reformation ..... for all practical purposes only the church leaders has access to the bible ..... furthermore most of the "commoners" .... (peasants) were un-educated and could not read anyway.
This caused its own problems because church leaders could teach and preach whatever they wanted and many of them veered off into some strange doctrines.
After the Protestant reformation and more people had reading abilities ..... the commoner (peasant) could begin to read his own bible ..... but that caused problems when he miss-applied scripture .
Just like the brick-layer should not be engineering a skyscraper ..... the bricklayer should not presume to get his bible correct every time.
Protestant Reformation temporal re-visit:
Cheese whiz Arnie. Back then, before they had Adidas running shoes, people did not send the kiddies off to school to learn to read and write. So..........only those in the
religious
industries vocations had quill and parchment pressed to their bosom along with an inkwell that was as messy as it was inconvenient. As well, of course, as various
other educated and gainfully employed individuals such as ship's captains, explorers, lawyers, etc.
The Bible was used to control people as much as anything else and as that is not God's purpose the pendulum was bound to swing the other way. Which it did.
Enter the lowly but educated human being with Bible in hand...still just following along because they were TOLD they could not understand the Bible even if they read it.
That was very helpful.
Then we have that very dangerous monk named Luther who turned the whole of Catholic Christendom on its noggin and the good, but common, folk, rejoiced in their
liberator...but alas even he was not perfect.
No one, sadly, is.
Re-read your post. Your conclusion appears to be that a Bible in the hands of one person is not good and a Bible in the hands of the general populace is not good either.
Which is why God had endowed some with the gift of teaching and other gifts as well. That, in particular, is really problematical because we have cessationists who state
the Holy Spirit is semi-retired and we have those who do not think a church service is 'good' unless we have three prophecies, screaming in tongues a healing and perhaps
a casting out of a demon or two. No, I'm not making fun.
Quite a zoo, eh? Let all things be done decently and in order. God does not change according to scripture, so people must be the problem.
Wait! Isn't that what you said? People are the problem? Maybe so, but in spite of it all, God's will is assured and His purpose fulfilled. We have something to look forward to
even if we cannot straighten everyone else out.
But wait....wait...the only job we have is to get ourselves straightened out. Work out your own salvation with trembling and fear. I think God knows about the problem.
A little tongue in cheek, but true. I have heard people moan over the NT church and how they wish we could be like that now...I used to be one of those people in fact.
The truth is, the NT church was no different then church now. It was just newer and fresher...big problems right there in fact.
