Uneducated

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men . . . 

 - From Acts 4

The first shall be last.

The weak will be made strong.

The mountains and valleys will be made plains.

The oppressed will find justice.

Yes the four preceding sentences are paraphrases. But you get the point. 

Sometimes I want to go completely militant over this. God doesn't work through the wealthy, the educated, the sophisticated. Got it?

The world looks for the trappings of "success." It wants to see your new car, your house, your expensive things. 

The world does not value scribes, teachers, ministers, servants, artists. If it did, we probably would solve some of the most pressing problems like injustice, war, crime. 

A pastor once said these words to me . . . and I am quoting directly:

"Gordon, people don't take you seriously because you don't appear to be successful." 

A school superintendent once told somebody that the reason I had not been hired as a teacher, was that "Gordon's always trying to change the world."

A leader in my church, a "scientist" with a PhD was asking me about my work in the arts, and with kids. He started to say "Where do you get the time to . . . ?" and then stopped himself. 

The world does not value the highest things, and that type of superficial thinking has infected the Church, and Academia (ostensibly dominated by "liberals").

I share all of this, not to garner sympathy or draw attention to myself. I do it because I know my own experience better than anybody else's . . . and I understand. 

I've always preferred "uneducated" people to the "educated." I would casually observe, four decades ago, that I'd rather hear an enlisted military man give a sermon, than a guy with a Dallas Theological doctorate. The best preacher I ever heard was a career worker in a print shop. His hands and nails were stained and creased from years working in ink and heavy machinery. He did not have a college degree. But he could quote the Bible better than anybody . . . and harmonize it.

Our politics today are drawing a line between "educated" and "uneducated." I'm taking the side of the "uneducated."

And I've got two Master's Degrees.