The Apostolic Dialogue With Catholics 2

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> [Matthew]:
> Come on!  Are you talking about churches in the sticks?!?  I have never
> heard a pastor, evangelist or organisational leadership criticise higher
> education from the pulpit!

I have heard such Criticisms made, even at district conferences. I've also
heard education praised and promoted. There was a wide variety of
educational background in the book of Acts, in the early days of the
Pentecostal movement, and now. To glamourize either education or ignorance
is to be arbitrary with the facts, which is a tendancy we can all fall in
to.

> I don't mean to sound angry, but you have a very limited and, dare I say,
> condescending view of the people of God!  If you consider the initial
> demographics of this movement, we have come a loooong way in
> education and a
> more standard and systematic approach to theology.

Actually, not really. The image of the Pentecostal minister as the most
uneducated minister on the block is a romanticized version of our early
history. If you look at many of our early pioneers they had advanced studies
in theology when they came into truth and others augmented what schooling
they could get with hours of personal study.

Our system of education and Bible Study has allowed more to have a minimal
educational level in theology, but per capita the number of advanced
scholars we have now has dropped since the early days of the movement.
>
> I'm not advocating ignorance, but I don't think you can judge any saint or
> preacher on his or her education.  God can use any instrument that is
> yielded to Him.  You don't have to be versed in philosophy (thank God some
> are), and you don't have to have an Master's of Divinity (thank God some
> have).
>
 I would agree with this, however I do not believe we can condone, any who
do not move forward with learning either by pursuing studies at an
institution or through self-paced learning. To adopt an attitude that I
don't need to study, I can get it all by revelation is to contradict the
word of God in the second epistle to Timothy which tells us to study. I
firmly believe that true yieldedness to God will see the person pursuing
some form of self-improvement with regard to education.

For example, I know a wonderful minister in his 90's who is doing word
studies in the Scriptures. He doesn't plan to preach any more, but
recognizes thathe can be faithful to God by placing a continued importance
on learning his word, even though he many not be actively teaching at this
point.

I think that's all I wanted to say,

Frank Vandenburg