You are correct my friend. But when the person in question has been in prayer and read the Bible there is then a need to become more educated in the subject he has a calling to learn of.
I can not have an understanding in Hebrew unless I am taught by someone who knows it.
I can not have an understanding in the Greek unless I am taught by someone who knows it.
Both of those languages are helpful in understanding the meaning of words and phrases in the Bible.
No one goes to a seminary, or school of higher learning about God and the Scriptures to get the entrance requirements into the Christian ministry; they go to seminary schools to refine the tools of ministry that they are already exercising.
Of course the main difference between Jesus’ teaching and a modern seminary is that most seminaries require college degrees for admission. Seminary, therefore, is not for everybody. It is for those who are intellectually prepared to learn from Jesus at a scholarly level. Does Jesus, then, restrict his teaching to academic types? Certainly not. Jesus today teaches people of all ages, nationalities, educational backgrounds, socio-economic levels. He teaches through sermons, Sunday schools, missionaries, evangelists, TV and radio ministries, the internet, personal Bible study, and through godly families teaching their children. But he also teaches his church through the discipline of academic courses, and seminary is one place to get teaching at that level.
To keep things in balance .
It should be understood that even the Lord was once accused of" not a man of letters"
Peter ,James and John were recognised as "unlearned and ignorant men"
Saul of Tarsus had Hebrew as his mother tounge .He sat under the greatest theologian of his day .His whole life had been steeped and saturated with the scriptures . But did he understand the scriptures ? No. He so did not understand the scriptures that he persecuted the church and agreed with Stephens death and thought it Gods will.
In fact it can be reasonaly argued that his three years in the Arabian desert was needed to get his head sorted out and the scriptures put in their proper place in the light that he had been given. Thus AFTER he had been enlightened , or the "eyes of his understanding opened" of the scriptures he had known all his life his saturation of scripture THEN with the Holy Spirit gave depth and breadth and hight to the teachings of Jesus Christ. and by that I mean that the Lords teaching has those but Paul broke the bread to our understanding using the Old testament to do so .
and what of the scribes and the Saducees and the Pharasees was not Hebrew their mother tounge? Did they understand the scriptures? Not at all. Despite the Lord teachign them the true meaning .In one place he said Ye boast in the scriptures but ye know not him of whom they speak . They missed the point entirely .
and in another he said "by your traditions ye have made the Word of God of none effect "
A theoligical seminar that teaches philosophy as well as theology ;why?
Im saying that if a language is your mother tounge you have an understanding of a langauge that learning 'Hebrew ' does not give you straight away even if you are proficient in it .
But I reject the increasing and pervading idea in the church that you cannot understand the scriptures properly unless you understand Greek or Hebrew. For the reasons set out above .
I reject utterly the notion that by learning Hebrew and Greek you automatically understand the scriptures . For reasons set out above.
In truth while it MAY be profitable to so learn them. Then all who do should be aware that the snare then is to lean upon your understanding of Hebrew and Greek rather than upon Him who was and is promised "to lead us into all truth " and "by whom we know the spirit of error"
A man is ordained of God . He is sent from God, He is of no use unless he ahs gone to God in the first place and been all taught of Him.All those ministers of God are made by God .The reason why we have so little power and authority in our pulpits is because men now subject the scriptures to THEIR reasoning and taught to do so in many a semina.Rather than subject their reasoning to God and His Word.
Mans intellect in. of and by itself is a false light and will by itself always lead him astray.
For eh will simply do that which is right or good in his own eyes and according to his own reasoning .
We now have a myriad of versions of the Bible . All claiming a "better understanding" yet all differing one from another .They have to lest they are accused of plagerism .
Yet with all that "better understanding " whether of Hebrew or Greek ,I do not know .
They seem not to understand English .
For all modern versions save two have Genesis 1:1 as "In the beginning God created the heavenS and the earth "
Where it should be "In the beginning God created the heaveN and the earth "
Having got that wrong they then mix it with Gen 2:1 where all say thus "the heavenS ...."
The fruits of such an error? Is you have other 'bibles ' the "Student Bible " for one that has gen 1:1 "In the beginning God created the SKY and the earth "
An absurd rendition and one that should never have been accepted ,But has .
My question then is if you have a number of versians before you and they are all different in a number of ways .By what criteria do you judge is right?
and if you so judge it right .Why then are there versions that by your judgment have it wrong?
Unless of course you are simply choosing what is right in your own eyes?
Is God double minded or does not know His own mind? That He needs a multitude of versions to say (supposedly) the same thing?
How are we to know or have the mind of Christ if we have so many different versions of it ;according to some?
Then I say by the argument of Hebrews and Greek it would seem to have brought more confusion than understanding.
in Christ
gerald
