Relatively recently, I put up a request for feedback on a Christian manuscript I’d written. I value the insights of others and want to be careful that I’ve interpreted the Word properly. I received a note back from one of my beta readers indicating that they would have liked to see credentials that proved adequate qualification to write the Christian content.
Not even Peter, the rock of the church, had a theology degree.
A reasonable qualification request…
Part of me was totally chill about it. We don’t ask doctors, who are responsible for physical wellbeing, to write about how to remove a gall bladder without some proof they’ve got some understanding. So, why should we expect anything different from someone who could affect someone’s spiritual wellbeing? And after all, training and degrees do go on book dust jackets, don’t they? That’s just what agents and the publishing industry asks for. They want to ensure readers that they’re not selling crackpottery and that an author is prepared to defend what they’ve said.
…sort of
But part of me raised an eyebrow. I thought of David, who as a boy with his slingshot had more understanding of God than the entire Israelite army around him. There’s Simon Peter, who became the rock of the church after spending his life hauling fish. And why did he haul fish in the first place? Because the rabbis in his community hadn’t chosen him to be an apprentice. They told him to go back into the community and have a trade rather than serve the temple. Most of the disciples, in fact, had had that same experience of the other rabbis saying they weren’t good enough. Peter became qualified not by the temple, but by time with Jesus.
Is academic pedigree now our measure of knowing God?
It is a human thing to want to know where understanding or qualification comes from, and to assume it comes from another human being who has been a model or teacher. It is also not at all a bad thing to seek God more deeply by going to seminary. And I understand the caution against those with no degree preaching, given how those like Joel Osteen cause such debate with what they don’t know.
But for as many scandals as there are from those without a degree, there are just as many involving those who, by technical measures, should have been qualified. And I wondered as I read the comment if perhaps we do not fully trust anymore in the idea that God can qualify people to do His work in a way that’s beyond the world. Do we no longer believe that a person’s insights can come directly from Him? Do we instead believe that an academic pedigree is the only mark by which we can be sure someone knows Him?
I have a ton to learn. I don’t pretend to know everything about the Father. I’d rather that people call me out if I say an incorrect thing. I don’t ever want be a millstone around anyone’s neck, and I might yet get formally trained. But I hope that people will judge whether I have enough qualification based on whether what I say aligns with the Word and His character, not whether I have checked the right boxes through a course list.
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