The word of God is not a secret code that needs unlocked.

I wonder why the head pastor felt the need to publicly reprimand the young assistant pastor, but said nothing to the elder and still allowed him to preach?

I have nothing against someone who wants to seriously study a foreign language. I provided classes that I had available to a lady who was studying.
My concern is that many get the idea that they cannot understand the Bible without doing that. Those who take a couple semesters of Greek and Hebrew aren't exactly experts in any sense of the same league with the translators of our English Bible up to 1611. (Then spelling and grammar updates are what we use of it since.)

Your visit to that church is similar to my experiences.
I used to travel to hear my former pastor who did his homework. I was edified. However, over the years, he swerved into areas that just plane undermined the faith of many. I tried encouraging my girlfriend to start reading the Bible in her personal devotions. She was so enamored by the pastor and discouraged that she would not be able to understand it in English, she thought it a useless task to read on her own without him there to tell what it REALLY MEANT . Where he lacked, she lacked. When he had marital problems that I eventually learned led to divorce, she Likewise made serious errors in understanding the Bible.


While many basic doctrines were modified and complicated so much, there's no way a young believer could fit in. It's kind of like trying to understand legal documents except this was complicating the Bible.
I finally decided to leave after a large investment of time as he tried to get us to keep an open mind to universalism. This wasn't a Unitarian assembly, but a non denominational independent church. He finally came out of the closet as a universalist after I left.

I think we had some similar encounters.
It's good that The Holy Spirit teaches us as we read.

Ummm. I do every day. He made it available in every major language. My Grammer is often lacking as a product of government schools, but He knows the English language better than I; don't you think?

does that mean learning is worthless?

the wisest man who ever lived, devoted himself to acquiring knowledge.

how?

through people with no education?

or through people with an awful lot of education?

Deuteronomy, for example, is a legal document

That makes me wonder about the Bible being translated to the less common languages. I remember reading about Jim and Elizabeth Elliot and how they translated the New Testament for the Auca people. They both graduated from Wheaton College and studied Classical Greek to do that.


🏝️

So is Revelation.

much wisdom is much grief, And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

Learning is never worthless.

I have little trouble understanding most of it. It's 99% written in plain language. It's the entire law libraries of hundreds of stacks on each floor . The corporate/ private contracts, state laws, UCCs, federal laws, county resolutions, city ordinances mostly written in legalese. Those are but a part and you must learn that language and then decipher and consult commentaries.

Our Biblical laws are much simpler and just. It is accurately translated into much simpler English, yet is profound and should take a lifetime of readings.

We aren't qualified to teach most subjects any more than anyone else. There are people who do translate. Others do other things. My point is that we have a perfect and complete Bible. The average person has no reason to be convinced that they must learn koine Greek to understand the Bible.

Passion - How He Loves (Live) ft. Crowder

I think correcting the young man was already stretching him. Correcting an elder is also a lot more complicated though the Bible does give us directions on it.

As for the younger man, I think it had to be public because, right or wrong, he had been given a place of authority over the church, and the church would need to know what was going on and not to follow his compromised ways. Contrast that too with the Catholic churches simply moving around the pedophile priests to hide them. And the young man himself needed the correction so he could have hope of repentance. This is love.

1 Timothy 5:1 NASB1995
[1] Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers,

1 Timothy 5:19-22 NASB1995
[19] Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. [20] Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. [21] I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels, to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality. [22] Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others; keep yourself free from sin.

I know you are speaking to a specific, but actually God used both educated and uneducated people in different places. Peter was a fisherman. Paul was a student of the esteemed teacher Gamaliel and had quite a resume. Each had a different calling and place. Luke was a physician and produced quite the academic works in the books of Luke and Acts, while Peter, who probably couldn't even read, is thought to have provided much of the source material for the gospel accounts.

"Peter couldn't even read"? You've got to be kidding.

1. His excellent and articulate epistles (two) are proof that Peter could definitely read, as well as write well under divine inspiration.

2. He had read all of Paul's epistles and called them "Scripture". An "illiterate"?

3. Christ asked him a question about what was written regarding the temple tax. Unless he had read the OT, how could he have been asked this?

4. It is a common erroneous belief that Peter provided the source materials for the Gospel of Mark. That is TOTAL NONSENSE. Each of the Evangelists was divinely inspired individually.

5. Also Peter and his brother were wealthy fishermen before they left off fishing to follow the Lord.

6. Also, Luke didn't go around making inquiries before he wrote the Gospel of Luke. He says he received his words "from above" (Greek anothen). Even the KJV translators missed this, as do all the other translations. They all say "from the vert first". or "from the first" or "from the beginning". But Strong's already gave them the PRIMARY meaning, and they all went for the secondary meaning.

Strong's Concordance
anóthen: from above
Original Word: ἄνωθεν
Part of Speech: Adverb
Transliteration: anóthen
Phonetic Spelling: (an'-o-then)
Definition: from above
Usage: (a) from above, from heaven, (b) from the beginning, from their origin (source), from of old, (c) again, anew.

Do you see how everything has been twisted?

Could I be mistaken on Peter's being illiterate? I'm open to the possibility though I don't feel like you make a sufficient case. It was common then to have scribes take dictation, and even the well-educated Paul seems to indicate as much going on in Galatians 6:11. Acts 4:13 specifically calls Peter and John uneducated and untrained. Young's Literal even uses the term 'unlettered.' And just as Jesus was handed the scroll to read to the people at synagogue, there may have been other ways for illiterate people to hear God's word and know what was written. Plus, composition is a very different skill from literacy. As a teacher I have had students that were reading delayed due to disability, and yet when they finally had the tools they were immediately incredible writers.

While Peter being the alleged source for much gospel material, particularly Mark, is tradition rather than the Bible itself, your comment that each of the evangelist was divinely inspired individually suggest ignorance of how such things actually work. I know because you are speaking of some of my actual gifts. Rather God works with the person, guiding the input which naturally comes from their own experience. This includes study, as I have myself even had God give me a personalized course on addiction when I would need it for a job he was taking me to a year later.

And I I'm curious where you came up with the idea that they were wealthy fishermen. Again, I'm not closed off to the idea but you have to make a convincing case. Do you actually have a scripture to back that up because I have never had that impression in my Bible reading? Even if they were wealthy, it's no guarantee that they were literate, though I will agree it's more likely. Considering the verse in Acts, though, even if we counted literacy separate from education, why would they have gotten only the literacy and not the education?

Acts 4:13 NASB1995
[13] Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.

Acts 4:13 YLT98
[13] And beholding the openness of Peter and John, and having perceived that they are men unlettered and plebeian, they were wondering — they were taking knowledge also of them that with Jesus they had been —

Yes, correct English words not a watered down, perverted English we speak today.

It is you who refuses to see that I have made a more than sufficient case.

No, none of the Evangelists and apostles used scribes. Paul asked his friends to write what he said because of his poor eye sight. He speaks of the "large letters" in which in signs off. So just admit that you and others are seriously mistaken. That takes guts.

Yes this here on earth is a learning field of dreams that go poof in the night. I see this to learn from everything, seek the Gold Nuggets out of things
There are Gold Nuggets in movies, shows, troubles,
Form Example
Magnum Force "A man has got to know his own limitations" I have always remembered that Nugget of information
"Bruce Almighty"
You can have whatever you want but to take away anyone's free will
Bruce asks? How can I get anyone to love me, without taking away anyone's free will?
Now I am seeing from God's Heart / answer Love true love as in 1 Cor 13:4-7. needed to be get imputed in me, to see well and not go into the flesh attitude fight over things not gotten or even get given that are bad,
No more complaining and arguing, start looking at what it is in the bad happening I can learn from. Amazing Grace does this to me at least

Just started reading this thread and the first scripture I thought of was 1 Cor 17-19,


17For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
18For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Then this comment was the second down. To those with our eye opened by Him His word is made more clear daily, by His guidance and grace. He opens eyes and changes hearts.