God called me to a life of the mind while in high school. I was a cheating, failing student when He arrested my attention, calling me to exercise perfect integrity in my classes. That was the most difficult challenge I had ever faced, a weight I did not think I could lift, but I maxed out daily, pushing as hard as humanly possible. And still I made failing grades—at first. Yet within a year or two, I was a good student in college. But then I faced a new challenge. Christians (ONLY Christians) began to criticize me. Why? Good grades!
I had risen to a challenge that looked impossible. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. Congratulations would have been nice.
Instead, Christian friends said I was becoming liberal, I was taking classes too seriously, I had fallen from God. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Without God’s constant help, I would never have earned good grades.
Yet I was judged by close friends. Why? ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM. You’ve heard it: “I don’t have a bunch of degrees. I’m just a simple man who loves Jesus.”[1]
Anti-intellectualism says “What is good are the simple people, the common people, who are supposedly more honest and real than so-called ‘ivory tower’ intellectuals.”[2]
Don’t believe it! What about C.S. Lewis? Jonathan Edwards? Francis Schaeffer? What about Moses? The Apostle Paul, the deep-thinker John, “Doctor Luke,” and of course, Jesus, surely the finest student ever seen during his childhood among Egypt’s greatest scholars.
“Many Christians hold anti-intellectualism a virtue. Truth be told, it is a vice. ‘Anti-intellectualism is, quite simply, a SIN.’”[3]
“You have become lazy… you need milk, not solid food… SOLID FOOD IS FOR THE MATURE” Hebrews 5:11-12,14.
God, give us respect for the hard work of honest scholarship in the hands of a devoted believer.
Read Mark 12.
ΑΩ
[1] But if ORU gives them an honorary doctorate, they will expect to be called “doctor” for the rest of their lives…
[2] Dawson Jerrell, Remnant Radio Online, quoting Os Guinness.
[3] Id.
Household Words: 