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The Jews then were astonished, saying, "How has this man become learned, having never been educated?" (John 7:15)
When I read this verse this morning, at first it looked like the Jews were doing double-talk. How can this man be educated without being educated? So I decided to look up the original words in Greek and see what they actually say.
The word translated learned seems to mean simply understanding, familiarity with writings, even the Scriptures. In a day when not many people learned to write very much or had access to literature, for a man who came from a very poor family to be well-versed in Scripture would certainly be a surprise. Most of the average Jews likely relied heavily on the scribes, Pharisees and teachers of the law (the Old Testament) to relay to them the Word of God during Sabbath services. What Scriptures they did know was likely reflected from what they had heard from their leaders. Of course this also entailed interpreting these Scriptures the same way as those who taught it believed them, which is why misunderstandings of the truth about what the Messiah was to be like was so widespread.
The word translated here educated also means to learn. But the implication seems to be the kind of learning received from someone else. It was the kind of learning typically gained from what we would call a formal education.
Given that Jesus' mother was very young when she bore Jesus as a baby and that their family probably struggled to make a subsistence living in a very poor and rough town in Galilee, it truly is amazing that Jesus grew up with such a thorough knowledge of the Writings. I suspect that Mary may have been quite insistent that what little they were able to obtain must also include scrolls of the Old Testament even though those were usually reserved for others who were in formal training under Jewish religious instructors. Mary must herself have been unusual to know how to read and write as a woman and to be able to home-school Jesus with such amazing effectiveness. With Joseph busy as a carpenter she must have exerted a lot of effort in both training herself as well as passing along all that she could to Jesus in His early years.
Jesus and His mother had very likely immersed themselves in the Old Testament writings for many years. The result of this intense exposure to the truth about God, authored interestingly enough by Jesus Himself before His incarnation, gave the Holy Spirit full opportunity to reveal truth to Jesus in a learning process that is just as available to any of us as it was to Him. Because there is power in the Word of God unlike any other literature in the world to fill the mind and heart with truth, it has ability to be a transforming, educating, elevating effect in the life like no other training can produce.
Traditionally, both then and now, people assume that one has to go through formal training by others who have earned degrees and have received public recognition as teachers and philosophers before they can reason out things and have legitimate knowledge themselves. There is a stigma associated with those who educate themselves or even those who have been home-schooled, particularly if they did not follow some accredited curriculum. There seems to be an obsession about making people pay lots of money and being carefully brainwashed through the systems accredited by the world before a person can be referred to as educated.
As I have observed the formal educational system over the years, there are a number of things that concern me and that Jesus avoided in His own training. Not only do formal educational institutions often impoverish people financially, especially higher educational programs, but the way of thinking and the focus and style of reasoning are heavily influenced by the deceptive nature of the world's assumptions about reality. There is constant tension between the true Christian and most of the world's institutions of learning that tends to pressure people into being squeezed into the world's modes of viewing life. Even in Christian schools where this pressure is supposed to be eliminated, there are still problems due to the desire to please the world and be recognized by worldly accreditation and have graduates be generally accepted outside Christianity. While Christian schools are usually more conducive for allowing Christian practices to occur, there is still an amount of worldliness accepted and taught and a lot of subtle assumptions that draw away from truth are present.
It is generally assumed that if a school promotes religion then it is a good place to be trained, at least if that religion is the brand that one already subscribes to or associates with. But religion, as we sadly know, is usually a counterfeit of true spirituality and often is a decoy that keeps people from relying on a vital, saving relationship with God. Counterfeit notions that parallel Scriptural principles so thoroughly saturate most religious training that it is nearly impossible to separate them without an intense focus on discerning error from truth. In fact, being indoctrinated with many religious facts and obtaining a lot of knowledge in the head is usually so time-consuming and pride-inducing that the heart's need to rest quietly and learn in the presence of God has little or no time to take place.
Religious formal education too often ends up working counter to the kind of practical training in character development that God wants us to experience. I have observed that even in schools specifically designed to train ministers and teachers for God that the programs are so concentrated and the schedules are packed so full of intensive knowledge acquirement that most people suffering through these processes have little to no time to keep their hearts open and sensitive toward heaven. In addition there is little if any specific training and mentoring that will effectively encourage the kind of education most needed to be a religious leader, such as training in lessons of faith and everyday godliness. These are things that cannot be learned from books; but book training is the method of the world and is the accepted norm for most all education.
Jesus received the kind of education that heaven values the most. True education involves a balanced training involving the heart and the body just as much as the head. It also requires that one live in a community of widely varying maturity levels so that one can be mentored all along the path to full maturity by others who have things to offer. This also provides the chance to in turn mentor and respond to others in interactive ways that form bonds and connections best for thriving toward maturity. Book learning can be a part of this process, but knowledge from books can actually become unhealthy when divorced from practical and parallel applications to the life.
Mary likely was so open to the influences of heaven that she was the best candidate chosen to raise the Son of God as a baby up through manhood. She was not heavily influenced by the prevailing teachings of the doctors of the law even though she was somewhat limited in her understanding of the Scriptures as most people were then. She was open enough in her heart to respond to the impressions from the Spirit of God who could guide her to provide the balanced kind of long-term, practical training using both Scripture and everyday experiences to cooperate with God in the healthy upbringing and true education of the Child who had been entrusted to her tutoring. As a result, Jesus even at the young age of twelve displayed a grasp of truth and a knowledge of the Scriptures that stunned even the most advanced and trained teachers and leaders of His nation.
Jesus was not influenced by the pride, the arrogance, the traditions and the attitudes of those He would have been exposed to if He had attended the synagogue training programs. Mary caught much flak for not sending Him to these schools, but the outcome was just what God intended for His Son. The kind of personal tutoring and mentoring education that Mary provided for Jesus' life was the kind of true education that is so sadly missing in most models of training today. A practical education in learning lessons of faith, in analytical thinking based on close examination of the Word of God without the confusion of worldly thought from other sources, allowed Jesus to also be tutored directly by the Holy Spirit who could unpack the Word accurately for Him and embed the principles of the Kingdom firmly in His thinking and character.
Everyone of us has the same opportunity to be retrained in the school of heaven if we choose to enroll and allow the Holy Spirit to become our teacher. Jesus promised His disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit to provide just such a training opportunity for any who accept His offer, and we can immediately enter into this kind of heavenly classwork. The Bible is to be our main textbook and the style of training must involve quiet times of reflection as well as times of interaction with God and with others who are in similar training. We also must allow ourselves to be taken through practical application periods where we are going to share what we are learning as well as make mistakes but not feel condemned as we learn from them. We do not receive letter grades in this school which tend to create pride or shame like the world's systems do, but we learn to form lasting bonds of love and joy as we experience life in the context of the family we plan to live with for eternity.
Is it wrong to go through formal education accredited by the world? Not necessarily. But we must be very aware that our first loyalty must be to our heavenly teacher rather than seeking to achieve the letters of recognition by the world. Learning in the world's system often involves paying out money to hire teachers to compel us to learn things we could do ourselves if we simply accepted responsibility to do so on our own. Our lack of motivation requires that we pay others to intimidate us into doing what we could do on our own, but if that is the case then it is better than not learning at all possibly.
But while gaining the typical education from the world's systems, even from religious institutions, we must realize that we are going to pick up a lot of confusing mental and emotional baggage and even erroneous ideas that God is going to have to expose and cleanse from our thinking if we are to work for Him using His ways and view things from His perspective. Jesus bypassed this step and never acquired the baggage from the normal educational channels and thus was able to move directly into becoming the most effective and wise teacher this world has ever known.
Those who learn in the school of Jesus will likewise sometimes produce astonishment from those who have leaned so heavily on recognition from the world's system of education. True education is learning the truth as heaven knows it, not acquiring degrees or accreditation from the brainwashing of being conformed to this world's system of thinking. Preparing for heaven requires a whole different standard of learning and only those who humble themselves and let go of their heavy dependence on the world's ways of thinking can enter into the school of Christ. But those who do will receive a quality of education that far surpasses that of any institution created by man. For even the foolishness of God is far greater and more valuable than the highest wisdom of men.
