When Peter, filled with the Spirit (Acts 4:8), confronts Jerusalem’s elite in Acts 4:8-12, the latter observe that Peter and John lack elite education (4:13). They recognize that these fishermen speak boldly because they have been with Jesus (4:13). Jesus calls (Luke 5:2, 10; 6:13) and empowers (Acts 2:4) not the proud but the lowly who depend on him. Scripture often indicates that God is near the broken but far from the proud (Ps 138:5; Prov 3:34; Matt 23:12; Luke 14:11; 18:14; Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5). Exegetes are sometimes proud of our knowledge; knowledge does, as Paul noted, tend to lead us to overestimate our status (1 Cor 8:1).
Jesus did not come into this world in a place in Jerusalem. With few and private exceptions, it was not the intellectual elite of Jesus’s day, but the lowly, who followed him. Our information and intellects are finite, so the greater wisdom is to trust first the omniscient one. Intellectuals may not like it, since this is not the epistemic approach that we have cultivated and for which we have diligently labored, but Jesus declared that is the way God arranged matters. We are justified by trust, not by merit or personal advantage, including intellect.
Far be it from me to suggest that knowledge hinders our study of Scripture; Proverbs urges us to seek knowledge diligently (Prov 8:17; 15:14; 18:15). But Proverbs also warns us against considering ourselves wise (3:7; 12:15; 26:5, 12, 16), and that true wisdom and knowledge begin with fearing God (Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; cf. Ps 111:10). It is a fool who counts his way right in his own eyes and is therefore unwilling to learn from others (Prov 12:15; cf. 26:12, 16). These observations serve as a great warning to us tenured Western professors who may teach and write in insulated cultural bubbles. “Whoever does not receive God’s reign like a child will surely not enter it” (Mark 10:15).
Most of the places experiencing the most profound spiritual revival today are also circles among the poor and the marginalized. As John Wesley noted, God’s Spirit produces diligence and thrift, which leads to wealth, but in time this upward mobility can produce generations dependent on prior generations’ blessings. If God has blessed some of us with upward mobility that our forebears in revival lacked, we must use it wisely (1 Tim 6:17-19); we dare not risk losing the special connection with the poor and broken. We may serve and empower them, but we are also blessed by them; they have something that we too need.
This content is by Craig Keener, but edited and posted by Defenders Media.
For more on how to read Scripture with a humble spirit and dependence on the Holy Spirit, read Spirit Hermeneutics (2016).
