SHARING THOUGHTS: Information and Wisdom

  GREETINGS IN JESUS:

   I want to take some time just to share some thoughts with you over the next few blogs.
   These thoughts are not necessarily dealing with scriptural things, but with trends and tendencies I have seen over my lifetime that might help to explain some of why we are having such problems in the Church, and as Christian's trying to find ways to grow in Christ's  Spirit. I call this writing

                                         INFORMATION AND WISDOM

 Long ago there was a completely different set of standards used to produce a product for consumers than the one that is used today. Although arguments can be made on both sides of the coin about which is better I just want to point out some of the differences and then let you draw the conclusion as to how they fit in what is going on in our lives today. The ways we once received our education was in the method called mentoring. It was a teacher-disciple type of thing where one became an apprentice and the learning was a first-hand experience by watching and doing.  It was unlike today's method of reading the material and then taking a test on the information written.

 I have noticed that this difference has made a huge change in the church as well which I feel needs to be addressed.  Jesus taught a small number of people at a time and the message had to be explained by a visual experience of seeing how God's Spirit worked in Christ.  It became very personal hands-on training that allowed the disciples to see and feel both victories and defeat first hand without being personally harmed.

 Another aspect of the kind of training and education I speak of was a pride in the knowledge received and often the product would have the creators name on it showing who made it.  It was the pride of workmanship that became the greatest advertising in that time.  The worker became known for the quality of work he did and guaranteed work would continue to flow in his life.  A signature or an emblem of the makers work often meant the kind of quality work was in the product.
  As the industrial revolution came to the need for mass production of product meant that many hands were involved in making a product and the quality control of any product became a big issue. Unfortunately, the mindset of the general population also suffered a quality control problem as the mass production of education also followed suit and the ways we learned became detached from the things we were doing.  The need for quantity became more important than the quality of production and the mindset of men became less interested in the details and the basics needed to learn.

  Today we have a situation where information about a subject is more important than the subject itself which means that we have developed people who have great knowledge, but no practical application of what they have been taught by the books they have read.  In Christian circles, we are also experiencing the problems that are brought about by this kind of instruction.  The information age has now come and has displaced the industrial age.  We have a great sea of information that we can draw from but now background in a practical application of it in our daily lives.  It is very hard to tell someone who has a degree that they are ignorant of certain things that would change their life.
  It is also very difficult to tell people who think they know Jesus that they need to come back again to the foundations of their faith and rebuild what they think they know by using the very basics of their faith in Christ ina practical application for their lives.  We may have great faith in what we read from accounts and books from others, but without practical experience in allowing God's Spirit to teach us first-hand the faith we have becomes useless  just as James says" Faith without works is dead"

 My question to you today is " What are you relying on?  Is it your information about Jesus, or is it your relationship with Jesus?  May you richly bless God through your life in Him.


 THE UNWORTHY SERVANT