Education needed?

I belong to a few quilt groups. Most of the quilters are very skilled and their work shows good judgment with color, design, and other elements that make up a compelling quilt. However, some others have little money for good fabric, are mostly self-taught and seem unaware of basic principles concerning accurate seam widths, pressing, and other skills.

When I started this activity, I had sewn for years, but my first efforts revealed that I needed more education to do this art properly. I took twelve basic classes and many others, and still feel like I’m a beginner.

Piper’s devotional today is about the need for education. He says all Christians have reason for training our minds so we can read the Bible with understanding. I know I need the Holy Spirit to understand what I am reading even though several years of school taught me how to read. My high school literature teacher is fondly remembered for teaching much about books and understanding how words work.

For me, Piper’s statement seemed a bit obvious. I take for granted the preciousness of reading, yet realize not all cultures have a written language. Many people are not able to read even ordinary writing, like a newspaper or a simple book, let alone something as complex as Stephen Charnock’s writing or the Word of God that was translated into English, even though we have several hundred versions at various reading levels. Some are for children, others for those just learning English.

At least the translators realize how levels of reading ability are important. Otherwise, like quilts made without some instruction, the understanding can fall short of being a blessing. This happens because even with the ability to read and understand just the words and ideas expressed, some do not realized the importance of the Holy Spirit to interpret His words as He intends them. Even as I read, I need to read with this intent:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1–2)

This points to the need for renewal. Even the well-educated can assume sufficiency apart from God and from relying on His Spirit. Reading all of this passage is a good reminder:

Where is the one who is wise?. . . . Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. . . . For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. . . . these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. . . . For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:20-2:16)

PRAY: Jesus, while I need to grasp biblical thoughts, have learned the alphabet, grammar, syntax, the rudiments of logic, and how meaning is imparted through the connections of sentences and paragraphs, I cannot hear You speak without Your Spirit. That You give Him to me is pure grace. Thank You.