On Book-Smarts and Being with Jesus, a devotional thought

There’s an interesting line in Acts 4:13, where the Sanhedrin is interrogating Peter and John, who’ve recently caused a stir by healing a lame man in Jesus’ name.  We’re told: “when the Sanhedrin saw their confidence and understood that they were uneducated and untrained, they were amazed, and took note that they had been with Jesus.” It’s an interesting juxtaposition—doubly interesting for someone like me, who is starting to gear up for another semester working on my doctorate, which starts in two weeks. The Sanhedrin are flummoxed at the spiritual depth and insight of these two uneducated fishermen, who don’t have any letters behind their name or diplomas on their wall, and the only thing they can credit it to is the fact that they had been with Jesus.

Don’t get me wrong. I place a high value on life-long learning, and think that careful scholarship is of crucial importance to the mission of the church (I did just get back from a two-week stint studying for my doctorate...) but Acts 4:13 seems to suggest that there is a kind of learning, and knowing, that goes beyond the best that any 1st Century Rabbinical school (or its 21st Century equivalent) can offer: a deep, careful formation at the feet of Jesus. Without this, all the book-learning in the world is just so much chasing after the wind; and it’s only with this—with a life-lived in the presence of Jesus—that academic scholarship can be what it was meant to be: a precious gift to the church, to the glory of God.