Training and God's Work

Two weeks ago, I attended the funeral of a man who had hanged himself in Johannesburg. The church to which the man had belonged was reluctant to conduct the funeral because of the controversial manner in which he had died.

Therefore, a fellowship (a loose grouping of believers from various churches) was called in to do the honours. Naturally, they turned out to be very good - loud, clear, logical, and I would hasten to add, spiritual. What I noticed, though, was that they went out of their way in their attempt to discredit the church that had refused to conduct the funeral service.

These enthusiastic young people said many things which I agreed with. Until, that is, they stated that training was not important for clergy. "You only need to be filled with the Holy Spirit," they asserted.

Then they went on to give the example of the Apostle Peter as somebody who faithfully and effectively proclaimed the gospel without any training, depending only on the Holy Spirit.
My own spirit said within me, "Wait a minute, the example given all but nullifies the assertion made."

First of all, Peter and his eleven compatriots spent three years with Jesus, training. They were actually called "disciples", which means "trainees". If they had lived in modern times, they would probably have been awarded diplomas.

Agreed, Peter was a man of little education. Before joining the "Jesus College", he probably receieved no education at all. Would anybody wonder why James, the brother of Jesus, and not Peter, became the head of the church in Jerusalem after Christ had left?

Does it come as a surprise that Peter and the much more learned Paul failed to click, so much so that the latter was once forced to say, "When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcission group."?

Interestingly, Peter alludes to the importance of education by acknowledging that Paul's material is difficult to understand and can easily be distorted by the uneducated (the "ignorant"). He says in 2 Peter 3:16, "His [Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort." I dont think he meant the spiritually ignorant, but those with little or no education, otherwise his own material too would have been difficult to understand.

It is my considered view that Peter would have been a better and more effective leader if he had attained a higher level of education than he did.

True, you cannot be an effective leader in the church if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in you. But if you filled with the Holy Spirit and lack education, you will not be particularly helpful, either.