Peter, John and the Education-Idol

Here’s a verse to burst an idol-bubble…

It’s only months after Jesus’ resurrection, and weeks after his ascension. Peter and John are hauled up before the court that sentenced their Lord to death, and defend their public claims about the resurrection.

“When they [the religious elite] saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4 v 13).

I don’t want to be known as unschooled, uneducated. I don’t want to be noticed for my unacademic ordinariness. Not many of us do. Education matters… doesn’t it?

Yes, and no. Of course it’s good to learn, to make the most of the brains we’ve been given, to be able to read and write and count and know the capital city of Bolivia. We want our church leaders to know Hebrew and Greek, to be able to read the Bible in its original languages so that they can better teach us and excite us about it.

But how easily education becomes an idol. Why exactly do we worry about, move house for, even pay thousands of pounds to buy, our children’s education? Why do we pore over a school report, but never ask the church children’s group leader how our child is doing? Why are so many Christian resources of time, gifts and money poured into reaching those in “elite” schools and universities in the UK?

Might it be because we think education is all-important, that it’s the key to knowing contentment and joy and influence and power? That without it, we can’t be happy or successful and the gospel won’t go forward? That strategically, we most need to reach the educated elites for Christ?

Could it be that “education” is one of the dearly-loved, least-spotted and rarely-challenged idols of western, middle-class society?

Peter and John did quite a lot for the church. It’s unlikely any of us will have the same impact on the world that they did.

And they were unschooled. They’re fishers from Galilee, not professors from the University of Jerusalem. What struck the movers and shakers of their day was their sheer ordinariness.

And it was that ordinariness that pointed to Jesus. The leaders saw their courage, saw their ordinariness, and had to conclude that what made such a difference to these men was that they had “been with Jesus”.

After all, education may breed confidence, but it cannot produce courage. It may help you become a judge or a barrister, but never to stand in a courtroom on trial for preaching Jesus, and risk your life to stand up for Him.

They were unschooled, ordinary men. What do I want to be known for? Being educated, or intelligent, or gifted? Or knowing and standing for Jesus?

What do I most want for my children? To go to a good school, get good grades, top degree, well-paid, secure, respected job? Or to know Jesus so that they’ll give up everything and risk their life to stand for Him?

I’m doing an evangelistic Q+A for a church this evening. What do I want people to leave thinking? Deep down, I know it’s: “He was an intelligent guy, he knew what he was talking about, he answered my questions really cleverly.”

I need that idol-bubble bursting, so that I can honestly pray that people will leave thinking: “He was an ordinary guy, I can’t even remember his name—but that Jesus he was talking about, he seems well worth knowing”.