In A Common Tongue For The Common People

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.” - I Corinthians 2:1

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Saul was a highly educated, elite-level Jewish Pharisee, “a Hebrew of Hebrews,” (Philippians 3:5) who set it all aside and “renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways,” when it came to ministry, insisting instead upon the “open statement of the truth,” (II Corinthians 4:2), refusing to even use “lofty speech or wisdom” when he preached.

Peter and John were uneducated, blue collar-level fishermen who “astonished” elitists just like Saul with their boldness (Acts 4:13), and refused to be more impressed with human credentials than with the truth (Acts 10:34-35).

Most scholarship agrees that Jesus taught in Aramaic, the more common, diplomatic tongue of Palestine since the time of the Babylonian exile, rather than using the more liturgical and theologically educated Hebrew.

When the biblical writers penned the Epistles, they did so in Koine Greek, a common trade language spoken throughout the Roman Empire.

Eventually, Latin overtook Koine as the vernacular of the empire, so Jerome constructed the Vulgate, a translation of the Bible from its original Hebrew and Greek into the “vulgar” Latin of the common people.

When Tyndale and Luther translated the Bible into their native English and German a millennium later, they not only sowed the seeds for the formation of the modern languages we now know, but they made the truth of Scripture available to the common man by liberating it from the Latin that had since become accessible only to a tiny minority of wealthy aristocracy and educated clergy.

As with Paul, Peter, John, and Jesus before them, Tyndale, Luther and plenty of other reformers were persecuted by the religious elite for their efforts.

The historical record of the Bible demonstrates that the Holy Spirit never intended the truth of God to be kept behind a wall of religious elitism. Religious education is a great thing. Theological study is a great thing. Christian service is a great thing. Religious elitism is a farce that attempts to adopt the standards of sinful humanity into the functioning of the Body of Christ.

The Bible allows no room for pride, the least of all, perhaps, for the religious variety. Christ’s harshest rebukes were reserved for the religious elite who should’ve known their Messiah when they saw Him but instead conspired with a pagan government to have Him murdered.

Christ once prayed, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will,” (Matthew 11:25-26). If it were up to me and my magic wand, I would have these words engraved in stone above the entrances of every Bible college and seminary on the planet.

The wisdom of God is not something reserved for professional Christians or those willing and capable to to pay for a religious education. While theologians, pastors, scholars and teachers are vital parts of the Body of Christ, they do not automatically qualify for higher levels of holiness, closer relationships with God or secret, special knowledge of the Scriptures unavailable to the hoi polloi of common Christians. All of these people are still people, which makes them just as susceptible to sin, corruption and faulty thinking.

The Holy Spirit has always made ways for His Word to be accessible to common, everyday believers. Do not allow your faith to be dictated to you by someone else simply because they spent a lot of money and a few years at a school. (Depending on the school, that fact in-and-of itself could be a recipe for disaster.)

Instead, be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11 who took the words of the very educated and astute Apostle Paul and ran them through the grid of the Scriptures to make sure what he was saying was actually true. Be critical of those who would teach you the Word of God by taking the time to read and study it for yourself. Do not blindly trust people. Make them earn it through a fidelity and submission to the Word.

Many people suffered a great deal in order for you to be able to read and study the Bible for yourself. Do not waste such a magnificent opportunity.

Your faith is in your own hands. Your relationship with God is yours alone. Do not cede them to anyone else and do not fall for the lies of religious elitism. Truth is accessible to all of us. Avail yourself of it.

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