Opus 2025-387: Professional Faith

As I was thinking about being able to understand the Bible and how important it is to me I got to thinking about a young man I knew when I was teaching middle school.  He was Muslim.  He was a great kid.  He was a good student.  His parents were really decent people.  He would’ve been an example of what people talk about when they talk about moderate Muslims.

I asked his parents if I could question him about Islam.  They said no problem.  So we had a few conversations.  In one of them I asked him about the Quran.  I wanted to know if he could read it since he spoke Arabic.  His answer was, “No”.  I said why not if you speak Arabic.  He said because the Arabic in the Quran is so old and archaic that he can’t understand it.  He could read the words out loud, but he had no idea what they meant.

This is so common among major religions that originated in the Middle East.  I think you could repeat this with most Muslims.  They might be able to quote things they memorized.  They might be able to read the words out loud if they actually could read.  But mostly they depended upon the guy up in the front who was doing the preaching and teaching to understand what the Quran said.

We had a similar problem with the Jews in the time of Jesus.  Very few Jews actually spoke Hebrew.  They spoke Aramaic and Greek.  They could not read the Bible in the original language, and so they had professionals who would tell them what the professional felt the congregation needed to know.  They had to rely on the teaching of these experts in order to know what their holy books said.

Fast forward to the time of the Middle Ages.  At that point the main Bible available to believers was the Latin Vulgate.  Since most people could not read Latin, it would require professionals to tell them what the word of God said.  They were forced to just know what the experts wanted them to know and you know how easy it is to tailor things if you’re in charge of the media.

Today we have run into a similar problem in protestant churches.  It is not a problem of truth available but sloth and arrogance.  Pastors do not encourage people to bring their Bibles and the preaching served up often has very little to do with a text that was announced.  In this case you can’t blame the pastors totally.  In America today we have a plethora of Bible translations that are readily available.  Take your pick.  Any one will do.  The word of God is available today.  Unlike history if you’re not aware of what God is saying it’s on you, not on the professionals.

Rise above the herd.  Access the source.  Don’t settle for being a part of the mediocre masses.

homo unius libri