Uncoincidentally, they made similar observations about the true Christians in the first century. How fine it is to be in good christian company with our first century brothers.
Acts 4:13 Now when they saw the outspokenness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were astonished. And they began to realize that they had been with Jesus.
1 Cor 1:26,27 For you see his calling of you, brothers, that there are not many wise in a fleshly way, not many powerful, not many of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to put the wise men to shame; and God chose the weak things of the world to put the strong things to shame;
Over and out.
The uneducated in Scripture simply has the meaning of not trained in things like the Talmud, Temple, etc.,. The Church Fathers were very Educated. Paul was very Educated.
The lower education today is based on modern methods of research. That is a big difference.
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PAUL'S CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION
The psychology of a person's childhood is always reflected in his life's work. Paul's
curriculum vitae, that is, the "course of his life", was directed in the grooves which were drummed into him during his education, including Greek culture and the teaching of the rabbis. God's prevenient grace and guidance is effective in us even before we become aware of his plans. I might be so bold as to say that Paul's missionary calling, the basic character of his activities and even the special emphases of his teaching were programmed into his inner being before his spiritual crisis on the Damascus road. It is as though, having encountered Jesus, all his seeking and questions just clicked into place.
In archaeology individual pieces of mosaic have no function of their own. But when the ground yields up a broken outline, separate fragments find their right "
topos" or "place". And thus an integrated whole is created. Similarly, Paul's stray references to his home and education help to create an overall picture of his later life.
In Paul's world, education and teaching had already been transferred from families to society. Thus he too received the building material of his life both at home and at school. In Palestine
the first regulations about providing free teaching were based on discussions held in c. 200 B.C.
The apocryphal book of Sirach refers to this free teaching, on which the present-day law of compulsory education is based. Its author,
Yeshua Ben Sira, wrote in Old Testament Hebrew. In the final exhortation of his book he exclaims, "
Draw near to me, you who are untaught, and lodge in my school... I opened my mouth ...without charge ... let your souls receive instruction." Sirach had his own academy in Jerusalem, where they taught ethical questions and the Law.
About one hundred years later,
Shimon Ben Shetah suggested that the Jewish community should provide free teaching to its members.
Rabbi Gamaliel, familiar from the book of Acts, often repeated that everyone should provide himself with a teacher, because it also prepares us "for the life to come." At first teaching was restricted mainly to religious issues.
Very early on children were also taught other skills of life. Scholars said, "
Torah which is not combined with the teaching of skill with the hands leads finally to laziness and sin." Thus inactivity gives way to "the evil impulse", and that leads to a fall. A "profession" meant studying "the things of heaven" and practical life. "
He who does not teach his son a profession makes him a good-for-nothing." A father should also teach his children to swim, for instance; thus they had a chance of survival even in difficult circumstances --- we remember that Paul once "spent a night and a day in the open sea."
Paul tells of himself: "I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city." "I was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the Law a Pharisee." I have been a Roman citizen "since I was born." "The Jews all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem." And I was "taught at the feet of Gamaliel." Paul felt, however, that he was like an "abnormally born" weakling and "the least of the Apostles" because he had persecuted the church.
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Organized schools originated in connection with the synagogue. They usually had a so-called "beit ha-sefer" or "house of the book". The subject-matter of teaching was principally the Bible. Early on the so-called "beit talmud", "the house of learning", was distinguished from it. Here they concentrated on explaining the traditions of the fathers. One teacher was always entrusted with twenty-five pupils, but if the number of children rose to forty, he was assigned an assistant. In this way Israel might remain "the people of the book."
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Fathers often saw to it that when they grew up boys were sent to Jerusalem for further study. Rabbi Gamaliel had founded there a school for five hundred pupils, where they also taught Greek philosophy, so that the pupils could later keep in contact with their provincial governors. It is estimated that in the whole Mediterranean area there were then over one hundred and fifty centres with their synagogues. Once Professor David Flusser of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem pointed out that the areas mentioned in Acts in the description of Pentecost, the areas from which Jews had come to the festival, covered the most important Jewish colonies of the time.
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Paul was evidently influenced mainly by Stoicism. This can be deduced from, for instance, his discipline and self-denial in missionary work. Paul indeed avoided using the names of scholars of his time, although he might borrow their ideas. In Acts 17 he refers to what "some of your poets" have said. In his Areiopagus speech he shows that he knows the poets Epimenides, who lived five hundred years earlier, and Aratus from Cilicia (315-245 B.C.). They wrote that "we are the kin of the gods." In Titus 1:12 Paul also quotes the words of Epimenides, who was from the island of Crete: "Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons."""
PAUL'S CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION
