One man spends his life reading the Bible. Another spends his life diligently obeying the Lord’s commandments. Who might you expect to be the wiser?
I have a minor in Bible and studied lots of scripture and thought I really knew more and was more spiritual and wiser than any Christian, but then I met a group of guys who had just opened the Bible a year earlier, never went to Bible class, could hardly read and in fact some could not read, yet these guys where Spiritual giants in the Kingdom.
My experience went like this:
I got thrown into (volunteered if needed) with the youth (13-21 age) prisoners program teaching Bible (one hour on Sunday morning to a group of 14 with three other Christians teaching groups of 14) and taught three groups of “Christians”. The first group is guys (going to school it is called) that start out their stay causing trouble getting thrown in the tank. Then they start increasingly attending the services, carrying their Bible, being nice, and say they are Christians. By the time the parole board meets they have this glowing report showing continued improvement tied to their increased spirituality and are released. These guys still carry weapons, are members of a gang, and every prisoner know they just “went to school” to get out. The second group were converted before they went to prison (grandma conversions), but watch raunchy TV, hang with a loss group, laugh at off colored jokes, are not always talking about Jesus and are not trying to convert others. Their first day in prison the snitches see this, the snitches talk to the Bulls that approach these “Christians” saying you are not a Christian (doing everything Christ would do) and make them a slave (often sexual) or at best gang member. They still come to Bible study on Sunday so they can tell Granny (who visits them Sunday afternoon) what they learned, but they are slaves (sometimes sexually) to some bull. The third group is fanatical, they stick close to each other, they: study, pray, witness to everyone, and avoid even a hint of insincerity that the snitches could see. They carry no weapons, but step between those that are being beaten especially in persecution. This group had grown over the last 3 years from just a couple of guys to now 42, but it came at a high price. Each convert had on the day he was baptized given up the protection of his gang membership, turned over his weapons along with all his possessions (the gang owns everything including them), they were beaten if not by the gang they left, then by other gangs looking for payback and then they were watch constantly looking for any sign the snitches might interpret as weakness (anything less than what Christ would do in the situation, would result in a beating and it could be to death). There is absolutely no privacy and these Christians never wanted to be found alone. They slept in barracks where at least one stayed awake all night praying over them so they could sleep without the fear of being smashed in the head in the middle of the night. These guys believed and counted on power from the Holy Spirit, I did not know existed. They come battered and bruised each week hungry for some real meaningful Christ like lesson that goes beyond their group study of 40+hours that week on the same subject, which I could not provide. They mostly helped me with my poor example of Christianity and lack of knowledge and lack of wisdom. They mentored me even though they were only Christian for a few months, but I was a poor disciple and could not keep up with them.
