God's Diverse Creation
In His wisdom, God created all human beings with gifts, traits, and abilities to help govern and aid the world in which we live. Everyone plays a role, whether they realize it or not. Starving artists are as important as successful astronauts, but rarely are their respective contributions seen in the same valuable light in this world. Of God’s more analytical creations, our scientists, medical professionals, mathematicians, and engineers, we are abundantly blessed as a breakthrough in pharmacology can admittedly have a far greater impact on the world than an unappreciated oil painting. Nevertheless, people must be who they are, and they must operate in the areas where they are most adept – presumably the area or areas in which they were made to thrive.
A Paradox in the Realm of Christ
In the realm of Christ and God, we are presented with an interesting paradox. Here, God seems to use the “lesser gifted” to accomplish His ultimate means. We see this fact displayed in the life of His only human Son, who was not handsome, not wealthy, not formally educated – but was mighty in the Spirit. The scribes and Pharisees of His day had a hard time liking or accepting Him because He did not come from a home of accomplishment but was a Nazarene, born under some suspicion and the Son of a carpenter.
In the life of our Lord and Savior, we see a tension between the outwardly accomplished and skilled against the inwardly and upwardly inspired. Of course, and in the end, the outwardly accomplished had the inwardly inspired One put to deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. – which is often the case when the men of this world encounter men who understand and mind things of the spirit.
The Path of Linear Thinkers
Ever since Luther claimed Sola Scriptura, there have been a series of men (and some women) who, created by God to be scientists, mathematicians, or astronomers, and who – having an affinity to God – have chosen to become either pastors or Christian apologists. Due to their predisposition to linear thinking, systems, and form, they take the things of the Spirit and the written Word of God and organize them into linear, lock-step systems. This is what Jean Calvin did – and if there was ever someone who should have been a doctor, lawyer, or scientist, it was Jean Calvin.
From his initial intellectual suppositions, men who have come in after him, like all linear thinkers, have built on what one of their own created. This was what the Jews did – they took traditions established by their forefathers, instituted them as right and good and of God, and demanded that all fall in line – or be kicked out and/or killed.
Tradition vs. Spiritual Insight
When there is a “law” in science – not a proposition, not a theory, but something that is seen as a scientific law – the punishment for proposing a different view to the established law is death – the death of a person’s reputation as a scientist, or perhaps the actual physical death of the alternate voice itself (like Galileo). This was why they killed Jesus – He stood against the established, traditional laws created and interpreted by religious men and not men who had an actual relationship with God. This is what Calvinists have done to those who are spiritually minded and “see” things with the Spirit without having any allegiance to the established traditions.
Chosen by God
Perhaps 1st Corinthians 1:26-29 says it best where Paul says:
1st Corinthians 1:26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
The Role of Christian Leaders
Christian leader, their education, their intelligence, their knowledge, or their status – tacitly suggesting that their opinions of spiritual things are superior to all others as a result, perhaps we might just see that they merely chose the wrong profession or area of expertise.
