Fifteen years now, since my March 23, 2007, first “Faith Of A Mustard Seed” Column, I have published my study and constantly evolving understanding of Faith. It has been this commitment that gives me to know that the saying “she thinks she knows everything” shall not apply… here. I will forever lift my eyes to a God that holds universal knowledge in Creation —for which, it requires a lifetime of observation to ever begin to master.
I am of the understanding that each life must have a scripture to drive their existence. Mine came at the point of entrance into my Seminary Master of Divinity program. At this point in my life I was eight years OUTSIDE of faith, with no consciousness or acknowledgment of a god in my day to day living. My very first class was “Introduction To The New Testament” in the classroom of the late Dr. (Bishop, later elected by the CME Church) Thomas Hoyt who I revere at just the mention of his name. I received that year the text of Timothy: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (KJV) which, in 2022 still drives my very existence.
My conversations this week has taken me to a deeper level of ‘steps being ordered’! I’m thinking now that my ‘Alter Call’ shall be GMWA’s “Order My Steps in Your Word”. So now, 15 years of Faith being ‘Bible-Led’ in study and thinking and writing, is shifted by my most recent revelation —from “Bible-Led to Life-Led”; which, Dr. Isaac R. Clark, the Interdenominational Theological Center’s most noted Professor of Homiletics taught: “Every Sermon must be one of these Two.”
To move this 15 year study on ‘Faith’ to let ‘Life Lead’, I took this newest revelation to FaceBook, putting it on my Page in the form of a quote (me): “Knowledge is Biblical. Education is not”. So as not to have you think lightly of this, (as the Church has and thus the people of God) I repeat: “Knowledge is Biblical. Education is not”. But the THIRD time in repetition is for the heart: “Knowledge is Biblical. Education is not”!
Also at ‘the wheel’ in this is the fact that I have been hiding THIS WORD in my heart as of late: “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;” the Prophet Hosea. A Word that, even in it’s clarity of destruction, does not have power to Save when heard by the 2022 people of God. I kept wondering why and inquiring… WHY? But then the text of Hosea 4:6 continues saying “because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” (RSV). Go figure!
So in shifting this Faith Study to where ‘Life Leads’ I must also identify a demonic force that is at work in Black Nation that has long troubled me and will also be ‘at the wheel’. It has everything to do with the deep resentments held in the ‘Divide’ between the ‘Educated and the Non-Educated’. Keeping in mind that there was a space in “Critical Race TRUTH” when the American Judicial System determined: “Slaves shall not be taught to read or write”. What Dat Do? To you AND I, on whatever side of this Divide …one resides. By no means ‘theory’ AND must be taught… for in every dialogue I/you are either learning or teaching… ALL else is a fail.
There is a healing that must come when the dialogue reaches a far greater understanding on this Divide —between the ‘Educated and the Non-Educated’‘. Join me in the healing as we approach, in this space this ‘new life’ for me: “Knowledge is Biblical. Education is not”!
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