bloggedy blog

:: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 ::

Credentials? We don't need no stinkin' credentials!
This being Holy Week in the Christian calendar (I guess the other 51 of the year are something less than holy), I've morphed my lectio divina exercises into longer readings, and have moved from random Psalms and other bits from the wisdom books to the final chapters of the Luke's Gospel, which I'm reading in The Message paraphrase. Yesterday and today's focus was on Luke 20, the chapter which follows Jesus' Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem.

The story begins with Jesus being confronted by Jerusalem's religious elite -- the "high priests, religion scholars, and leaders" who ask him to show his credentials for teaching. Where did you go to seminary, Jesus? Under whom did you study? What right do you have to teach in our temple?

Jesus didn't give squat about credentials. The religious leaders did care, of course. The legitimacy of their ministry, their status in the religious and political community, rested on their credentials, their education, their pedigrees.

We don't need credentials to enter the Kingdom of God. It's open to anyone. If anything, credentials could get in the way, as the apostle Paul discovered.

Listen to the words of Jesus:

"Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preen in the radiance of public flattery, bask in prominent positions, sit at the head table at every church function. And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they'll pay for it in the end." -- Luke 20:46-47 (The Message)

Wisdom is with the humble.

:: Andrew 08:00 + ::
...

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