Intellectualism

[BeyondET]

Isaiah 11:2

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD.

Proverbs 18:15 

An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.

Proverbs 1:5 

Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance,

Edited May 6, 2021 by BeyondET

[Whyme]

11 hours ago, Josheb said:

No, but it helps. 

An "intellectual" is merely someone possessing a highly developed intellect and intellect is nothing more than the faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially that which is abstract or academic. 

Does a person have to have an ability to reason and understand in order to understand God's word? Yes. Definitely.

Does a person have have highly developed faculties of reason and understanding to understand God's word? No; definitely not. 

Does a person have to have a highly developed faculties of reason and understanding to understand the more intellectually demanding parts of God's word? That is the cart before the horse because it is God's word that develops the intellect, not the other way around. 

 

I ran group homes for adults with mental retardation (developmental disabilities) for 25 years. I'm talking IQs between 40 and 75 (average is 100). They had no problem understanding God's word and often made faith commitments to Christ. That does not mean they understood the "deeper" things of God or the more complex aspect of scripture. It did often mean they misunderstood God's word. One of the most extreme examples I ever heard was an interpretation of "the eye is the lamp of the body" passage in which I was told Jesus had beams of light emitting from his eyes by which he could see into people's soul and tell whether they were good or bad. That would be no. Conversely, I hope we all know and realize mental health disorders can and often do compromise intelligence and intellectual facilities and that in turn can read to misreading and misunderstanding God's word. 

Lastly, most Christians learn some or most of God's word through others, not their own reading. This vicarious or indirect learning requires faculties of reason and understanding that are different from that used when directly reading the Bible. The irony is that vicarious or indirect learning often occurs from an intellectual to a non-intellectual. But that's completely acceptable if the intellectual has his own knowledge, wisdom, and understanding squared away with God's word and the Spirit . Paul, after all, was an intellectual. So too were Moses, and David, and many others in scripture. God uses all people; fishermen and seminarians. 

God says He will write His laws on our heart and mind.  Perhaps that is intellect plus heart? 

[Whyme]

10 hours ago, BeyondET said:

Isaiah 11:2

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD.

Proverbs 18:15 

An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.

Proverbs 1:5 

Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance,

Amen, 

[Guest clancy]

I do not for one minute, believe you have to be highly intellectual to understand the Bible, 

You can only be led by the Holy Spirit, to understand the Bible, as you mature and hand your life over to Jesus.....that is my belief.

The Holy Spirit does all of the work through us, He brings the Bible Alive for us!

He speaks to His children through it.

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by clancy

[BeyondET]

15 minutes ago, clancy said:

I do not for one minute, believe you have to be highly intellectual to understand the Bible, 

You can only be led by the Holy Spirit, to understand the Bible, as you mature and hand your life over to Jesus.....that is my belief.

The Holy Spirit does all of the work through us, He brings the Bible Alive for us!

He speaks to His children through it.

 

If children can understand these words from the Bible, then I’d say they can learn every word in the Bible and beyond.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

[Hopefully]

Look at how the book of Proverbs starts out:

“These are the proverbs of Solomon, the son of David and king of Israel.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭1:1‬ ‭
“They will help you learn to be wise, to accept correction, and to understand wise sayings. They will teach you to develop your mind in the right way. You will learn to do what is right and to be honest and fair. These proverbs will make even those without education smart. They will teach young people what they need to know and how to use what they have learned. Even the wise could become wiser by listening to these proverbs. They will gain understanding and learn to solve difficult problems. These sayings will help you understand proverbs, stories with hidden meanings, words of the wise, and other difficult sayings.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭1:2-6‬ ‭ERV‬‬
 

[Heleadethme]

15 hours ago, Josheb said:

No, but it helps. 

An "intellectual" is merely someone possessing a highly developed intellect and intellect is nothing more than the faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially that which is abstract or academic. 

Does a person have to have an ability to reason and understand in order to understand God's word? Yes. Definitely.

Does a person have have highly developed faculties of reason and understanding to understand God's word? No; definitely not. 

Does a person have to have a highly developed faculties of reason and understanding to understand the more intellectually demanding parts of God's word? That is the cart before the horse because it is God's word that develops the intellect, not the other way around. 

 

I ran group homes for adults with mental retardation (developmental disabilities) for 25 years. I'm talking IQs between 40 and 75 (average is 100). They had no problem understanding God's word and often made faith commitments to Christ. That does not mean they understood the "deeper" things of God or the more complex aspect of scripture. It did often mean they misunderstood God's word. One of the most extreme examples I ever heard was an interpretation of "the eye is the lamp of the body" passage in which I was told Jesus had beams of light emitting from his eyes by which he could see into people's soul and tell whether they were good or bad. That would be no. Conversely, I hope we all know and realize mental health disorders can and often do compromise intelligence and intellectual facilities and that in turn can read to misreading and misunderstanding God's word. 

Lastly, most Christians learn some or most of God's word through others, not their own reading. This vicarious or indirect learning requires faculties of reason and understanding that are different from that used when directly reading the Bible. The irony is that vicarious or indirect learning often occurs from an intellectual to a non-intellectual. But that's completely acceptable if the intellectual has his own knowledge, wisdom, and understanding squared away with God's word and the Spirit . Paul, after all, was an intellectual. So too were Moses, and David, and many others in scripture. God uses all people; fishermen and seminarians. 

I think it boils down to what we are placing our reliance in....whether we are relying on ourselves and our natural talents or whether we are relying on God.  Scholarship and intellect can be useful of course, but only up to a point because we also recognize that it has its limitations when it comes to spiritual things, as scripture teaches.

When someone has intellectual impairments and learning disabilities we might argue that that is an oppression of the devil...and that could have to do with why they may have more difficulty apprehending spiritual things, because the devil is impeding it spiritually.   Though even then I'm not sure such disability necessarily means that because their brain isn't grasping something or that they are not able to communicate the thing, that their heart hasn't received it in the inner man.

I believe such disabilities can be healed by the Lord and He can impart His light where the mind was formerly darkened.  It's interesting that there is a lot more miraculous healing going on in countries that are without the intellectual knowledge and material advances that the west has.  When we have other things to rely on, it just seems to follow that we tend to not rely on the Lord so much.  That's why Jesus said, BLESSED are the poor and blessed are the poor in spirit.

[Heleadethme]

5 hours ago, Whyme said:

God says He will write His laws on our heart and mind.  Perhaps that is intellect plus heart? 

The mind of Christ.

[Whyme]

2 hours ago, Hopefully said:

 

These sayings will help you understand proverbs, stories with hidden meanings, words of the wise, and other difficult sayings.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭1:2-6‬ ‭ERV‬‬
 

Is that what verse 6 means?

[Whyme]

3 minutes ago, Josheb said:

The Bible uses the word "heart" in many ways for many purposes. The word should not be construed to be something separate from the cognitive faculties of the creature He created. I know you're not a big fan of reading extra-biblical sources but John Eldridge did a fairl good job of expounding on the diversity of God's use of the word "heart" in his book, "Wild at Heart." Perhaps if when I have time and inclination I'll post a portion but you do a word search and survey the different usages in scripture. Sometimes the term "heart" directly refers to the human cognitive faculties. Other times it could be construed to say, "head-plus-heart". However, I take a unified view of the human creature whereby one aspect of the human cannot correctly be separated from the others without the loss of the whole. What would a human be without his or her intellectual or cognitive faculties. 

S/he would NOT be human. 

Gods saying He will write His laws on heart and mind can be understood He will make His law whole within us or known within our whole. Does not take an intellectual to see and understand that . 

Thank you. Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.