The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For through wisdom your days will be many, and years will be added to your life. – Proverbs 9:10-12
We had an especially interesting discussion at the men’s Bible study Tuesday morning. Our topic was the Old Testament “Book of Proverbs” (a collection of wise sayings compiled probably around 900 BCE).
Some of the guys read the entire book; a few looked at the content topically; one man went to a list one of his favorite authors had included in an article; some jumped around randomly. The most interesting approach was from a participant who said he asked his AI program to “identify the best proverbs” in the book.
The Fear of the Lord:
One phrase that crops up again and again is Proverbs is, “The FEAR of the Lord…” So we talked about what it means.
If feared means “projecting gravitas,” “respected,” “awed,” “revered” and “listened to,” then it’s not something we see much any more. It’s the same with teachers and also clergy. A Methodist bishop I interviewed for a story told me this, “Not so long ago, every time the Conference of Bishops met the press would report on their statements and pronouncements. What the bishops had to say carried weight. Major news outlets would cover the conference. Now nobody cares what the bishops think!”
The offering of respect – or not – is not so much earned by individual teachers as it is a reflection on the mores of the culture. What’s under attack (and has been for some time) is the idea, the principle, of formal learning – as if intellectual inquiry and asking challenging questions and digging around for the facts is un-American or contrary to God. The title “teacher” no longer comes with credibility and authority, and that diminishes us all.
To undermine education is to undermine America:
An intelligent mind acquires knowledge,
Proverbs 18:15
and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
As a society – and especially since politics bullied its way into the conversation – we seem to be on a binge of undermining, maligning, criticizing, second guessing and disparaging teachers and academics at every turn. For decades now – for example – fables have been circulating in which teachers are presented as atheistic, mocking God, and anti-family before being corrected by good Christian children. Similar stories feature “professors” who challenge or ridicule belief only to be put in their place by the godly student.
Listen carefully and you will see that this is a current designed to undercut faith in our institutions – including education, science and journalism. If we don’t trust or respect teachers, professors, scientists, news reporters and others who value education and honest inquiry and evidence-based information, then who is left to fill that gap in knowledge? The answer, consistently, seems to be “people who make stuff up that serves their own self interest.”
If we do not learn to ask hard questions about who is curating the information we are consuming then we will find ourselves ill-equipped to either participate in a democracy or continue the American tradition of world-leading education, science, technology, innovation and more.
The way we treat teachers and scientists and journalists is our vote on whether we want this “American Experiment” to continue or to crumble because it has lost its edge.
That’s right, folks, all this from a discussion around Proverbs. Our Bible sure is full of inspirational and challenging and thought-provoking material!
What we need, then, is not less respect for education but more… just so long as we remember that, as Proverbs puts it, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding… and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge…”
God gave us some amazing brains – so let’s use them – DEREK