by Edward O. Bragwell, Sr.<\/p>\n
More and more we are seeing my brethren attaching academic degrees to authors of religious writings and advertising them as speakers at church events. Not only this but often advertisements of church lectures and meetings contain a bio of the speaker’s outstanding accomplishments in the academic and secular fields. Just a couple of generations or so ago that would have raised eyebrows among most those that sought to restore primitive Christianity and it should have.<\/p>\n
I am not against education nor excelling in one’s chosen secular calling. I always told my children to get all the education that they had sense enough to use. I have known a number of preachers with a list of academic degrees, but they refused to use them or allow them to be used to “enhance” their standing as preachers of the gospel.<\/p>\n
These things are often used to impress the world and fellow Christians of the importance of these men among us, that we too have an “educated ministry.” The idea is that because of their standing in academia, the professional, and the business world, they somehow are better qualified to speak on matters of “the faith” than those without such standing.<\/p>\n
Whatever happened to “standing behind the cross and preaching and exalting Christ?” It was said of Peter and John that they were perceived to be “uneducated and untrained” men, but the people perceived that they had “been with Jesus<\/em>.” (Acts 4:13). Gospel preachers and writers today may not have been with Jesus in the same sense as the apostles, but it can be perceived whether or not they have “been with” the Book, His word. It was important to Paul that men’s faith did not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God (I Corinthians 2:5).<\/p>\n Paul was likely the best educated and most accomplished of the apostles, but he counted all these things as loss: “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ<\/em>” (Philippians 3:8). Paul also indicates that he made a deliberate determined effort to not use the tactics that would exalt human wisdom so that those who heard him would have their faith stand in the power of God rather than the wisdom of men.<\/p>\n We can gloss over the practice of exalting brethren’s academic and professional accomplishments all we please. It is still nothing more than taking pride in our being able to compete with others in those areas.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Edward O. Bragwell, Sr. More and more we are seeing my brethren attaching academic degrees to authors of religious writings and advertising them as speakers at church events. Not only this but often advertisements of church lectures and meetings contain a bio of the speaker’s outstanding accomplishments in the academic and secular fields. Just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[125],"class_list":["post-41989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-titles"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":26452,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/schools-among-brethren\/","url_meta":{"origin":41989,"position":0},"title":"Schools Among Brethren","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Don Martin Schools among brethren have been a troubling issue, but one not often and carefully studied. I shall not attempt to explore all the nuances of the school issue, but rather I shall focus primarily on the Church of Christ Seminary image inevitably involved with the Bible Department\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20581,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/professional-preachers\/","url_meta":{"origin":41989,"position":1},"title":"Professional Preachers","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Edward O. Bragwell via\u00a0Biblical Insights, Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2013 The trend toward developing a \"professional clergy\" among churches of Christ has been in the making for some time now. More and more, both churches and preachers, have come to view gospel preachers as professionals much like the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/preacher-231x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":39212,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/training-young-men-to-preach\/","url_meta":{"origin":41989,"position":2},"title":"Training Young Men to Preach","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 31, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jefferson David Tant Each generation passes and another follows. This has been going on\u00a0 -well, ever since Adam and Eve started the cycle. Included in this cycle are those who preach the gospel. Paul mentioned five functions that were assigned to men in the body of Christ - apostles,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16207,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-college-issue\/","url_meta":{"origin":41989,"position":3},"title":"The College Issue","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"(Six articles were published in\u00a0Preceptor magazine by brother Robert F. Turner between April and October of 1962. They are presented here as one continuous thesis.) Educational Institutions Among the Brethren by Robert F. Turner (Preceptor, April 1962) Educational projects among members of the church of Christ began in the same\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43810,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-have-a-good-paying-secular-job-but-what-i-really-want-to-do-is-preach\/","url_meta":{"origin":41989,"position":4},"title":"I have a good-paying secular job, but what I really want to do is preach","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I am a recent college graduate, and I currently have a secular job with a high salary. I don't know, but I always feel sad whenever I'm going to work, thinking that this is not the world I wanted to be in, this is not the job I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":85696,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-the-work-of-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":41989,"position":5},"title":"What Is the Work of the Church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kyle Ellison Recently, I came across a discussion where community members discussed the need for churches to expand their activities. More physical fitness facilities, more sports options for Christian families, more clothing drives, more dinners, more food drives, more bookstores, improved coffee facilities for first-time guests, and on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}