Literacy and leadership in the church

In God’s kingdom, people are organized by their gifts, be they gifts of compassion, hospitality, teaching, discernment, and more. But somewhere along the way, something that isn’t a gift got introduced into the mix, and it even dominates the organization of the church: education. We hand over the leadership of our churches to those who have been educated the most, or in a particular way. Usually, it is years of seminary. Acceptance to a seminary is based primarily on academic performance in college. So if there is a gift involved, it may be the ability to do well on exams. But there is little call for that in the life of a community of people following Jesus.

In a kingdom where the last are first and where the wisdom of God confounds the wise of this world, how did the educated jump the queue to direct everyone else? And this even when no matter of education can give a person the gift of teaching or leadership. It could be that the educated use their knowledge to get to the front of the line, or to establish systems that give authority only to others who are highly educated. These could be true, but I have another idea.

Knowledge *is* valuable when teaching others about the kingdom of God. It is helpful to know the stories of the Bible and the admonitions of Jesus, for example. Being able to read helps one gain this knowledge. So, although having knowledge doesn’t make one a good teacher, it helps.

At the time of the early church, very few people could read. According to one source, as few of 0% in the rural areas and 5-10% in the cities could read. Since societies then were mostly rural, the country average would fall between one and three percent. And because of gender biases of the day, all but a very few would have been male. This, I believe, laid the foundation for patterns of church leadership. The ones who could read were the ones who were looked to for teaching.

But why does the church stick to this pattern today? In many countries, the literacy rates have flipped, with only a small minority of adults left who cannot read. And the number of books available today – just one copy of each - would probably cover all of Jerusalem several feet high. Not to mention other resources, such as the internet. A studious high school student of today knows vastly more than a learned scholar of Jesus’s day. With widespread literacy and a superabundance of information available to all, there is little reason for the church to make education its primary criterion for selecting teachers and leaders. We can now revert to the kingdom way of gifts.

In the church I envision, that would be the rule – those with knowledge of the kingdom and gifts of teaching would teach, and those with that knowledge and gifts of leadership would lead. That knowledge need not come from a seminary. There is an embarrassment of books available and others in the community to sharpen one another’s knowledge and teaching. This is not to say that seminary education isn’t useful. It is to say, however, that teaching in and about God’s kingdom should not be limited by the number people our seminaries can graduate. Nor should we assume that those graduates are gifted at teaching or leadership. Instead, may God’s Spirit empower those of his people who don’t have a seminary education, but who he has gifted, to teach and to lead powerfully in his kingdom.