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PUBLISHED BY THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
VOL. 2, NO. 45
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
The PLAIN TRUTH About
the "STP" and
WHY God Did Not Choose Scholars
to Determine His Doctrines
by Herbert
w.
Armstrong
DECEMBER 6, 1978
There is a tendency to want to become "scholarly"--or to look
to "Scholars" as authorities for God's doctrines.
We need to understand this point! For God has NOT chosen the
scholarly to receive, comprehend, understand, and reveal to His Church
His true DOCTRINES and customs. Some have not realized that fact.
While I was overseas carrying Christ's Gospel into nations around
the world, my son decided, overstepping his authority, that he would
like to see our Church doctrines re-examined, questioned, refined,
organized and systematized in a more "scholarly" manner.
I presume that naturally he was prompted in this by the urging
of a scholar more recently come among us--that is, compared to such
men as· Ors. Hoeh and Meredith, Raymond McNair, and Dibar Apartian
-· and not as thoroughly grounded in God's Truth. Intentionally un
known to me, and without authority to do so, he set Dr. Robert Kuhn,
with the help of a few others, to work on the project.
God is emphatically not opposed to knowledge and understanding.
But modern "scholarship" speaks a language all its own. Many of our
substantial, understanding, "middle-class" (as the world classifies)
members might need an interpreter to translate this "language of
scholarship" into ordinary English.
What magnet draws one to want to become "scholarly"? The appeal
to vanity leads many. I think it is normal for all of us to have
inner feelings of inferiority. The "scholar" has been trained in
the higher educational levels of universities, to acquire this badge
of scholarship. It is not only a manner of speaking and writing.
It is a way of thinking--an attitude. And I will say bluntly it is
injected by Satan. It is a form of intellectual vanity!
The intellectual and scholarly professor--especially if he has
a Ph.D--uses this acquirement to intimidate his students. The "schol
arly" attitude and manner holds itself loftily above those being ad
dressed. He is in an exclusive class that disdains the proletariat.
But what kind of men did JESUS call and choose to be His apostles?
NOT the "scholarly" but men called
.2Y.
the scholarly as "ignorant and
unlearned men." But that does not mean illiterate or devoid of knowledge.