God designed man to be a daily recipient of revelation knowledge. In the Garden of Eden, man walked and talked with God. Adam and Eve were receiving revelation knowledge daily from Almighty God. Satan introduced man to reasoned knowledge and that has been man’s focus for understanding since the fall. But how should Bible colleges teach, revelation knowledge or reasoned knowledge?
God’s Original Design for Man – To live out of revelation knowledge.
God designed man to be a daily recipient of revelation knowledge. In the Garden of Eden,
man walked and talked with God. Adam and Eve were receiving revelation knowledge daily from Almighty God. Jesus also demonstrated this life-style of doing nothing out of His own initiative, but only what He heard and saw the Father doing (Jn. 5:19,20,30).
Satan’s Temptation - That man descend to reasoned knowledge.
Satan entered God’s perfect plan with a temptation: Man could become like God, and man could know right from wrong. Man would no longer need to receive revelation from God, but he could turn to his own mind and he himself could know – separate and apart from God (Gen. 3:5).
In suggesting to man that he could become like God and he could know, satan was suggesting to man two things: self consciousness, and reliance upon reason or rationalism as a way of establishing truth.
Mankind accepted this lie and fell from revelation to reasoned knowledge. As a result, he was cursed. Part of that curse was that God cut man off from the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:22), where Jesus was the vine and man was a branch and there was a flow of revelation through man on a daily ongoing basis (Jn. 15).
Moreover, man soon learned that by living out of reason or knowledge he is not able to fulfill God’s purposes for his life, because man’s thoughts are not God’s thoughts, nor are man’s ways God’s ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s thoughts higher than man’s thoughts (Isa. 55:9). Man was told not to depend upon his own thoughts (Prov. 3:5)
Serving God using reasoned knowledge results in catastrophe.
Try as hard as man would to cooperate with the visions that God would give to him, it only brought a curse rather than a blessing.
Abram and Sarai thought and reasoned together as to how they could bring forth the completion of the vision that God had given to them of blessing the earth through their seed. However, the result of their thoughts was Ishmael. Ishmael was rejected by God, and brought a curse for thousands of years to come (Gen. 16, 17).
Moses knew in his heart that God had called him to be a deliverer of his people from Egyptian bondage. Using his own thoughts and efforts, he killed the first Egyptian he saw hurting an Israelite. God rejected this offering of reason and self-effort from Moses, and took him to the backside of the wilderness for 40 years, where He taught him to see vision and to hear His voice. Then God brought Moses back out of the wilderness as a Spirit-anointed leader who moved by revelation knowledge and not through reason.
Paul was a man who had the best-reasoned religious education of his day. It was built squarely around sound theology – about who God is and what God wanted of His people. However, this training missed the element of revelation knowledge. Then God entered into Paul’s life with revelation knowledge on the Damascus road, and Paul followed up this initial experience with an additional three years of private tutoring by the Holy Spirit, alone in the Arabian Wilderness – most likely at Mount Sinai (Gal. 1:17,18).
Paul then compared the two kinds of knowledge he had received – first with reasoned, theological biblical understanding, and then with knowledge that came from revelation and intimacy and from the Spirit of God. He said that he counted his first rational education as dung (Phil. 3:1-10) when compared with the value of knowing (ginosko) God (having intimacy and revelation knowledge from God).
Bible College Weighed in the Balance – Reason versus Revelation Knowledge
Each class offered by a Bible College will either present Christianity or religion to the student. If what is presented is birthed from revelation knowledge, and the process in which it is imparted is through revelation knowledge (i.e. the Lamad Method) then Christianity, revelatory truth and the blessing have been imparted. If what is shared is from a reasoned knowledge base without incorporating revelation, and if it is imparted using reason, rather than revelation, then religion, rationalism, man’s traditions and the curse have been presented. Religion detracts from revival, renewal, and the move of God. Christianity spurs renewal onward.
• Knowledge that is received or transmitted through reason brings one under a curse.
• Knowledge that is received or transmitted through revelation brings one under a blessing.
If you choose to teach Christian theology in a Bible school, I believe it must meet two criteria:
1. It must be theology that came from revelation knowledge and not reason; else it will be "the traditions of men."
2. It must be transmitted in a revelatory way (i.e. Lamad style education); else it will train the student to live out of and rely upon reason, which is the opposite of the way he must live if he is to succeed in renewal. In renewal one must live out of and rely upon revelation knowledge.
