The Blindness of Biblical Literacy Alone

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I’ve been thinking about the wise men recently. I can’t help but notice how different those Gentile seekers were from Israel’s wise men.

You remember the story. Wise men from the east ride into Jerusalem and create a stir. Surely their appearance alone would have been noteworthy. And surely they would have had an armed escort for the long journey from the east… and many beasts of burden carrying supplies… and many attendants and servants. It must have been an impressive sight, the great caravan of these visitors from the east arriving in Israel’s capital city.

But it was their quest that most troubled Herod, the puppet king of the Jews installed by Rome. Those exotic visitors had the temerity to ask the “king” of Israel, “Where is he who is born king of the Jews? For we have come to worship him.”

We won’t spend time on Herod’s paranoia, which led him eventually to slaughter all the male children two years and younger throughout the village of Bethlehem and the surrounding area. No, as tragic as that atrocity was, there was another tragedy: the blindness of Israel’s wise men.

These were men who knew the Scripture. When Herod asked them where the Messiah would be born, they didn’t speculate about which of the great families of Jerusalem might produce such a man. No, the rabbis had long known that the tiny, unimpressive village of Bethlehem, some five miles away, would be the birthplace of the Messiah. God’s prophet, Micah, had predicted as much eight centuries earlier.

Matthew’s gospel records the conversation between Herod and Israel’s wise men:

…assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, [Herod] inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’” (Matthew 2:4-6)

It’s what happened next that is so disturbing.
 
Israel’s wise men knew why the visitors from the east had come, and it’s clear that the wise men of Israel knew where that king would be born. So what did the wise men of Israel do next? Nothing. They contribute nothing more to the Christmas story beyond playing the role of informants, telling the murderously paranoid Herod where he could find the baby.

The wise men from the east were not experts in the Hebrew Scriptures, but they were driven to learn more about what God was doing in their day. And they undertook an arduous journey that probably took months to find the answer to their question. Israel’s wise men knew the Scripture, yet they were not motivated to find out for themselves what God had done. They weren’t motivated enough to travel five miles to Bethlehem to see for themselves.

In Israel’s wise men, we see the failure of biblical literacy alone.

We must be careful of a category error here.
 
All people who possess spiritual vitality have a great love for the Scripture. Because they love God, they are eager to know God’s Word.

But the opposite is not necessarily true: Not all people who know the Bible possess spiritual vitality. In fact, biblical literacy alone can be toxic. Jesus’s most implacable enemies were experts in the Scriptures. It was the Sanhedrin – Israel’s wise elders – who finally persuaded the reluctant Pilate to have Jesus executed as an enemy of the State.
 
The failure of Israel’s wise men and the great hunger of the Gentile seekers provide an instructive contrast between the barrenness of mere knowledge of the Bible and the fruitfulness of genuine spiritual hunger for God’s Word.

God spare me, God spare us all, from the barrenness of merely knowing His Word.  

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship