For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel. – Ezra 7:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 19, 2017): Ezra 7

We are living in the age of “The Education Gap.” On February 23, 2016, Donald Trump bragged, “If you listen to the pundits, we weren’t expected to win too much – and now we’re winning, winning, winning the country. We won with the young. We won with the old. We won the highly educated. We won with the poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.” Of course, the last line caused Donald Trump to be relentlessly mocked. But it is also the truth. Trump loves those with less education, and they have reciprocated – they love him back. In March of 2016, the Atlantic reported that “the best single predictor of Trump support in the Republican primary is the absence of a college degree.”

But it is not just Donald Trump. Brexit and other populist movements in Europe are sparked by those without education. And it might be that this is sparked from within the Christian Church. (Admittedly, the role of the Christian Church in the election of Donald Trump has mystified me.) The Church has long been a place where we have dealt with education with suspicion. This is partly because of populist movement inside the church with regard to the Bible. The idea seems to be that those who are educated go beyond a “plain reading of the text” that is the only reading available to people who have had less religious education. If the Bible is truly a book of the people, then, according to this group, it must be a book that can simply be read and meaning gained, and not a book that must be studied.

The Bible would seem to push back against that very idea. The psalms open up with this idea:

Blessed is the one …
  whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers (Psalm 1:1-3)

We are blessed when the Bible is important enough for us to delve into and examine the ideas that are behind the texts. We are blessed when we dare to struggle with what the Bible says, and in the process, we learn more about God and his Kingdom. The path to blessing is not in simply reading, but allowing the Holy Spirit to grant us understanding as we fight with the words it presents.

And this defines the essential character of Ezra. He was the one devoted to the study of the Bible and learning exactly what it is that the Bible teaches (Orthodoxy) and with taking what he had learned from his times of study and putting it into practice (Orthopraxy). He struggles with the word of God. And now he serves as a model, not just for those of us who endeavor to the lead the church, but for all who call themselves Christian. We are made and formed through our struggle with the Word of God, not by our cursory glances at what the Bible might say. Without a willingness to struggle, the church is nothing more than a populist movement that is virtually devoid of God, because God is made alive within us as we struggle with him.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezra 8