by Giuseppe Guarino
IMPORTANT: The text is not what I spoke about in the video. God gave me a different word. I here make both available.
I lived in Malta for some time. The Maltese language is a very old Arabic dialect. As it happens with centuries-old cultures, the Maltese have many interesting sayings. I literally spent hours with a very dear brother in Christ there talking about the Bible, and languages. Concerning my desire to continually learn, one time he told me a proverb: “The old woman would not die so that she can continue to learn.” This is how best I can interpret the Maltese original of this saying.
We are Christians, we are followers of the greatest Rabbi ever lived, we are perpetual learners.
Before public school was made available for everyone, in Italy at least, the wealthy would pay private teachers to grant an education to their children. By the way, one-on-one teaching is the best teaching you can have. It is like a suit or a dress made by a tailor, made just for you, fitting you perfectly. So, our God, who is a perfect loving Father, provided for us the best teacher.
JOHN 14:25-26, “25These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.26But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
The Comforter
God provided for us the best teacher: the Holy Spirit.
A true teacher is not simply someone who communicates information, who helps the student accumulate data. A good teacher is there to give motivations and support to the student. He is there for him when needed. He prepares the student for the exams, feeling even more tense than the student himself. That is why the Holy Spirit is not just a teacher. He is called the Comforter, the Paraklete in the original Greek – that is, to quickly summarize all that He does: He is on our side! Teaching us, inspiring us, sustaining us, rejoicing with us, mourning with us. We know how wonderful His ministry is. Jesus was God with us. But the Holy Spirit is God in us!
The Trinity
The Holy Spirit is sent by God the Father, in Jesus’ name. The Trinity is not a theological definition in the Bible – that is what some would expect and that’s why when they can’t find it they get confused. The Trinity is who God is as he perfectly interacts from the spiritual world with us who live in the material world. This is a practical Truth. Not theory. God is not a theologian. God is a God of action, love, and relation. To say with the words of Ephesians 4:6, “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
We know the Truth
The Holy Spirit shall teach us all things. Is there anything that you needed to be blessed and be equipped to bless others and He did not teach you?
If so ever was the case…well, you must have not paid enough attention during the lesson – you can’t put the blame on Him, sorry.
Are we good students? Do we pay enough attention to the teaching of the Holy Spirit?
1 JOHN 2:27, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”
Epignosis
I attended university in my hometown only for a few months. It literally distracted me from learning. What they could provide was a knowledge that could get me advanced in society, give me prestige and possibly a good job with a nice income. But I craved for more. I wanted God’s knowledge. I am not saying that college education is not good. My son studies in university and I am proud of him. But I had a different call, since I was a teen-ager. I wanted God’s knowledge, not an education.
Paul wrote his epistle to the Colossians to make a few doctrinal points clear in regards to some early gnostic teachings. γνῶσις, gnosis, in the Greek means knowledge. What Paul does is add a little prefix, ἐπι-, epi, to that word forming a wonderful term: epignosis. He uses it various epistles.
The knowledge we possess is not wordly knowledge. It is a better knowledge. It is not a mere accumulation of information, but instruction that brings us closer to God, that equips us to be a blessing for others, fit for the specific task that God has assigned us according to our personal talents.
Conclusion
So, our vocation is to be perpetual learners. We can never stop being in that intimate relationship with the God dwelling in us, the Holy Spirit, seek His wisdom and guidance to be the effective woman and the man of God he wants us to be. The things we learn from Him cannot stagnate in us. In order to fulfill His Word, they must flow through us so that we may find our purpose of learning in becoming closer to him and a blessing for the body of Christ.
JOHN 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.