Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Hello, dear ones.

Interesting day. Beautiful day. It was like Spring.

Yesterday was interesting too. It sure didn’t go as expected. I ended up making a run to Salem where I picked up a load of logs. They were described as being good sawlogs…but they proved to be no better than firewood. Oh well. I also had a friend groom my area around the mill shed with his big excavator, then haul in four loads of gravel with his dump truck. It’s an attempt to deal with our mud problem.

We need to pick up Thano at Safeway at the end of his shift in about an hour.

Have a good night.
Love, Dad/Ray

What kind of answers would you expect if you were able to ask this question to a random cross-section of people going into Walmart? “What do you believe to be the foremost universal problem or need plaguing mankind?” I would expect there would be answers like poverty, education, war, greed, hatred, disease, and the like. How would you respond? As I give careful thought to this question, I am inclined to arrive at this answer: The misuse of God’s gift of human intelligence.

Our text describes Sergius Paulus as “an intelligent man.” That is a very commendable description. It was a quality that led him to Christ and a conversion experience once he was exposed to revelation TRUTH as presented by Paul. My opinion is that the demonstration of the supernatural that Paul performed against Elymas was NOT the main cause of Sergius Paulus’ belief in the Gospel message. I think that the miraculous rebuff to the sorcerer’s attempts at blocking the Gospel simply served to support and confirm the message that was suddenly making a lot of sense to him. Why do I choose this perspective? Because I sincerely believe that the proper use of human intelligence will lead a man to God.

It is not required that “an intelligent man” be especially gifted or of a high IQ. Being “an intelligent man” simply means to me that a man is processing the things of life with careful thought and making determinations about right and wrong, good and evil, cause and effect, and important and unimportant based on that process. He is properly exercising a very special gift imparted by the Creator that He assigns to no other creature—the gift of human intelligence which allows for objective reasoning. If this perspective is valid, how can we avoid responsibility and accountability before Him? How can we fail to recognize that we are stewards of this most obvious distinction that separates man from beast?

If my thinker is working right, without human intelligence, there can really be no such thing as right and wrong, good and evil, or important and unimportant. Human life would be no more than mere existence amidst chaos where the prevailing reality would be survival of the fittest.

OK—I realize I am offering some of my own thinking that is not necessarily warranted by the text before us. And I have to allow for the possibility of some blind spots. So what are your thoughts relative to human intelligence? While you’re thinking, let me offer my bottom-line conclusion: I cannot imagine a better, safer, and more intelligent way to do life than to do it in submission and partnership with the Creator of life. And I’m convinced that a HEART AFTER GOD is the proper use of human intelligence.