John Told Them They Did Not Need Anybody to Teach Them This

Nobody was unkind about it. That is the part that makes it hard to be annoyed.

He asked a question at the end of an evening, a real one, about something he had read on his own. And the answer he got was warm and slightly amused and completely sincere, and the substance of it was that he should wait until somebody could sit down with him properly, because it is easy to go wrong on your own.

He said thanks. He meant it at the time.

Then he went home and did not open it for five months, which is the part nobody intended and nobody noticed.

And what settled in during those five months is not resentment. It is smaller and more practical than that. It is a working assumption that reading it by himself is a slightly risky activity, a bit above his level, the kind of thing you can hurt yourself doing.

John says it to ordinary people in a letter

There is a sentence in one of John's letters that is startling once you notice who he is writing to.

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. (1 John 2:27, King James Version)

Ye need not that any man teach you.

He is not writing to leaders. He is writing to scattered ordinary believers, most of whom could not read, in a letter that would be read out loud to them.

And notice what he does not say. He does not say teachers are bad. He is writing a teaching letter while he says it, which would be a strange thing to do if he meant that.

What he rules out is the idea that a person needs somebody else in the room in order to be reached at all.

You have something abiding in you that does not wait for a room to be arranged. 1 John 2 says it to ordinary people in a letter meant to be read aloud, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the anointing that sentence is naming.

The curtain tore from the top

There is a detail in Matthew that people race past because it happens in the middle of a bigger event.

And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. (Matthew 27:51)

From the top to the bottom.

That curtain separated a room only one man could enter, once a year, with blood, after specific preparation. It was the physical statement of who could go in and who could not.

And Matthew tells you which direction it tore, which he did not have to.

From the top means nobody down here did it. It was not torn open by a crowd deciding they were ready.

You are on the near side of something that was opened from the other end. Matthew 27 records the direction on purpose, and it is His Spirit who makes an old architectural detail feel like it settles a question about permission.

A whole people got told what they are

There is a line in Peter's letter where a job title is handed to everybody at once.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

A royal priesthood.

Priest was a job with an access clause attached to it. That is what the word meant. A priest is somebody who goes in.

And Peter says it in the plural, to everybody reading, without exception clauses about training.

You are described with a word that has access built into its meaning. 1 Peter 2 says royal priesthood to a whole scattered readership, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old job title land on a man on a bus stop bench.

Hebrews says how to come, and the adverb is the point

There is an instruction in Hebrews about approaching God, and everything is in one word.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

Boldly.

Not carefully. Not once somebody has checked. Not accompanied.

And the writer of Hebrews is a man deep in the machinery of priesthood and sacrifice. He knows exactly what he is overturning when he uses that adverb, and he uses it anyway.

You are told to come boldly rather than to come supervised. Hebrews 4 picks the adverb deliberately, and it is His Spirit who makes a single word do something to a five month gap.

And the ones who checked got called noble for it

There is a small note in Acts about a group of people who did not take the apostle's word for it.

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. (Acts 17:11)

Searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

They were fact-checking Paul. Luke, who traveled with Paul, writes it down and calls them more noble for doing it.

That is not a small thing. The people who went and looked for themselves are the ones the record praises, and the man being checked is the one who kept the story.

You are doing the thing an eyewitness wrote down as the more noble one. Acts 17 records the checking and the compliment in the same sentence, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old commendation reach somebody who was told to wait.