The Swede

It was the summer after my first year of College. I was working out in the Gulf of Mexico as an Ordinary Seaman in order to help fund modestly my college expenses. I worked on an LST that in essence was a drilling tender. The old LST would dock up to a oil rig. On the boat was an assortment of characters including roustabouts, roughnecks, seamen and one green college student. The LST was like a small village with one purpose-to serve the drilling rig.

HarleyDad was fairly cocky. He thought he was pretty smart. He had graduated from an elite High School of high I.Q. students and was in the honors program of a reputable Texas college. He had completed one year of German, one year of Greek (which he had determined would be his major) and had about five years of latin under his belt. He was a fair chess player and that particular summer was reading Russian literature: Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Pushkin and the like.

Yes, HarleyDad thought he was pretty smart. At least he did until he met the Swede.

Now the Swede did not have any formal education. The Swede was an Able Body seaman and a master electrician. The Swede, who not surprisingly came from Sweden, had run away and had become a seaman when he was a teenager. Over the coming months I got to know Swede better.

The Swede had been all over the world. I had only travelled domestically. Instead of the three or four languages that I knew, the Swede was fluent in eight or nine languages. The Swede and I would play chess from time to time, with him often beating me.

We would discuss theology. Interestingly enough the Swede, also kept up a running correspondence on theology (and chess games) with several of the professors at New Orleans Baptist Seminary in New Orleans.

One day the discussion between Swede and I turned to a book by Fyodor Dostoevsky called The Brothers Karamazov. As fate would have it, the Swede and I were both reading this book at the same time. There was one difference however, I was reading it in English and he was reading it in Russian.

I learned a lot of things working offshore that summer; however one of the most valuable things that I learned was that you do not have to have a formal education in order to be well educated. The Swede was one of the smartest and best educated people I ever met. He had a love of learning far exceeding what I experienced from my college professors. There are some pretty smart people who do not have the "educational credentials." Likewise that are some well degreed people that are not that smart.

You take people as you find them. Don't be too impressed with their credentials. As I would go on in life, I would find many people who had the credentials but were not nearly as smart as some "average people." At the same time, I found a number of people in Academia, and in the religious profession that had "Paper Doctorates" from high sounding educational institutions that did not require any real work. Some of these people love to be called "Doctor" and are esteemed "leaders" in their communities. Matthew 23:8,9 says regarding the Pharisees they loved "respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men and the places of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues." The Chinese call these people "paper tigers."

It is hard to imagine Jesus as being addressed as Doctor Jesus. Now what seminary did you come from Jesus? Or Dr. John the Baptist. His seminary was the wilderness. Jesus was like Swede. He did not have the title, only the knowledge. Jesus amazed the scribes and teachers when he went to Jerusalem at 12 for his Bar Mitzvah and discussed the Scriptures with them and they were amazed. He read the Scriptures publicly in the Synagogues on the Sabbath. He wrote in the sand. He asked his followers on numerous occasions "Haven't you read in the Scriptures...." or "Don't you know what the Scriptures say. Jesus knew the written word of God. He was skilled in the Law and the Prophets. He had the substance-not the degree.

It is not what you have that makes you a man or a woman. It is not your degrees. It is what you are that counts. Do you have a heart that seeks to know. To know knowledge, to know wisdom, to know truth and to know God. Or do you just have degrees, money or position in the community.

The Swede had a more profound influence on me and my education than any professor I would encounter in undergraduate school, graduate school, or law school. You see, I have the degrees, but have learned that I am not so smart after all.