Ordinary And Uneducated
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"Ordinary and Uneducated" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * *
Ordinary and Uneducated
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 4:5-12
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus (Acts 4:13).
In this text the religious authorities see the apostles Peter and John as “uneducated and ordinary men,” as it says in one of today’s scriptures. Yet it is likely that the two apostles spoke at least three languages, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, were proficient in the business of fishing, and seem to have known their way around the scriptures.
What made them uneducated and ordinary? Probably the fact that they were not related to the right people. Their intelligence and skill went unrecognized because they didn’t have the right qualifications, which in those days meant being related to the right people as much as anything.
Like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, Peter and John were every bit as intelligent as anyone else in that era -- but they lacked a diploma!
It wouldn’t be the last time someone who was very smart was accused of being uneducated.
Abraham Harley Cassel (1720-1908) was raised among the Dunkers, one of the Plain People of Pennsylvania. He did not have what you would call an affirming childhood. The young Cassel had a passion for reading, and for owning books, but his illiterate father Yelles Cassel was adamantly opposed. Like some other Dunkers of his era, he believed the more education you had, the greater the possibilities for sin.
As a result Cassel was largely forbidden to attend school. The sum and total of his schooling was twelve weeks. A sister taught him to read, and to speak English. In an effort to prevent him time and energy to read it is said that Yelles worked his teenage son so hard that his health was compromised the rest of his life. Still, thanks to his own determination, and his ceaseless self-education, (and his ability to hide candles and matches in his bedroom which enabled him to read at night while his father slept) Cassel grew up to satisfy his longing for books and reading in a prodigious way. As an adult he scoured attics and house sales for books, old periodicals, almanacs, letters, books of congregational minutes, and other priceless and irreplaceable artifacts.Though largely forgotten today, the plain-garbed Dunker had a reputation throughout the literary world of the 19th century as a bibliophile, historian, and antiquarian.
Accounts vary, but most people agree that his world famous private library numbered at least fifty thousand items, including books, manuscripts, private letters, pamphlets, and documents.
As a result of his voracious appetite for reading, Cassel immersed himself in the history of the various German-speaking religious groups of America. He came to know their histories, and decided to write historical articles for the 19th century periodicals that were springing up.
Still It must have taken a good deal of bravery for someone like Cassel, who considered his skills as a writer meager at best. But finally in 1851 he wrote a letter to the editor of a magazine known as The Gospel Visitor, Henry Kurtz:
As I am a very extensive reader, and in possession of a library of at least 3000 volumes chiefly of old and rare authors, to which but few of your readers may have access, & yet I find so many valuable gems in them, that I thought a few gleanings from them could not be unacceptable to your readers. ? But I submit all entirely to your judgment, to dispose of as you may think proper, that is to print it all or in part as you may want matter to fill up its columns.
Did he suffer a crisis of confidence and hesitate before he wrote those words? Probably, because he always requested that his editors feel free to improve his writing. At first he wrote under the pen name Theophilus, but it wasn’t long before magazine readers of the period came to look for his byline.
Cassel went on to write many articles about the German speaking religious pioneers of America, not only for sectarian periodicals, but secular magazines like Pennsylvania History.
Thanks to the kindness of his editors, who found his this ordinary and uneducated man saved a great deal of history, and shared it with thousands of readers in his own time, along with the historical researches of today.
Photographs of him in his last years show a serious looking man with a long beard, no mustache, wearing the plain clothes and black broad-brimmed hate of his people, with an over-sized Bible in his lap, on of his prized treasures. Today his books are owned by the Pennsylvania historical society, and educational institutions like Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 26, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Ordinary and Uneducated" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * *
Ordinary and Uneducated
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 4:5-12
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus (Acts 4:13).
In this text the religious authorities see the apostles Peter and John as “uneducated and ordinary men,” as it says in one of today’s scriptures. Yet it is likely that the two apostles spoke at least three languages, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, were proficient in the business of fishing, and seem to have known their way around the scriptures.
What made them uneducated and ordinary? Probably the fact that they were not related to the right people. Their intelligence and skill went unrecognized because they didn’t have the right qualifications, which in those days meant being related to the right people as much as anything.
Like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, Peter and John were every bit as intelligent as anyone else in that era -- but they lacked a diploma!
It wouldn’t be the last time someone who was very smart was accused of being uneducated.
Abraham Harley Cassel (1720-1908) was raised among the Dunkers, one of the Plain People of Pennsylvania. He did not have what you would call an affirming childhood. The young Cassel had a passion for reading, and for owning books, but his illiterate father Yelles Cassel was adamantly opposed. Like some other Dunkers of his era, he believed the more education you had, the greater the possibilities for sin.
As a result Cassel was largely forbidden to attend school. The sum and total of his schooling was twelve weeks. A sister taught him to read, and to speak English. In an effort to prevent him time and energy to read it is said that Yelles worked his teenage son so hard that his health was compromised the rest of his life. Still, thanks to his own determination, and his ceaseless self-education, (and his ability to hide candles and matches in his bedroom which enabled him to read at night while his father slept) Cassel grew up to satisfy his longing for books and reading in a prodigious way. As an adult he scoured attics and house sales for books, old periodicals, almanacs, letters, books of congregational minutes, and other priceless and irreplaceable artifacts.Though largely forgotten today, the plain-garbed Dunker had a reputation throughout the literary world of the 19th century as a bibliophile, historian, and antiquarian.
Accounts vary, but most people agree that his world famous private library numbered at least fifty thousand items, including books, manuscripts, private letters, pamphlets, and documents.
As a result of his voracious appetite for reading, Cassel immersed himself in the history of the various German-speaking religious groups of America. He came to know their histories, and decided to write historical articles for the 19th century periodicals that were springing up.
Still It must have taken a good deal of bravery for someone like Cassel, who considered his skills as a writer meager at best. But finally in 1851 he wrote a letter to the editor of a magazine known as The Gospel Visitor, Henry Kurtz:
As I am a very extensive reader, and in possession of a library of at least 3000 volumes chiefly of old and rare authors, to which but few of your readers may have access, & yet I find so many valuable gems in them, that I thought a few gleanings from them could not be unacceptable to your readers. ? But I submit all entirely to your judgment, to dispose of as you may think proper, that is to print it all or in part as you may want matter to fill up its columns.
Did he suffer a crisis of confidence and hesitate before he wrote those words? Probably, because he always requested that his editors feel free to improve his writing. At first he wrote under the pen name Theophilus, but it wasn’t long before magazine readers of the period came to look for his byline.
Cassel went on to write many articles about the German speaking religious pioneers of America, not only for sectarian periodicals, but secular magazines like Pennsylvania History.
Thanks to the kindness of his editors, who found his this ordinary and uneducated man saved a great deal of history, and shared it with thousands of readers in his own time, along with the historical researches of today.
Photographs of him in his last years show a serious looking man with a long beard, no mustache, wearing the plain clothes and black broad-brimmed hate of his people, with an over-sized Bible in his lap, on of his prized treasures. Today his books are owned by the Pennsylvania historical society, and educational institutions like Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 26, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
