A School For The Spiritually Blind

By Kevin Burton

   If you are a regular Page 7 reader, you have heard me talk about my days at the Ohio State School for the Blind.

   I didn’t want to be there at first, but grew to where I didn’t much want to be anywhere else.

   Well I now think it would be helpful for me to re-enroll at a school for the blind.  No not my alma mater, but at a school for the spiritually blind.

   I was born with poor vision that hinders my ability to take in data visually.  I was also born with a sin nature that hinders, even prohibits, me from seeing things accurately spiritually.

   As a follower of Jesus I now have the ability to see things clearly, as explained in John 8:12 (NKJV), “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’”

   But spiritual blindness is still an issue even for Christians. That sin nature makes spiritual blindness the default setting. We have to actively engage the light of Christ to navigate this world accurately. The closer we stay to Jesus, the better our spiritual vision.

   The Bible teaches that there is an enemy of souls who is actively seeking to keep unbelievers blinded and hinder proper vision for Christians. 

   So I am introducing a new Sunday series involving a virtual school for the spiritually blind that I plan to attend right here on Page 7.   I invite you to study alongside me.

   We’ll use a high school class schedule and talk about classes one might take in high school or college. The idea is for us to learn together how to see things accurately, using truth from the Bible. My plan is to begin it later this month.  See you there?

   So let’s talk about what a calamity spiritual blindness truly is. 

   If a person is naïve, that person is blind to certain dangers in life, the self-interest, Machiavellianism of others.  That person makes decisions in life that expose them to harm. He or she is acting on incomplete information. 

   Non-believers are living life with even more dangerously limited information. The spiritual world is more real than the material world, even though it doesn’t appear that way to human eyes. 

   Here’s more from the website www.gotquestions.org, starting with the question: what is spiritual blindness?

   “To be spiritually blind is not to see Christ, and not to see Christ is not to see God,” reads the website.  “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6 NKJV).

   “Spiritual blindness is a grievous condition experienced by those who do not believe in God, Jesus Christ, and His Word. Those who reject Christ are the lost. Being spiritually blind, they are perishing,” reads the website.

   “They choose not to accept the teachings of Christ and His authority in their lives.  They are blind to the manifestations of God as revealed throughout His Word and Jesus Christ.”

   The website then cites the book of Acts, “Go to this people and say: ‘Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand; And seeing you will see, and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, (Acts 28: 26-27 NKJV).”

    “Those who reject Christ and His Word are spiritually blind and cannot understand the truth of the Scriptures. The truth sounds foolish to them.  Because of their blindness and rejection of God and His Word, they are in a perilous, unsaved condition,” the website reads, then quotes from the book of Hebrews:

   “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and giftsof the Holy Spirit, according to His own will” (Heb. 2: 3-4 NKJV).

   At our school for the spiritually blind we’re not preparing for college or work, we’re preparing for Heaven or Hell.  There will be no letter grades. Classes are pass/fail.