Thank you for the question on preaching, “Can I become a well-known and profitable preacher simply through home schooling?”
In our Western Culture, it is unlikely that a home schooled person can become well-known and profitable preacher.
If one is referring to being home schooled through high school, that is acceptable. If one thinks that one can be home school through college or graduate study, that is highly questionable since our culture presumes that one has a formal college or seminary education. Without that education, one’s qualification to translate the Hebrew/Greek text or understand theology will be suspect. There will be a lack of confidence in the speaker. In a third world country, that may be possible but even in those countries there will be professional people with bachelors or masters degree.
The question is not so much one’s education but one’s motive. The desire for fame and fortune in the ministry is a skewed motive. The love of money is a root for all evil. Wanting to be “profitable” or famous violates the very tenant of Scriptures that the greatest among the believer is to be a servant of all. With pride comes self-sufficiency as one may think that I did it without the help of God or that one’s interpretation of Scripture is infallible and authoritative.
Throughout the centuries, there have been men and women who claimed to be self-taught has led people astray as preachers of the prosperity gospel instead of the Gospel of Salvation in Jesus Christ. They may develop the Messiah complex thinking that they are the “Christ.” One does not enter the ministry for fame or fortune. One enters the ministry in response to the call of God to be his spokesman to his people.
SUMMARY: The lack of formal education and a skewed motive in entering the ministry may become Satan’s way of entrapping and misleading God’s people. Guard one’s heart well for all of life stems from it.
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