"Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 3: 7)
This verse seems appropriate when I think of Dr. Gene Scott, the ragged and woolly preacher would take on verse of scripture, then write it out in Greek, Hebrew, and five or six other languages.
This man really expounded in many languages, explicating passages with an erudition which would choke a linguist of any caliber in major universities.
He died of cancer, an avid cigar smoker who believed that God would heal him, but he died.
The man chose to smoke — a strange set up, to say the least.
Yet for all of his learning, I do not know of anyone who came to know Jesus Christ in all of his fullness.
His extensive teachings, with white boards covered all over with red and blue and black ink markers, with his much younger wife singing in an off-key voice at the end of every service, it was really hard to tell what all of this writing and learning was all about. Did it serve the possibility of sharing the Gospel?
"Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth." (1 Corinthians 8: 1)
This love is not our love, but rather God's love for us:
"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 John 4: 16)
This love is established in what God did for us through His Son, not the other way around:
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)
It is God's nature to give and to give and to give all the more. He gave His own Son, so what would hold Him back from giving all things with Him? (Romans 8: 32)
The real problem with Gene Scott, then, centers down on the proclamation of knowledge, but not the revelation of Christ, who is the central them of all Scripture (Luke 24: 25-27)
What good does it do for a man to read every known version of the Bible in diverse translation, if he misses the central theme of every jot and tittle: Jesus!
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am
become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (1 Corinthians 13: 1)
Dr. Scott made a lot of noise, and his breadth of knowledge commanded a lot of sound and sway with ardent followers, but not much else.