(Barnabas) rejoiced and encouraged
them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart,
for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.
We know little about Jesus' education: what books he read, what teachers he respected, where he might have travelled to gain his wisdom and understanding. There is no need to presume he just knew already, but we can assume Joseph, Mary, and the Holy Spirit guided the Boy's education and formation.
We also know that the Lord spent a lot of time, perhaps three years, teaching and training his disciples to announce the Kingdom of God. And we hear something in the four Gospels of their self-assessment during that period; but it was frankly poor. Perhaps too poor. Memories of their quarrelsome, misguided ambitions and their shameful behavior on Good Friday might have clouded memories of their remarkable spiritual growth during that time.
That's the way God works with us; he often shows his infinite power and wisdom through weak, foolish human beings. Saint Luke's Acts of the Apostles shows how ready they were to announce the Gospel "in Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the ends of earth."
However, as The Way began to gather more disciples it needed more than literate tax collector and skilled fishermen. And so God provided some well-born, well-educated intellectuals to anchor the Gospel in the Jewish tradition. They were sophisticated Jewish scholars who saw past its Gallilean origins and sensed the authority of God in the disciples' rustic accents and country manners
And so Paul and Barabas appeared; well-educated, socially sophisticated, with international experience, and solid character. The two worked closely together for a while, and we can suppose Paul's conviction about including gentiles was born of their conversation. They seemed to know better than the fishermen that all nations should be blessed by the descendants of Abraham; and that the world would discard every bizarre notion about divine and human natures in the encounter with Jesus.
The Roman Catholic Church has a long tradition of scholastic excellence. We need and train scholars to study the scriptures and traditions, to be familiar with all philosophical schools, and to train leaders of the Church, both men and women. We know that the Holy Spirit can do wonderful things with naivete and enthusiasm, but its best work is done with adults who have committed their life to prayer, sober study, serious discourse, and reasonable thought.
