Studying Theology as a Servant of Jesus
After
thirty-two years of seminary teaching, I may be pardoned for having accumulated
a lot of grandfatherly advice for theological students, especially for those
who are beginning their course of study. Some of it may be helpful to you (I
address you as a young theologian) as you begin this important new phase of
your life.
Seminary
is, in many ways, a very positive experience. Your thinking will be stimulated
beyond what you ever imagined. I’ve never known a graduate of any seminary
whose thinking was not greatly influenced by his seminary work. You’ll make
some terrific friends, meet a number of people to whom you’ll turn all through
your life for counsel. You’ll experience some formative times of worship,
discussion, fellowship, and play.
Still, there are a lot of perils in
the road toward ministry. Some students expect, at least subconsciously, that
theological study is like a summer camp “mountaintop experience,” in which
everything seems to motivate you almost effortlessly toward spiritual growth.
Students with that romantic notion tend to be gravely disappointed, for they
discover that theological study can be a major spiritual trial. Much about
seminary can be a great blessing, but make no mistake: Satan is particularly
interested in attacking those who are studying God’s Word intensely. And in
addition to financial difficulties, intellectual problems, and juggling
responsibilities of family, study, church and job, there is the problem of the
sin within your own heart.
So it’s
important to get started with a good orientation, to which end I hope this
essay will be of some help. Of course there is no guarantee that reading this
paper will keep you out of danger. I am very much aware of my inadequacies as a
theological pastor. I’ve given this advice to many students, and I’ve been
dismayed and humbled to see how many of them have fallen into the precise
errors I’ve warned them about. And even if I were a perfect teacher, that
wouldn’t be enough. The sin within us leads us to resist even the best, and
best-formulated, spiritual counsel (see Prov. 1:20-33, and many other passages
in Proverbs). There is a biblical place for teachers and counselors, but, in
the end, only God, by his Word and Spirit, can make us obey; only he can open
our ears and hearts to the counsel he provides us. I can only pray that the
Lord himself will work through this essay, together with the counsel of other
pastors and teachers, to set you on a wise course.
1.
Theology
is a Spiritual Task
The term theology scares people. It sounds
formidable, esoteric, abstract, technical. Further, many of us have suspicions
about the discipline-- that it is perhaps irrelevant to our walk before God,
or, even worse, a sort of human presumption. How can we dare to think of "grasping" the living Word of God and stuffing it into an
intellectual system? Thus was I warned about theology during my youth; and,
although I now think the objections to it can be answered, I'm glad I was warned.
We should all be a little suspicious of academic theology, because, studied in
the wrong way, it can get mixed up with some unhealthy ways of thinking.
The best
way to define theology, in my view, is as
the application of the whole Bible to the whole of human life. Theology is
not an attempt to articulate our feelings about God (Schleiermacher), but
neither is it merely an attempt to state the objective truth, or to put the
truth in “proper order” (Hodge), for Scripture already does those things
perfectly well. Theology is, rather, teaching
[1]
the Bible for the purpose of meeting human needs. It answers human questions,
tries to relieve doubts, applies texts to life-situations.
The
broadest term I know to describe everything theology does is the term “application;” hence my slogan, “theology is application.” Of course, the term
“application” is susceptible to some misunderstanding. It has suggested to some
a type of theology that abhors anything “theoretical” and focuses only on the
“practical.” So let me say here that that is not at all what I have in mind.
Theoretical work in theology is very important. My only concern is to point out
that even the most theoretical sort of theology falls under the label
“application.” For why do we develop theological theories, after all? Only
because they address real questions people have on matters of spiritual
importance. So theory is part of application.
So this way
of looking at theology does not elevate the practical over the theoretical in
any general way. On the other hand, neither does it elevate the theoretical
over the practical. Theoretical and practical questions are on a par with one
another, all fair game for the theologian.
I also
resist the notion that theory is somehow the basis of practice. A much more
biblical view is that Scripture itself is the basis of both theory and
practice, and that, under the authority of Scripture, theory and practice serve
one another.
Similar
considerations bear on the question of the “relation of doctrine to life.” We
are sometimes inclined to say that “doctrine is the basis of the Christian
life.”
[2]
That’s a true statement, if by “doctrine” we mean the teaching of Scripture
itself. But if “doctrines” are human theological formulations, human
understandings of biblical teachings, then they are not the singular basis for
the Christian life. Rather, doctrine and life are correlative; each feeds the
other.
Certainly,
doctrine (defined as the work of godly teachers of the Bible) contributes much
to the Christian life. But in some ways, according to Scripture, the Christian
life is prior to doctrine in this sense. As Jesus told Nicodemus (“the teacher
of
Note also
how the Apostle Paul tells us to find, test, and approve the will of God in
Rom. 12:1-2: by making our bodies living sacrifices, renouncing conformity to the
world, being transformed by the renewal of our minds. Again, a change of life
is what brings insight, doctrinal understanding. Compare in this respect 1 Cor.
8:1-3 (where love and humility are indispensible prerequisites to knowledge),
Eph. 5:8-10 (where living as children of light leads us to find what God’s will
is), Phil. 1:9-10 (where love gives insight), Heb. 5:11-13 (where ethical
maturity prepares us to benefit from doctrinal teaching about Melchizedek).
So theology
is not self-sufficient. It depends on the maturity of your Christian life, as
the maturity of your Christian life depends on theology. Growth in grace will
make you a better theologian, and becoming a better theologian will help you
grow in grace. There is a “spiral” relationship between the two. When you
become a Christian, you usually get some elementary theological teaching, a
great help in getting started in your walk with the Lord. But then new
questions arise, and you go back to Scripture and theology, and you get more
advanced answers—sometimes to the same questions you had as a spiritual babe.
But your greater maturity enables you to understand and appreciate teaching of
greater depth. And that teaching, in turn, helps you to grow more, and so on.
This is
why, in the New Testament, the qualifications of teachers (1 Tim. 3:1-7, Tit.
1:5-9) are more spiritual than intellectual. Paul mentions “aptness to teach”
and “sound doctrine,” but his qualifications for elder-teachers are mostly
ethical: “above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate,
self-controlled,” etc. The application is obvious: If you want to become a
theologian, you must be a godly person. That principle applies to the most
academic and theoretical of theologians, as well as to the practical
theologians (like most of you) who preach sermons, lead Bible studies, nurture
other believers, and witness to the lost.
Indeed, the
relation between theology and the Christian life is even closer than that. It’s
not enough to say that theology and life are two things that reinforce one
another. Rather, it’s important to notice that theology is part of the Christian life: a part that, to be sure, is crucial to
the well-being of the other parts. Theology is one of the things we do as believers. So, like all other
things we do, we should do it to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). It is part of
our service to Christ. So we must do theology in a way that is acceptable to
God. Just as there are divine commands about worship, honoring parents, murder,
adultery, theft, etc., there are divine commands about theology. Theology, both
in its content and its method, must be subject to Scripture.
Scripture
has much to say about theology, about the business of gaining spiritual wisdom
and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psm. 111:10,
Prov. 9:10) and of knowledge (Prov. 1:7). The wisdom of the world is
antithetical to the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1-2). God’s written Word is the
standard for spiritual knowledge (Deut. 6:6-9, Psm. 119:9, 11, 1 Cor. 14:37, 2
Tim. 3:15-17, 2 Pet. 1:19-21).
Here we
must be counter-cultural. Nothing is more absurd to the modern or postmodern
mind than the proposition that an academic discipline should be subject to
biblical norms. The major opinion-makers tells us that thought must be autonomous,
secular, that science, history, art, even the study of religion, but be
religiously neutral. But our Lord tells us that we must serve him with all our
heart, soul, strength, and mind. The contrast, and the conflict, could not be
more clear.
Indeed, for
the Christian, not only theology in the narrow sense, but all other academic
disciplines as well, must be subject to Scripture. When we study history, or
science, or literature, or politics, we must presuppose the truths of God’s
Word; we must ask in each case how Scripture applies to these disciplines. So
it should be obvious, though it does not go without saying, that theology, too,
is subject to Scripture.
So theology
is part of our discipleship. It is a part of the Christian life that nurtures
all the rest of life. And as part of life, we should carry it out in obedience
to Scripture. In these ways, theology is a spiritual
task.
[3]
2.
The Word of God is Dangerous, As Well As Edifying
Theology is
a study of the Word of God. That is obvious in the case of your courses in Bible and Systematic
Theology, but it is no less true in areas like preaching, counseling, and
church history: for in those disciplines too, your professors will seek to
interpret and evaluate their subjects according to biblical standards. So your
seminary course will amount to a saturation in Scripture, the written Word of
God.
This
study can be a great blessing, of course. All the riches of wisdom and
knowledge are in Christ (Col. 2:3), and we learn of him in Scripture. “Oh, how
I love your law! I meditate on it all day long,” says the Psalmist (Psm.
119:97). “How sweet are your words
to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” he says in verse 103. The
Scriptures are “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good
work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Their message is “the power of God unto salvation”
(Rom. 1:16), “living and powerful” (Heb. 4:12). Where else can we find what we
need for ministry and for our life with God? With Peter, we exclaim,
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John
6:68).
But the Word can also be dangerous. As the Word is the
power of God to salvation, it can sometimes also bring condemnation. God
commanded Isaiah to preach the Word, but told him it would not bless its hearers:
Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
Be ever seeing, but never perceiving.
Make the heart of this people calloused;
Make their ears dull
And close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
Understand with their hearts,
And turn and be healed (Isa. 6:9-10).
Jesus quotes this
passage in connection with his own parabolic teaching (Matt. 13:13-15 and
parallels), and Paul quotes it as he turns from unbelieving Jews to the
Gentiles (Acts 28:26-28). We know that often in biblical and later history,
many people have heard the Word of God without benefit to themselves. Rather,
hearing it has hardened them, provoked them to greater sin (
Why do I raise this issue in an essay about theological
study? Because it focuses our attention on one great danger of theological
study. Your very immersion in the Word of God can be a blessing, or it can be a
curse. If you hear the Word in unbelief or indifference, and respond to it that
way over and over again over several years, you will be much worse off spiritually as a result.
Two important applications:
1.
Make sure that you are a Christian, before you enter seminary. That sounds
strange, I know. Why would anyone enter seminary without being a Christian? But
I’ve known some seminary grads who have testified that they went to seminary
unconverted and didn’t come to know Christ as Lord and Savior until God reached
them in their seminary studies. People come to seminary for all sorts of
reasons; not always to study as servants of Christ. Occasionally these are
converted while in seminary, but I suspect that some never do experience God’s
saving grace, and the seminary experience only increases their condemnation.
Remember
that you do not become a Christian by being baptized, by
None
of us is good enough to measure up to God’s standards. So we cannot save
ourselves. Salvation is a gift of God, the gift of Jesus’ perfect righteousness
in place of our sin, which he bore for us on the cross. We receive that gift
through faith alone, by trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior. If you have not
received Jesus by faith, now is the time to do so. “For God so loved the world
that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Then, and only then, can you say
that you are a Christian.
But
if you go to seminary without Jesus, you are headed for spiritual disaster.
2. In your seminary studies, never treat God’s Word as a
mere academic assignment. Even when you are parsing Greek verbs in an assigned
passage, listen to what that passage says. Hear it in faith, with a disposition
to obey. With young Samuel, say “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1
Sam. 3:9). If you hear God’s Word indifferently, (a) you will lose the blessing
of it, (b) you will form or reinforce a bad habit that will lead to other lost
blessings, and (c) at worst, apart from God’s grace, you will be hardened
against the truth. It will come to mean less and less to you.
3.
Theology Demands Rigorous Thought
The motto
of Reformed Theological Seminary is “a mind for truth, a heart for God.” The study
of theology involves both of these. In the previous sections I addressed our
heart-relationship to God. In this one I shall focus on the “mind for truth,”
which, of course, is an aspect of “the heart for God.”
[4]
One
important implication of the spirituality of theology is that theology deserves
our best intellectual effort. Notice that intellectual rigor is not something
alien to spirituality, but part of it. What I say in this section is an
application of what went before. God calls you to serve him with the mind, as
well as heart, soul, and strength. If you are unwilling to accept God's
standards in thought, can you rightly claim to be accepting his demand in "all of life"?
How hard do you think God wants you to
think about his Word? When you read a difficult passage of Scripture, do you
think he wants you to jump at the first interpretation that pops into your
head? Or do you value him enough to work hard at it until you get it right? Are
you willing, as a servant of Christ, to work your way through the difficulties
of ancient languages and cultures, principles of communication, indeed of
theological mysteries, until you know what God wants you to teach his people?
Paul tells
the Thessalonians to “test everything” (1 Thess. 5:21). He wants them to be
like the noble Bereans who “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what
Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11; compare Deut. 18:20-22). Peter wants us to
have an answer to everyone who asks us a reason for our hope (1 Pet. 3:15).
I confess
to some concern about the quality of thought in the evangelical community and
specifically in the Reformed branch of evangelicalism.
[5]
In my view, much that passes for theology today (both academic and popular) is
not very cogent. The problem begins, of course, in the student years. Students
expect to study hard if they go to medical school or law school. But they tend
to have a different attitude toward theology. They often expect theological
studies to be easier than medicine or law or other graduate programs. Why? Perhaps
in the back of their minds, they figure that Christian teachers ought to be
easier on them than secular teachers (misunderstanding the nature of Christian
love and gentleness). Or they think that because theology is a spiritual
discipline they shouldn’t have to think hard about it (misunderstanding, as we
have seen, the nature of biblical spirituality).
Please put
those notions out of your heads. A Christian, called to study the Word of God,
may give to that task nothing less than his best. That is true, (1) because the
Christian must do every task laid
before him with all his heart (Col. 3:23) and in the name of the Lord Jesus
(Col. 3:17), (2) because of the importance of the subject matter (God’s own
Word) and (3) because of the nature of the ministry. Think of it this way: your
ministry begins in your student years. You are shortchanging the people to whom
you will minister (now and in the future) if you fail to work hard at your
studies. You don’t love God’s people if right now you fail to prepare good
spiritual food for them.
If you try
to minister to people without a solid knowledge of God’s Word and an ability to
apply it to human needs, you are worse than a physician who treats people in
medical ignorance. Worse, because the consequences can be eternal.
Thinking as
such does not distort or deny the Word of God; sin does. The anti‑intellectual
too often focuses on only part of the problem, the depravity of the intellect,
minimizing the effects of sin in other areas of life. On the other hand, in
doing so he overlooks significant God‑given tools of sanctification and
thus loses the full impact of the Word upon him. But one with a fully biblical
concept of theology will use all these means to apply the Word to God's people.
We should use to the fullest all the tools of learning: linguistics,
archaeology, reason, imagination, logic, and so on.
Through
such theology we will become more obedient, and through obedience we will
become better theologians. If theology is a confrontation with the living God
in His Word, then we dare not bring before Him any less than our best. To do so
is sinful complacency, arrogant pride.
Some
implications:
1. Don’t be surprised if you feel
a bit overwhelmed at the seminary workload and the difficulty of study. And
don’t be resentful, either. Seminary is, of course, a graduate school, and the
work is appropriately more difficult than college work. Further, your
professors take seriously what we have been discussing, the special importance
of careful thinking in theology. Here are some practical suggestions for those
who are feeling acute academic pain: (1) Consider reducing your course load. It
might, for example, be especially helpful to avoid taking Hebrew and Greek the
same year. In some cases students should consider extending their programs
beyond the standard two- or three-year periods. (2) Form study groups to
discuss the material. Share the pain. (3) Talk to your pastor, faculty advisor,
or Dean of Students; don’t just go away mad. (4) Give yourself some remedial
studies in the basics. Read the
2. Try to understand that the
study of theology at the seminary level is probably unlike anything you have
done before. You may be experienced in arguing theology in dorm-room bull
sessions; you may even have fairly good background in the Reformed confessions
and catechisms, although that is rare these days. You may, like an increasing number
of students, have studied the development of doctrine through the history of
the church. Nevertheless, when you study theology at seminary, you will be
expected to conform to a higher standard of intellectual rigor and theological
depth.
[6]
Your old
answers will not necessarily be sufficient any more.
Nothing is
less attractive than a first-year seminarian (or even graduating seminarian, or even retiring professor!) who thinks he knows
everything. Believe me, you don’t. You probably have very little idea how
complicated the questions are, how many facets of them need to be considered.
Take one
step at a time. Be content to take a lower seat for the time being. Don’t be
arrogant with your fellow students with whom you disagree. Scripture tells us
that we ourselves will be judged by the standards we apply to others. Don’t act
like the great expert on difficult and controversial issues like exclusive
psalmody, the regulative principle, confessional subscription, theonomy,
supralapsarianism, common grace, infant communion, apologetic method, etc. It
is best not even to make up your mind on such matters until you have
sympathetically considered all sides. Open yourself to the possibility of
change. There is far too much cocksureness in Reformed circles, too many easy
answers to difficult questions. Let us not be guilty of so trivializing the
gospel of Christ.
[7]
3. Make every
class, every assignment, an occasion for thoughtful reflection. For example, think about your reading assignments. Sounds obvious, I know! But one of the main
difficulties of students is that they just do not know how to read very well.
The advent of TV and cassettes, the decline of standards in high school and
college, the general decline in Christian scholarship (#1 above) have made it
difficult for us to teach through reading assignments. Yet an ability to read
thoughtfully is an utter necessity for a well‑informed ministry. If you
don't know how to read well, you had better learn. Your professors will expect
you to learn a lot of things through
reading alone. This is the nature of graduate study. Don’t expect them to
explain all the readings in class. Class sessions will supplement your
readings, not duplicate them. If you have reached the graduate level and cannot
do this, then you must work ‑ on your own time ‑ to remedy that
incompetence. We cannot teach reading at seminary; we must presuppose it as a
propaedeutic skill required for the ministry.
You
should also spend time meditating on your reading. Read prayerfully, asking God
to help you react properly to the truths and falsehoods in the texts. Read
analytically and critically ‑ asking good questions, finding out why the
writers say what they say, why they say it in one way rather than another, why
their views are right or wrong. Don't just learn what the authors say: use
their thoughts as a stimulus to your own.
The same
advice bears on class lectures. Lectures, like readings, require thought. You
cannot do justice to a lecture if you think about it only when it is given and
before the examination. Take your notes home with you and analyze them as if
they were a reading assignment (above, #4). Meditate; pray; search the
Scriptures to find if the lecture is true (as Acts 17:11).
4. Priorities
So far,
theology sounds like an incredibly taxing business ‑ demanding a
constant, intense spiritual involvement, that involvement including painstaking
scholarship. Who is sufficient for these things? Not you or I. By the grace of
God we can make progress toward the goal of real theology, but we shall never
achieve it in this life. Our sin and frailty will always bring us short of the
goal. Can we be satisfied with less than perfection? In one sense, no: to be
satisfied with imperfection can mean that we cease striving and thus lose sight
of the goal altogether. But in another sense, yes: for to insist on perfection
can mean that we expect something God has not promised ‑ perfection in
this life.
We
must, therefore, take our sin and frailty into account. Sanctification is not
an instant achievement, but a gradual process. Often we must fight one
spiritual battle at a time, knowing that there are other enemies to be
conquered later. Even as creatures, apart from sin, we cannot obey all of God's
commands simultaneously. We cannot pray, preach, study Scripture, feed the
hungry, counsel the afflicted, etc., all at the same time. We must,
paradoxically as it may seem, postpone
obedience to some divine commands in order to obey others.
At
some times we must parse Greek verbs (to the glory of God!); at other times we
must put our Greek verbs aside and pray. People sometimes say that we must not
"dichotomize" between, say, studies and devotions; and they are right
in some senses of that tricky word "dichotomize." It is true that
prayer should not exclude study nor vice‑versa; it is also true that each
ought to enhance, not detract from, the other. But it is not true that prayer
and study are the same thing, nor is it true that we never have to choose
between the two. We do have to decide often to do the one and to stop doing the
other; and if that is "dichotomizing," well, in that sense we must
indeed dichotomize.
All
of this means that we must make a conscious attempt to achieve a balance ‑ to find some place in
our life for every command of God, to the exclusion of none. We must decide
what must be done at a certain time, what must be postponed until later, what
demands a lot of time, what demands only a little, etc. Each of us must have a
scale of priorities.
The
top priority, at seminary as everywhere else, is the glory of God. Others are
dictated by Scripture to all uniformly: each of us must spend some time in prayer, some time in the Word, etc. "To
obey is better than sacrifice" (I Sam. 15:22): such passages indicate
priorities we all must observe. But other priorities vary from person to
person. Sometimes they are a function on one's calling (cf. Acts 6:2). Some are
functions of one's particular spiritual strengths and weaknesses (cf. Matt.
19:21).
What
about you? You ought to have high standards in theology ‑ high spiritual
standards, and that involves high intellectual standards. But this does not
mean that you must give all your waking hours to study. You need to do other
things as well: to eat, to drink, to exercise, to make friends, to care for
your family, to be a good church member, to visit the afflicted, etc. You will
have to balance your theological work with your other responsibilities; else
you will be a disobedient and therefore poor theologian.
And
there may be still other responsibilities, stemming from your particular
calling: a church job, a street preaching ministry, a part time
"secular" job. You will have to balance out these responsibilities
too.
Students
have sometimes said, "God has led me to seminary, and therefore he expects
me to make the best grades possible." Then they put all else aside and
bury themselves in books until graduation. This is simplistic and dangerous. No
one ought to give himself exclusively
to study. The amount of study you do will depend very much upon your calling
and your spiritual condition. If you must sacrifice your other responsibilities
or your spiritual growth in order to earn an A, then you ought to renounce the A and work for a lesser
grade ‑ or, better, forget about grades and learn what you need for your
distinctive ministry. And if that is "dichotomizing," then we must
dichotomize.
You
must also make decisions among the
various types of study. I do not believe that everyone ought to give top
priority to my own courses. If you choose, for good reasons, to work for A's in
New Testament and only C's in my systematics course, I will respect you for
that (and give you the C you deserve!).
Remember
that your seminary years are not only a preparation
for discipleship. They must themselves be a time of discipleship. They are not
a hiatus from the Christian life. During these years you will and should have
somewhat different priorities from those you will have later on. But even as a
seminarian, you have a responsibility to do things other than study. You are a
Christian first, a student second.
Although
your priorities will and should differ somewhat from those of other believers,
there are some things that every Christian should place high on his agenda.
Particularly important are the means of grace: the Word, the sacraments, and
prayer. These are necessities for every believer, but it is especially
important to mention them here since theology is a spiritual task. How can you
be a theologian and not have an intense desire for the presence of the Lord?
You cannot even see the
The
crux: at the beginning of your seminary career, decide what your priorities are
going to be. Correlate your gifts and needs with the biblical norms. Make sure
there is room in your schedule for all your responsibilities: to God, family,
church, job, studies. Make sure that at seminary you will grow spiritually.
Satan is very active at seminary. Confrontation with the Word of God is a
dangerous business (above #2). Do not underestimate the perils. Determine now
to establish good devotional habits. Get established in a sound church. (Church‑hopping
is a terrible evil: you cannot properly function in the body of Christ, you
cannot bear the burdens of others or find others who can knowledgeably bear
yours, if you church‑hop.) Find some way to witness for Christ. Be
helpful to fellow students. Meanwhile, busy as you have become, you may have to
tolerate some imperfection in your seminary achievement. But, strange as it may
seem, God requires a certain tolerance of imperfection; for to be a theologian,
you must be other things as well. To be a theologian, you must be a godly
person.
5.
Moral Standards
Godliness
always means keeping the commandments of God’s Word (John 14:15, 21, 23). As
you prepare for positions of leadership in the church, Satan will make you a
particular target of temptation. Just as you engage in physical exercise to
care for your body, you need to think in terms of vigorous exercise in
godliness (1 Tim. 4:8, Heb. 5:11-14). Don’t assume that sanctification will
come easily once you are in seminary. It will continue to be a struggle.
Increasingly,
people will look to you as a godly leader. Look into your own heart. You know
that you are not as good, not as spiritually mature, as people think you are.
Don’t be swayed by the praise of others. Hear the Word and the Spirit driving
you to repentance and greater discipline.
Satan’s
war against the church’s ministry has often focused in the sexual area. Many
pastors have suffered setbacks, even shipwreck, because of failure to guard
their heart against sexual temptation. This battle is most intense during one’s
youth, but it continues throughout life.
A
position of authority as a teacher, preacher or youth leader, will likely
increase your attractiveness to the opposite sex. You should take special
precautions to “treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and
younger women as sisters, with absolute purity” (1 Tim. 5:2).
Godliness
always involves some sacrifice of personal freedom. God’s commandments aren’t
burdensome, but they often call for sacrifice. One of those sacrifices we must
make when we are called to positions in leadership in the church is the burden
of having to be, not only a godly person, but a godly example to others (1 Tim.
4:12). That means that you must be concerned, not only about God’s standards,
but about appearances. People today are suspicious of church leaders, and they
are not entirely wrong in this. You will have to earn their trust. And false
charges on moral grounds are not unheard-of. A good rule is to make sure that
your conferences with young people and people of the opposite sex are open to
witnesses, beyond suspicion. Finances are also a major subject of concern. Make
sure that your financial affairs are thoroughly honest and beyond suspicion.
6.
Interpersonal Relations
A great deal
of your preparation for ministry will result, not from formal instruction, but
from informal contacts with professors and fellow students. The Lord wants us
to make the best possible use of these. Seminaries are not churches,
[9]
but they must seek to be Christian communities where biblical standards govern
relationships.
Resolve
from the beginning to follow the biblical law of love, to help make your
seminary, not only a theological academy, but a community of brothers and
sisters who love the Lord and one another. Let’s have this ambition: that our
neighbors, like the first century pagans who observed the young church, will
marvel at the love we have for one another.
Concretely:
often students can help students more effectively than a professor can. Be open
to one another's needs. Don't let anyone get left behind, friendless,
frustrated. Keep the Golden Rule in mind. Try to build up, not tear down. Don't
speak unless your words are edifying (Eph. 4:29).
Criticism of one another and of professors will sometimes be necessary; but do it in a godly way. If you have a serious criticism of someone, don't murmur behind his back. Talk to him, as our Lord requires in Matt. 18. Don't gossip. Take your problems to people who can act on them and fix them. Trust your brothers and sisters; act on the assumption that they want to be faithful to God just as you do.
7. Partisanship
Paul warns,
especially in 1 Cor. 1-3, about the danger of factional battles in the church.
In my opinion, this is a great danger in the seminary community also. Students
sometimes get excited about some idea or movement (sometimes based on the
thinking of a professor, sometimes not) and will look down their noses at
anybody who doesn’t share these ideas, or the emphasis, or jargon of their
movement. Even when the ideas in question are not resolved in the Reformed
confessions (or when they are peripheral to the confessions), the partisans
often take them to be virtual tests of orthodoxy.
In the early chapters of my Cornelius Van Til,
[10]
I have
rebuked this kind of “movement” thinking among my fellow Van Tillians.
[11]
There
have been many movements of this kind in American Presbyterianism, over views
of the millennium, the incomprehensibility of God, Dooyeweerdian philosophy,
the place of the law, styles of worship, the place of confessions, the place of
tradition, the existence of divine grace before the Fall, the nature of
biblical covenants, the relation of works to justification, the place of
biblical theology in preaching, the role of general revelation in counseling,
paedocommunion, the length of creation days, and so on.
The usual pattern is that (1)
Someone proposes an idea. (2) He and others form a party to defend that idea
and to insist that it must be a test of orthodoxy in the church. (3) Someone
else attacks the idea and assembles another faction to condemn the idea as
heresy. (4) The controversy wastes hours of time in Christian churches and
organizations, and at worst destroys them. (5) Without any resolution, people
get tired of the discussion, and they go on to debate something new.
I suspect that most of these
controversies should have been aborted after stage (1). When someone comes up
with a new-sounding idea, most of the time it is best just to talk and think
about it for a while, searching the Scriptures, tolerating various opinions on
the subject. There are, of course, some views that are genuine heresies, that cannot
be tolerated in the church. But I don’t believe any of those are on the above
list. That list, rather, provides examples of differences of opinion that ought
to be tolerated within the fellowship of the church.
[12]
And there are some “issues” that
are just a waste of time. Remember what Paul says in 1 Tim. 1:1-7 and 2 Tim.
2:14-16. Not every theological issue is worth discussing. Some are really
nothing more than “godless chatter.”
During your seminary years, you may
be tempted to join such a theological party. Resist the temptation, please. You
simply do not know enough to go around accusing one another of unorthodoxy on
these sorts of matters, and if you did know more, you would not join the
controversy. You can learn from people who have different points of view and
emphases on controversial matters, and you should. Don’t dismiss any of your
teachers or classmates merely because they fail to reinforce your partisan
prejudices. Keep an open mind, a teachable spirit.
James warns us against the dangers
of the teaching vocation (3:18), because teachers use their tongues, and the
tongue is a dangerous weapon, difficult to control. Know-it-all theologians,
like the court prophets and the Pharisees, regularly incur God’s wrath in
Scripture. Learn truth, wisdom, and gentleness, before you go off on your high
horse to do battle with those you consider ignorant.
8. Theologians and
the Church
The above
admonitions also bear on the relations of theologians to Christians not trained
in academic theology. Helmut Thielicke is much preoccupied with this issue in
his A Little Exercise for Young
Theologians.
[13]
I am not sympathetic with the main thrust of Thielicke’s concern. He is worried
about the seminarian who returns to his home church and pridefully dumps on the
people all the theories of the unbelieving Bible critics. Thielicke advises the
student, not to reject those theories, but to hold back until he is more mature
spiritually, until he can present these unbelieving theories in such a way as
not to cause offense.
[14]
Well, in my view, these critical theories are spiritual poison and should not
be taught as truth in the church, even by the most otherwise mature teachers.
But along
the way, Thielicke makes some valid observations, that apply equally well to
young theologians who uphold the infallibility of the Bible. For even students
unaffected by such Bible criticism often have a way of dumping their new
theological knowledge on congregations in a way that is unwelcome and
unedifying. It is unbecoming, certainly, for a twenty-five-year-old seminarian
to berate a sixty-year-old elder, for example, because the older man holds an
outdated interpretation of a Bible passage. There is something prideful about a
student (this is a true story, from years ago) who stands and reads thirty
pages of Vos’s Biblical Theology to a
congregation of working people with ninth to twelfth grade education. There is
something wrong when a first-year seminarian believes that he must (in the most
incomprehensible jargon) lay on his adult Sunday School class all the latest
theories about the use of Hebrew prepositions.
Such
students lack the perspective of seeing theology as a spiritual task. Theology
is application. If it doesn’t edify, it is worthless. It is not information for
information’s sake. It should never be a vehicle of intellectual pride.
“Simple
believers” often know God better than many learned theologians. Many who lack
formal theological training are better elders and deacons than any young
seminarian could be. They may know less about academic theology than the young
seminarian, but they may well know more of what’s important, in greater depth
and perspective, and better how to apply it to life. If the young seminarian
wishes to rebuke such an elder, he should take 1 Tim. 5:1 to heart. More likely
he should not rebuke at all until he learns something of the gentleness and
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But even more important, the
young seminarian should be humble enough to learn
from those who have walked with Christ for many years, who have matured through
fighting the spiritual warfare. This kind of learning can be just as important
as classroom learning in preparing a young theologian for ministry.
All of this is an exhortation to
students to recognize your own immaturity, how much you don’t know, how much
you need to grow. You might deceive yourself about this, partly because at
seminary you are learning so much technical stuff of which the simple believers
are ignorant. Being able to read Hebrew and Greek, and to speak of covenants
and supralapsarianism and the rest might lead you to think (quite wrongly) that
you know God better than the simple believers. But Thielicke illustrates well
how somebody can have a lot of knowledge, while lacking knowledge of the most
important sort:
Before the young
freshman has really looked at the cornerstone of the Biblical story of
salvation, for example, the story of Creation and the account of the Fall,
before he has come to know the Alpine peaks of the divine thoughts in their
majesty, he is made familiar with the mineralogical analyses of that stone. But
anybody who studies geological formations on maps and graphs, and learns
mineralogical formulae from a set of tables before he ever climbs the Alps, is
hardly in a position to comprehend at all what the
The simple believer may well know the theological
9. Conclusion
I don’t
mean to discourage anyone. The second paragraph of this essay indicates
something of the joy that is part of theological study, and I hope nothing else
I have said negates that.
But I
have sought to put up some warning signs. To summarize: theology, as the
application of God’s Word to human life, is a spiritual task, and, as such,
requires you to have a close walk with God and a willingness to do theology his
way. Otherwise, the study of theology can be a danger to your soul. One thing
God demands from you is hard work in your studies, a thoughtful interaction
with his Word and his world. But he also expects you to make room in your
schedule for your other responsibilities, to develop a system of priorities
that gives you time for a rich devotional life and enables you to serve others
in your family, church, workplace, and in the seminary community itself. Jesus’
law of love should prevail in that community, and that (plus a realistic
assessment of your own level of knowledge) can necessitate tolerance of some
positions that you don’t agree with. It also requires patience with others who
have not achieved your level of technical knowledge (who may, nevertheless
excel you in knowledge of what is most important).
I have tried to search my own heart-motives in writing this essay. I have tried to write out of love for God, for his church, and for the young seminarians I have spoken to here. If I have written anything untrue, or contrary to that spirit of love, I pray that God will negate the effect of it. And may he richly bless you as you embark on this exciting journey. May he use you “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13).