Theological Education and Training

A well qualified and experienced minister to undertake work for the training of ministers of the Gospel is a great advantage to the church.

In fact, it gives such a man the greatest opportunity of re-dressing the awful spiritual and theological situation that the church finds herself in.  If the professor of theology holds to honest and accurate theological and spiritual convictions, he is possibly the best placed man to do this work! 

What I am trying to say is this: a theological teacher who keeps that focus always before him will do untold good to the life of the church.  His is work, primarily, of ministerial training, and only secondarily of theological education.  Theological education is the means, or possibly even a means, of preparing men for the ministry.  

 But there is much more to it that barren and lifeless academic theology.  This work is not about helping theologs to 'count the number of angels that can stand on the head of a pin!'  The good teacher/trainer knows that anyway.  He will be teaching that theology that will help men to preach the Gospel, and thereby reform the church according to the Word of God.  All else is superfluous, and may be a diversion from the real work of the Kingdom. 

DMLJ argues that prospective Gospel ministers (what other kind are there?) ought to have, inter alia, a good mind, though not necessarily an academic one.  To him, a minister was not a Bible scholar skilled in expert knowledge of New Testament Greek, though he did believe that ministers ought to have learned it; they ought rather to be men who are primarily preachers and pastors with a divine commission.  

We have often reflected on the lack of power and authority in much preaching today, the emphasis being on confessional correctness rather that on the ability to give worshippers a sense of the presence of God.  This is where confessional correctness, which is but another name for ' dead orthodoxy,' gets hopelessly in the way of evangelism.  Theological understanding is important, but it is the skeleton rather than the actual structure of a sermon.  The Doctor often defined preaching as "theology coming through a man who is on fire."  On this he is right again.  He adds that such a man must be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and called by God to proclaim it. 

So a theological education ought to provide the minister/preacher with the framework within which his preaching and evangelism is to be done.  It must always be biblical!  And it must drive his evangelism not restrict or hinder it. 

There is no greater servant of the church than an academically gifted teacher who can impart to trainee ministers a sense of the wonder of the Gospel, and of God's way of salvation, and equip them to proclaim it; men who can present the Gospel accurately and defend it against all comers! 

A good theological professor can write papers for the ordinary people as well as for academia. But, remember, there are more ordinary people than there are academics.

These are my musings about theological education which I trust you share, at least broadly.