What’s Happening To Gordon College Is Just The Beginning
[James K]Rob Fall wrote:
James, to see happens to the level of preaching when the only training is from the local church\presbytery, one should look at the unregistered Evangelical Christian-Baptists of the former Soviet Union. While doctrinally sound (at least for a group of for lack of a better word Wesleyan), the preaching is fairly basic and rarely exegetical.
Also, I doubt the average pastors would have the training to teach preachers to level that good exegetical preaching requires of the long term.
You see Rob, I keep reading this: pastors aren’t trained to teach preachers. What kind of buffoons are employed at seminaries that are churning out pastors who can’t train? Why is it when I suggest that churches do their job that I see that same thinking thrown at me?
THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN BECAUSE IT ISN’T BASED ON SCRIPTURE PEOPLE.
Who was given the RESPONSIBILITY to train faithful men? If pastors are not doing this, then they are not doing their job. They might be able to negotiate with those feisty old women in the flower committee to give an extra $53 in the budget to cover some future occasion which demands flowers. If they aren’t training the young men, they aren’t doing their God ordained responsibility.
JamesK is dead on with this post. The responsibility of Pastors is to train men who can and will follow Christ and lead their families or churches. That’s elementary Pastoral Theology. It may be easier in some places than others, but that’s the mission. We make disciples of all nations. That includes making leaders in the Church.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
No, problem with that statement. But, to what level do you expect a pastor of a local church to train his men? Realistically, I hazard at best his students would turn out to be English language only preachers. Mind you, this is more than what happens in most situations. But over the long term, we’ve seen the results of a Bible Institute only educated pulpit. Among others, the KJVO movement draws its critical mass from those who are English language only preachers.
[T Howard]If you aren’t able / willing to fulfill 2 Timothy 2:2, you shouldn’t be in ministry, no matter how great a preacher you are. For the love of Christ, train your men!
Hoping to shed more light than heat..
[Rob Fall] But, to what level do you expect a pastor of a local church to train his men?
He should train them and teach them everything he knows (Luke 6:39-40). If he knows and uses the biblical languages (and he should), that should be included. In fact, he should encourage all of his congregants to pursue biblical language learning… This could easily become a Wednesday night or Saturday morning class if enough folks were interested.
Mentoring and training others for the work of the ministry is one of the primary responsibilities given to pastors / teachers (Eph. 4:11-16).
The latest edition of William Mounce’s Greek Book/workbook include access to TEKNIA. If a person was truly interested in learning the languages, he might have to actually buy the book…and learn the languages. He may have to check out the overabundance of free resources to help him. I am calling this nonsense that a person can’t learn languages without sitting in a seminary class.
1 Kings 8:60 - so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.
[Rob Fall]No, problem with that statement. But, to what level do you expect a pastor of a local church to train his men? Realistically, I hazard at best his students would turn out to be English language only preachers. Mind you, this is more than what happens in most situations. But over the long term, we’ve seen the results of a Bible Institute only educated pulpit. Among others, the KJVO movement draws its critical mass from those who are English language only preachers.
T Howard wrote:
If you aren’t able / willing to fulfill 2 Timothy 2:2, you shouldn’t be in ministry, no matter how great a preacher you are. For the love of Christ, train your men!
How do we solve the problem of one man not being smart enough or have enough time to train younger men? Maybe follow the NT example of plural pastors in every church?
1 Kings 8:60 - so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.
[Rob Fall]No, problem with that statement. But, to what level do you expect a pastor of a local church to train his men? Realistically, I hazard at best his students would turn out to be English language only preachers.
You guys are missing the point. We’re assuming that the church will only survive if we continue to use the structures we are currently using - formalized church and church structures, parachurch ministries, schools and seminaries, etc. We can’t afford to think that way any more. Not with the way the culture is going.
We have to stop worrying about all the ancillary stuff and teach them the Bible in whatever language we can communicate in and that they can receive. Greek and Hebrew (even Aramaic and German!) are nice, but 99% of that stuff is completely irrelevant to your parishioners. Teach them to read and study the Bible, and the Word will take care of the rest.
I’d rather have ten people who were serious about reading and understanding the Bible with a 8th grade education than 50 Ph.D. seminarians who love the academic side of it. Those ten people will grow and teach and disciple, even if they can’t parse greek verbs or give me a comprehensive answer to the nature of Arius’ heresy. Those are the unlearned men who will turn the world upside down for Jesus.
And I HAVE a Masters’ in this stuff!
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
[James K]I am calling this nonsense that a person can’t learn languages without sitting in a seminary class.
No doubt that people can. The real question is where can he BETTER learn languages?
After four decades of seeing and hearing pastors whose primary training was in their local church, I’ve yet to see one who had a solid grasp of theology, any ability in Biblical languages, or the ability to preach a good expositional sermon. But that’s just me and 40 years.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
[James K] How do we solve the problem of one man not being smart enough or have enough time to train younger men? Maybe follow the NT example of plural pastors in every church?
If the former, he shouldn’t be in ministry if he isn’t “apt to teach,” and that includes the ability to both understand and communicate God’s Word clearly and effectively.
If the latter, that’s an issue of prioritization and/or delegation.
Yes, I believe plurality of elders is not only the biblical model of church leadership but also a wise model.
[RickyHorton]James K wrote:
I am calling this nonsense that a person can’t learn languages without sitting in a seminary class.
No doubt that people can. The real question is where can he BETTER learn languages?
It depends if someone is self-motivated to learn. I took 3 years of Greek on-line in seminary and loved every minute of it. But, looking back, if someone were a self-motivated learner they could have done the same by picking up Mounce or Black and digging in. There are a TON of free Greek resources on-line for both of these Greek grammars. David Alan Black’s former research assistants have produced free videos that cover all of the exercises in each chapter of his book. One of them produced an inexpensive iPhone app that helps you learn / retain vocab, parsing, verb tense-form, etc. Dr. Black also has his own videos that cover each chapter of his book. I mean, there really isn’t an excuse anymore. You can learn the equivalent of 1st-year seminary Greek for an investment of your time and less than $100.
[Jay] We have to stop worrying about all the ancillary stuff and teach them the Bible in whatever language we can communicate in and that they can receive. Greek and Hebrew (even Aramaic and German!) are nice, but 99% of that stuff is completely irrelevant to your parishioners. Teach them to read and study the Bible, and the Word will take care of the rest.
I would disagree with your statement about the irrelevancy of learning the biblical languages, but I do agree with you that getting your people to read and study their English translations is foundational. However, if we’re talking about training men for pastoral ministry, you really need to stress the importance of ad fontes.
I’d rather have ten people who were serious about reading and understanding the Bible with a 8th grade education than 50 Ph.D. seminarians who love the academic side of it. Those ten people will grow and teach and disciple, even if they can’t parse greek verbs or give me a comprehensive answer to the nature of Arius’ heresy. Those are the unlearned men who will turn the world upside down for Jesus.
How about both, and you as the pastor model for the 50 how to use their education and knowledge of Scripture to disciple the 10 and turn them loose… :)
Since I think most of us would recognize that having a firm foundation in the biblical languages and other seminary-level topics is essential to the pastor’s preparation to lead, I don’t know why there has to be an insistence on either the “seminary training only” or “pastoral training only” models. I think most pastors would recognize that they can’t do everything, either for reasons of time, resources, lack of education in certain areas, or all of the above. I think it’s completely reasonable to send men to a seminary to get some grounding in the basics like Hebrew and Greek and other technical topics (which is not by itself training men to pastor, just laying groundwork — no different really than sending your kids to school for reading/writing/arithmetic, just at a much higher level) and then having the actual pastoral training take place under the leadership of local pastors that work with the schools.
To some extent, I know this is done already with Bible/pastoral majors interning at a church. If seminaries would require prospective graduates to spend at least 2 years “in the trenches” under the leadership of a local-church pastor for the practical, “how to really pastor your people” part of the training, maybe we would have the best of both worlds — pastors training men (who have the necessary basic grounding) to be the next pastors. We already see this in some fields (like medicine, for example). We don’t expect doctors who only know the theory to be ready to practice (i.e., they would be novices), so why should we expect this from seminary students? Similarly, someone who had to step up in a battlefield position to learn to be a medic “on the fly” may know a lot about practical medicine, at least for battlefield wounds, but we would never expect someone like that to head up a doctor’s office, nor should we.
Obviously, the Bible does tell pastors to train pastors. I don’t see that it says that pastors have to handle every aspect of their students’ education. In fact, I figure that Paul already expected potential pastors to have the skills to read and understand the scriptures at a minimum, given he instructed his letters to be read in various churches, and I seriously doubt he expected pastors to have to train other men in that part of their education.
Dave Barnhart
[T Howard]It depends if someone is self-motivated to learn. I took 3 years of Greek on-line in seminary and loved every minute of it. But, looking back, if someone were a self-motivated learner they could have done the same by picking up Mounce or Black and digging in. There are a TON of free Greek resources on-line for both of these Greek grammars. David Alan Black’s former research assistants have produced free videos that cover all of the exercises in each chapter of his book. One of them produced an inexpensive iPhone app that helps you learn / retain vocab, parsing, verb tense-form, etc. Dr. Black also has his own videos that cover each chapter of his book. I mean, there really isn’t an excuse anymore. You can learn the equivalent of 1st-year seminary Greek for an investment of your time and less than $100.
There is no doubt that a person can get training on their own. However, even with someone that is highly motivated, wouldn’t it be better if they were trained under the instruction of someone that was an expert in the subject matter?? Can we get training on our own? Sure! How can I get the best education? Most would probably agree that I would be better served by being under someone that is guiding and teaching. Can a pastor do that? In some cases, though I doubt that many have the time it takes to help someone receive a seminary level training. Can a seminary be an aid to the church? Absolutely.
Discussion