Why start an online BB ministerial academy?

I think the Pastor should be trained in at least 2 years of greek so it would be mandatory for pastoral study students.
All students should know how to use concordances,lexicons,commentaries,Bible dictionaries, and other study helps.
What do you all think?

 

It depends on what you mean by "2 years." How many hours are we talking about here?

 

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Here's my last word on it:

I've given my view that increasing the number of units does not increase the difficulty because more time is given to each topic. Less time means less exposure to important issues! So, I would keep all the important issues in by increasing the exposure to them and not give up what is important .

I taught learning disabled secondary students for 35 years, so neither do I wish to overtax a student's ability to grasp. But IMO we should not underestimate the potential for learning in our students. That is just as criminal as is expecting too much. We should lead them to meet great goals in small steps.

But look at the links. Read Warfield's The doc of the Trinity which there is provided. Read Athanasius on the Incarnation which there is provided! The concepts therein are NOT easy reads!

Is Athanasius right that the humanity of Christ is the LOGOS moving the body around? Is Warfield right that the Son is not eternally subordinate , but only temporally so? Are these not worthy topics along with scores and scores and scores of other worthy topics , the multitude of which cannot be done in 3 units ! It cannot be done.

If our students cannot be expected to understand such doctrinal specificities, then why have such a showy display of those resources?? If we cannot actually teach the understanding of the concepts in those resources, and they are beyond student ken, then why have them there at all?

As I've admitted, it is possible that my love for the subject affects my recommendations. It is possible that I think some things are vital when they are not. But if these things are not vital, why do our resources have representations of them as though they were important?

If all that is desired is a survey course on doctrine , then I misunderstand the aim of our school. What some other school does or does not affects little my thinking as that school may not have our purpose.

I recommended according to what I perceived our purpose to be, and what I think could and should be done on the basis of both my understanding of Theology and my 35 years of teaching public school.

But as said, I will help out in teaching regardless of the outcome of our curricular development if teaching is desired , and if I have the time to do that.

Anyway, I'm gone for the day. Others hash it out.

UZ

 

I also think we should have a reading list that is not part of the core curriculum.Some suggestions would be:
The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter
Duties of the Minister of the Gospel by Thomas Coke
Books on Prayer by E.M.Bounds
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
A biography of D.L. Moody
A biogrphy of C.H. Spurgeon
A biography of Jonathan Edwards
Josephus
Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

What are your thoughts?

 

Couldn't we work these books into the curriculum? That way you'd be able to build off of the instruction in the classes, and you'd have an easy way to test their reading knowledge of the texts.

 

Or maybe have a one hour reading course required every semester in which the students would read books and react to them. I'm just putting out ideas here.

 

As we are putting some of these courses together,trying to keep costs down ,and using what we can find online,I would like to suggest we use:
The great Doctrines of the Bible by Evans for the Bible Doctrine course.
Dickerson's Notes on Theology for the theology course.
They are both online therefore they are free.

I would also suggest that we select several primary Bible versions for the student to use.They could be set up on E-Sword side by side to give the student rapid access for comparison.Also look at the other resources on E-Sword that could be used close by for Bible study.

What do you all think? These suggestions are just starters to help put some things together for future use.

 

I don't think it's an issue of these issues being unimportant, but are they more important for servants of a local church than other things. By the nature of a degree program, if one thing is taught, it is at the expense of something else.

Perhaps the best way of approaching this would be to ask pastors of local churches (maybe on the BB), both those who have had extensive education and those who have not about whether they believe indepth analysis of these issues would be the most beneficial thing for ministry.

I mean no disrespect by this, but certain things are far more important for seminary professors and academics than they are for the average servant in the church. Maybe the institute needs ad hoc pastoral consultants to figure this out?

 

Ironically, you're discussing one of the issues which I think does deserve more attention than most other issues. In fact, I would not object to have a theology class just on Christology--IMO, it is one of the things that is quite important both for pastors and professors.

I may have misunderstood your previous posts. Do I think we need a class on the Depravity of Man? Not really; I think a session or two could cover that. But the nature of our Lord? If you want to put even a 4 hr class together on that, then by all means do so!

I'm not saying to do a surface level study of doctrine; I'm just trying to say that it doesn't seem feasible to do an indepth study of all the doctrines of the church--though it would be wonderful, the mission of the institute doesn't seem geared toward that. Now, we MUST do an indepth study of some things, Christology being one, and, UZ, since that is your passion, you could definitely fulfill that ministry. All I was suggesting is that we should prioritize the most important doctrines to study intensely, then perhaps structure the program accordingly, especially since we only have two years to educate. The remaining (less controversial) doctrines could perhaps be presented in a different fashion.

I did not intend to make it sound like your studies and calling were irrelevant--I see how it could have sounded like that. I guess I should have worded my response a bit differently .

 

I wasn't saying that the specifics you listed weren't about Christology, and I never said that certain things weren't needful for non-professors and non-academics. I just said certain things are more important to profs and academics, which is true.

I guess your citations just spooked me a bit. I wasn't consciously responding to the Christology issue so much as all theological issues. My intent with the post was to try to establish what exactly are "important" issues. I think we can both agree to the fact that certain theological controversies are not as important as others. The student in me just had his life flash before his eyes--I saw a class in which every single doctrine, weighty or light, we discussed had about 30 different controversies--and I saw confusion and fear. Now that I've gone back and reflected on your posts, I see that was not your intention, so I apologize for incorrectly interpreting your statements.

I apologize for allowing the tone of the discussion to become antagonistic; I never wanted that to be the case.

I'll admit fault, brother. I see no point in trying to justify my responses any more; they've detracted from the purpose of this thread and distracted us from the task at hand. Forgive?

 

I don't want to turn this into a clash of personalities. My input seems to have caused the process of formation of this institute to sour considerably.

For this reason, I am resigning as secretary for the institute, effective immediately, and I will no longer participate in discussions on this matter unless approached privately.

Sincerely,

StefanM

 

Stefan:

No forgiveness is needed.

I could study Christology ten lifetimes and still feel ignorant about it.

When I used to diet stringently I promised myself a cream puff every week. That was my prize. How I relished the thought of that and longed for the week to end.

Now I can eat creampuffs all day long like His deity, His humanity, and His hypostatic union. I grow fat in spirit on the wonders of Christ, and I wonder how any Christian cannot like me hunger to know more.

If you are choosing to resign because of my passion, then, I think that's a mistake.

 

I'm not resigning because of your passion. I'm resigning because it seems that I'm not on the same page as everyone else. The institute deserves a united perspective, and that doesn't appear to be possible with me as secretary.

 

Roger

Unless I misread, that program covers Theology in one two hr course. Is that your recommendation?

UZ

 

I said I wouldn't post again unless approached privately, but since Rhetorician asked for all who have had input to look at the MABTS program, I will comment briefly.

I like the MABTS program, especially the computer requirement. I'm willing to withdraw my resignation if this kind of program is what the institute wants to do, and if the institute still would like me to help. If this is the case, then my reasons for resigning (not being of the same mind) would be non-existent.

 

OK, I'm willing to stay to get this sorted out.

I do like the idea of working from existing AA programs and modifying them to meet our needs.