Thoughts on Seminary

As one who attended that same seminary, and who had Dr. Clearwaters as a mentor and teacher (he taught homiletics and insisted we learn to preach entirely without notes!), I have, over the years, changed my position. I believe the best approach is to get a secular bachelors degree in the liberal arts (no, liberal arts is not where you learn the art of being a liberal!) then follow that with an M.Div. from a good Seminary. (That from a guy who started his didactic career teaching in a Bible College.)

The seminary Dr. Bob and I attended enrolled students with an AA but after completing the 96 credit hours usually resulting in an M.Div. received a Th.B. instead.

This! We have forgotten the best way to learn is to do! Young men who exhibit a calling should first serve an apprenticeship with a mature, experience pastor and, after that apprenticeship the pastor would then advise the young man as to whether he should pursue higher education or perhaps find another form of service.

All too many good men drop out of seminary or drop out of the ministry after graduating and serving in a church for a few years. That creates a huge waste of time, resources, and people.

 

Yes. I was 29 when I started Seminary. I already had a secular B.S. Most of the guys in my first year classes were 21 or 22. I was the "old man" of the class.

How did it impact me? It almost killed me. Literally. I had been overseas a few years earlier and, unbeknownst to me, had picked up a load of pneumococcal bacillus that lay dormant, kept under control by my immune system.

But with being a full time husband, a full time student, and working full time to support us, I got run down and the pneumococcal bacillus took advantage of that fatigue and flared up as Pneumococcal Meningitis and Encephalitis. When my wife found me unconscious one Saturday morning she called an ambulance which took me to the hospital where she was told to get the family together as I had only a 20% chance of living through the night.

But I got a second opinion from the Great Physician who kept me alive, and I got better over several weeks in the hospital and surgery to remove the source of the infection embedded in my bone marrow.

I lost the ability to walk, to talk, and lost most of my memory, and lost 30 points off my IQ.

I had to learn to walk all over again. To learn to talk all over again.

I never recovered my lost memories, but made a lot of good new ones.

I never recovered the lost IQ points, but I had enough left over. I went from 165 (Genius) to a mere 135 (Very Superior).

The end result over the years has been Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis presenting as Relapsing/Remitting MS. As I get older I am less and less able to get around well, and have very little stamina.

So, yeah, it was pretty hard on me. After I recovered sufficiently I went back to seminary and eventually completed my M.Div., Th.M., and Th.D., and my J.D, at 55. And remained coherent enough to preach for 40 years and teach at both the Bible College and Seminary level for over 25 years.

So, it has been worth it all. Even if I could I would not change a thing. God's Plans always work out much better than my own.

 

They are necessary in that they teach you how to learn. The most important thing my education taught me was not the facts I learned, but how to think, how to search out the truth, and how to teach myself what I needed to know. The greatest result of my education was creating in me an autodidact who can learn anything I put my mind to.

And, if for no other result, a BA/BS gives you 4 more years to go from 18 to 22. Then after completing the M.Div. you find yourself 25 years of age which, incidentally, is the age when the brain is complete and mature.

 

"Dr. Bob,"

Question for discussion: What would YOU say to a high school fellow who felt God was calling him to preach, be a pastor or missionary, etc? What sort of formal (and informal) education would you recommend for young people today?

I cannot help but remember tongue and cheek every time I see your title I think of "Dr. Bob Jones." My home pastor and family were so touched by the BJU experience most all things brought comments like "Dr. Bob (J) said or did such and such a thing!!!" Forgive the anecdote.

Now to question you posed. I simply tell them to go to university and get a degree with which they can make a degree as a "tentmaker" in order to be able to make a living for their family. It is not the way I did it, but I sure wish I had in retrospect it would have been a lot easier on me and my little family.

sdg!

rd