Why So Much Education?

I disagree. If one is in a profession s/he feels called to, then it is not a fleshy profession. A fleshy profession is someone doing a job for the sake of doing the job. For example, when I flipped burgers in high school to save money for college, it was a fleshy job, and it was flesh of beef, to boot. However, my career is me engaged in the profession that my Lord has called me into.

But a true minister being equipped begins with the Holy Spirit. It does not end there. The Holy Spirit is not Santa Claus or an ATM machine. In fact, the presumption 'I don't need a formal education because the Holy Spirit will give me everything I need to know' borders on testing God, a scriptural violation. Not to mention, it's an indicator of laziness and an uncommitted heart. In short, it's bad fruit.

 

Buckster,

God directs us primarily through his Word. Folks who always contend that the Holy Spirit's leading them is good enough and all they need should spend more time in the Bible.

How do I know the Lord's leading? I read and study the Bible to see what divinely-given principles apply to my decision. As I said above, the call to the ministry requires the best training one can obtain. I did not say that that was necessarily seminary. However, we have a bunch of lazy preachers who are not only untrained but who refuse to read and study and grapple with the meaning of a text of Scripture in order to exposit it to God's people. "I don't have to study---I just depend upon the Holy Spirit." Such talk is akin to blasphemy and is the word of a fool.

When I have a decision to make, I seek the Lord to guide my steps, to give me the wisdom I need to make the right choice. Nothing in the Word upholds the vacuous position that says the minister of the gospel is not to be trained by godly teachers. The Bible does speak about the importance of being trained in the Word if one is to minister that Word to others.

1 Timothy 3:2: ". . . able to teach." Being able to teach, a requirement of overseers, implies that the candidate has been taught.

2 Timothy 2:1-2: "You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."

Over a century ago, B. B. Warfield noted, "A low view of the functions of the ministry will naturally carry with it a low conception of the training necessary for it. . . . And a high view of the functions of the ministry on evangelical lines inevitably produces a high conception of the training which is needed to prepare men for the exercise of these high functions."

Bill

 

One cannot teach what he has not been taught. If what he has been taught is wrong then he will teach what is wrong.

 

There is a strong Biblical argument that knowledge of God's Word is not best obtained individually and in a vacuum--it is under the tutelage of spiritual men. What good books do you read and study? How do you know? One needs guidance and direction in his study. Left to himself, a man can arrive at a multitude of heresies. This has been the story of the origin of many cults. We need the teaching and supervision by godly men who have been taught by other godly men. This is seminary. It’s Paul’s recommendation (II Timothy 2:2). </font>[/QUOTE]Some might read this to say Paul is telling Timothy to go to seminary. You should be careful not use the Scripture to try and say something it does not.(irony is that is often the tactic I see from some who have gone to seminary) If Paul is saying this, please give us the seminary name.

 

There is a strong Biblical argument that knowledge of God's Word is not best obtained individually and in a vacuum--it is under the tutelage of spiritual men. What good books do you read and study? How do you know? One needs guidance and direction in his study. Left to himself, a man can arrive at a multitude of heresies. This has been the story of the origin of many cults. We need the teaching and supervision by godly men who have been taught by other godly men. This is seminary. It’s Paul’s recommendation (II Timothy 2:2). </font>[/QUOTE]Some might read this to say Paul is telling Timothy to go to seminary. You should be careful not use the Scripture to try and say something it does not.(irony is that is often the tactic I see from some who have gone to seminary) If Paul is saying this, please give us the seminary name. </font>[/QUOTE]Buckster,

What is your hangup that keeps reading "seminary" in every post? Paid referred to being trained "by godly men who have been trained by other godly men." This may or may not mean seminary, but it at least includes seminary. Don't twist what others write. You lose all credibility.

Bill

 

Buckster,

I take it that you are not a minister of the gospel. How long have you been a believer and have been studying the Scriptures? I would encourage you to be more diligent in your search of the Scriptures. You do not have the Holy Spirit as the apostles of the first century did (when you raise the dead and verifiably heal the sick, then I'll change my mind!), but you do have the completed Word of God which they did not have. Study it, my friend. It's our greatest material treasure!

Bill

 

John said: "In fact, the presumption 'I don't need a formal education because the Holy Spirit will give me everything I need to know' borders on testing God, a scriptural violation. Not to mention, it's an indicator of laziness and an uncommitted heart. In short, it's bad fruit."

Who said this! It could just as well be the lazy person is the one going after the formal education. I know some of the best pastors who have no degree and are the hardest working people I know. You are not the only one making this type of statement. Now you say that because someone listens to God and does not go to seminary he is lazy and uncommitted. Talk about "scriptural violation".

 

I've known a few folks, unfortunately.

I can't think of how committing to 6+ years of intense acedemic training and finances thereof could be remotely referred to as noncommittal or lazy, be it the ministry, or any other field.

 

You are right. Pastoring is not so much about how hard you work but about how smart you work.

Some men work very hard and get nothing done. Others work less and get nmore done.

It has been shown over and over that those pastors who disciple others work less hours than those who do everything at the chruch and do not disciple others.

 

Broadus.

Now you fly straight into the face of God's Holy Word.
I have what the Bible says I have. You are teaching a false doctrine if you say I do not.
Your statement is blasphemous because the Bible says there is only one Spirit. You claim something different.
I have been careful not to reveal anything about my ministry or education because it is not relevant. But I will say you are making some false guesses about me. Another thing you need to stop doing.

 

You are right. Pastoring is not so much about how hard you work but about how smart you work.

Some men work very hard and get nothing done. Others work less and get nmore done.

It has been shown over and over that those pastors who disciple others work less hours than those who do everything at the chruch and do not disciple others. </font>[/QUOTE]I was posting this in response to the word "lazy". And the work I speak of includes discipling others. So if you stick with your refute you are saying the educated are the lazy ones.

 

It is the blaket comments that I am talking about John. Yes, just as you know some who avoid the labor of study I know those who studied so as not to labor. You call it 6 yrs of commitment they called it 6 yrs being professoinal students.

 

Studying so as not to labor? Talk about blanket comments. If it were easier to study than to be in a career, I'd have gladly stayed in school, and I think all on this baord who went to college for any significant amount of time would agree with me.

Being married to someone who recently got her masters, I can tell you with authoritative certainty that academic study is intense labor, in many ways, more intense and intensive than the labor one takes up in one's career. I can't think of any single person, especially in the case of postgraduate studies, that does not fall into this category.

 

I refer to my previous post:

If a person is called by the Lord to become a physician, why does he need to go to school?

If a person is called by the Lord to become a teacher, why does he need to go to school?

If a person is called by the Lord to become an attorney, why does he need to go to school?

If a person is called to be a veterenarian... well, I think you get the idea. Receiving a calling from the Lord to be in the ministry is the beginning of one's life of service, not the end.

 

I said just as you knew SOME. I know SOME who went to school to avoid work.

 

Broadus,
Read all of what you quote.(so you don't lose all credibility.)

paidagogos said "This is seminary."
I think you misunderstood what I was saying to paidagogos. paidagogos used the word and I responded.

 

Rhetorician

"A young unnamed brother just sent me a PM and asked why one needs 8 years of education just to pastor a church anyway?"

The answer is he does not. And Scripture does not say he must either.

 

When I lived in another state, I was acquainted with a man, a self-professed preacher, who was continually saying that God told him things. He said that God told him to go and bury a Bible on the top of a mountain in Montana. His followers paid his expense to do this. IMHO, he had a nice expenses paid vacation to points west. This same man ran away with one of the women in his congregation. When the husband went to Florida and brought both of them back home, the self-styled preacher proclaimed that God told him to do it so that he could counsel folks with marriage problems. He said God spoke to him. So, how do you know? I call him a liar on the basis of God’s Word.

In my experience, some of those who cry the most loudly that God has spoken to them and is leading them are the very ones who are the most staunchly resisting the authority of the Word. Sometimes when one doesn’t want to submit to the authority of the Word of God, he claims special, personal revelation or direction from God. This smells of rebellion and self-willfulness. What is the inference of II Peter 1:21?

As a believer, I fully affirm the leading and teaching of the Holy Spirit. However, this leading and illumination is through the Word and in accordance with the Word. The Holy Spirit’s leading is never contrary to the Word. Unfortunately, many people use the excuse that God spoke to me or the Holy Spirit led me to justify their own way, to escape the authority of the Word, or to portray a special spiritual ascendancy over others. I find this despicable and loathsome. God’s Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit are too sacred and important for such human trifling.

 

paidagogos

I don't know how this applies to anything said.