I did not grow up in a Christian home. I recollect attending fewer than ten church services from my birth to almost two months after converting to Christ. When I did begin attending church, a fundamental Baptist at work was the first human being ever to invite me to church. The first Sunday I attended that Baptist Church, I was baptized and became a member. I have never regretted being baptized in that Baptist Church, becoming a member of that Baptist church, or of developing more profound and deeper Baptist convictions from that day to this.
However, I found myself a bit of a fish out of water in that first Baptist church where I was baptized and where I served. I grew up in the home of an unsaved man who had a voracious reading appetite. My dad read, on average, a book a day. Let that sink in. A book a day! The Baptist church where I was baptized was pastored by a man with no formal education, with a library that measured approximately 36 inches wide, and who had developed a technique that enabled him to avoid almost every question asked him.
“Pastor, what does the Bible say about the gift of tongues?” “That’s a very good question,” he would say, “and the topic of my current study of God’s Word. Let me get back to you when I’ve completed my study, and I will have an answer for you.” Regardless of the question asked the pastor, that was the typical answer that he provided. His pattern of avoiding questions in this manner troubled me.
About 14 months after my conversion, I informed my pastor that I felt God was dealing with me about the Gospel ministry. Having no experience as a Christian or as a churchgoer, I asked him what I should do. He recommended that I go to the Bible college, where he served as a trustee. When I told another church member what the pastor had said, he protested. He said, “You are a college graduate already. You have an engineering degree. Bible college is not for you. You need to enroll in seminary.” My response was that I would follow my pastor’s advice.
After my new bride and I had relocated to another church to serve in while attending Bible college, I was troubled once more, this time by a comment made to me by my second pastor. He had attended Pillsbury Baptist college, had obtained a master’s degree from somewhere, and held a doctorate. Yet he claimed the most valuable course he had ever taken was a management training seminar conducted by General Motors! I wondered what the largest corporation in the world, at that time, could teach any Gospel minister about serving God, providing spiritual leadership for a congregation, or knowing how to exalt Christ.
My Bible college matriculation lasted two years since I transferred so many credits from Oregon State University. Additionally, every textbook for the courses I took were books I had already read. My two years there were profitable because of my exposure to three wonderful teachers, Billy Hamm, Norman Duncan, and Russell Gordon. Additional benefit came from my exposure to M. Jack Baskin (a true visionary who I still call a friend) and many men who were classmates and are still valued friends.
One of the things that bothered me about Bible college, and Bible colleges in general, is that no one ever seems to flunk out. While I was in engineering school, the academic rigor was real. Some students simply could not cut the mustard, either because they were unwilling to work hard enough to learn the material or because they were not smart enough to grasp the concepts. I found it troubling that no one ever seemed to flunk out of Bible college. How can any school be taken seriously by anyone if no one is ever flunked out?
One of the consequences of the independent Baptist’s approach to training future leaders is adopting the Bible institute approach developed by the Congregationalist evangelist Dwight L Moody. Remember that Dwight Moody was a very poorly educated man. But he ministered to very poorly educated people. And though he was a lifelong learner and cultivated himself by a devotion to reading and study, his model for training gospel ministers was suited only to the profoundly under-educated. Yet fundamental Baptists chose to embrace the Moody model. This guaranteed inevitable consequences.
Among the consequences of adopting the Bible institute approach to establishing Bible colleges for training pastors and missionaries is the low academic proficiency level by students, teachers, and the movement. Thus, several generations of Baptist pastors and missionaries possess diplomas, who fancy themselves well-educated. Still, they neither read to maintain or improve proficiency in their areas of supposed expertise, nor are they willing to engage in the kinds of discussions that well-educated people in every other discipline participate in regularly and routinely. As well, imagine their reaction should one of their church’s kids manage to flunk out of Bible college (which is why it never happens).
Another related consequence to this approach to training men for the ministry is a broad-based mistrust of those who possess real training and academic sophistication, which brings me to my present episode of Ministerial Musings.
I am reading the second good-sized hardback book over the last couple of days. It is a second preacher’s work, but with the same characteristics as the first preacher’s book. Both books are shot through with assertions that are never backed up with footnotes or proofs. The assertions are just made, and the reader is expected to passively accept the assertions. It seems that the only source these authors are willing to rely on is Strong’s Concordance.
Think about that. A man writes a 400-page book that is full of assertions he is unwilling or unable to prove. I suspect the reason he does not cite sources is a wariness of those whose positions are somewhat different than his own. He has not the expertise to evaluate the reliability of their work. So he ignores them. He does not trust them. He suspects they have no fidelity to the Bible. He is wary that they are trying to change the Bible. Yet, he relies on Strong’s Concordance?
Do you see how illogical his approach is? He relies on Strong’s Concordance for the meanings of Greek and Hebrew words (and the occasional Aramaic word) without question. He has complete confidence in Strong’s work while ignoring Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution early on influenced Strong!
What is the takeaway? I am not suggesting that formal education
is required for fitness in the ministry. There is always C. H. Spurgeon.
However, there is no place in the Gospel ministry for a man who does not read
or a man who will not read. Leaders are readers, and if you refuse to humble
yourself so that you will allow someone else a shot at teaching you something
from the Bible that you will learn no other way, then you need to quit the
ministry and find yourself secular employment that does not require the kind of
devotion the gospel ministry demands.
