Why go to seminary?

Why go to Seminary?

Zanele Arlington Jiane

2018 April 19

"I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad." Psalm 119:96

Many brothers and sisters in the Lord often ask when I reveal I am studying Theology; "What is the point of a seminary education when we have the Holy Spirit who is our teacher?"

The answer is simple. The Holy Spirit works through the word of God. The Holy Spirit superintended the writing of the Bible (2 Peter 1:21), and the church’s witness to the canon of scripture.  Our professed belief in the Holy Spirit must reflect these facts. Private scriptural interpretations are a misnomer in light of 2 Peter 1:21. No one should claim private revelation apart from the Word.

Jesus’ Great Commission prompts his disciples to “teach them to obey all I have commanded you” (Matthew 18:16-20). These broad commandments cannot be grasped in light of this verse but must be learned nonetheless.

Seminary affords a student a unique opportunity to have a discipline of properly understanding the word of God, the culture where it was initially revealed, the spiritual and sociological issues it sought to address and the character of its ultimate author, God. Studying the scripture outside of the context leads to many horrible doctrines.

William Miller once spawned what is historically known as "The Great Disappointment" where on two separate occasions he predicted the second coming of Christ, people sold their belongings and prepared for the day, which came and went. William Miller acknowledged his wrong and quit a church movement he started. Other came in and affirmed Miller's study but gave it a new meaning, and we know this Church today as the Seventh Day Adventism.

We know of many cults where people lost their lives to bizarre beliefs, where children suffer and die of a treatable illness because the parents believe in the power of prayer.

There are many examples of good churches being formed by uneducated individuals that thrive in worship, understanding of scriptures and organised powerful missions. Preachers like Charles Haddon Spurgeon and DL Moody come to mind; one commentator said that these preachers are outliers, not the norm (Darling, 2012). Spurgeon is said to have a big study and had an eidetic memory where he would remember a herculean detail about the books in his study, and he relied heavily on the Holy Spirit, each time he ascended the pulpit he said: “I believe in the Holy Spirit”.

When people think of Theology, they always restrict theology to mere preaching, that’s all they associate with Theology. Theology is, fortunately, a lot more than oratory service. There are many branches of Theology, and many will be covered in this essay

The disciples

There is a claim that Jesus took twelve uneducated men and these men changed the world. This statement is partially untrue, not all 12 men were uneducated. Some had academic training. Even If all of them were untrained Jesus made them disciples, which means learners, which means they were educated at his school of Theology.

For three years they sat at his feet learning the mysteries of the Gospel. Jesus at age 12 sat at the feet of the Pharisees and the scribes asking questions, learning. Some claim Jesus was a realised soul who had knowledge akin to a priori (knowledge without learning) wisdom. Luke 2:52 gives us a picture of a Jesus who grew in stature, socially, spiritually, and intellectually.

Luke who wrote an apologist of the gospel was a doctor who looked after Paul in his frail period marked by geriatric complaints. Paul was trained by Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). Matthew a tax collector was trained in the local and foreign languages and dealt with complex taxing system of the day. Some woman disciples were supporting Jesus financially which meant they had some education.

The disciples of Jesus must never be restricted to the twelve as Mathias and  Joseph called Barsabbas were following Jesus from His baptism until his ascension and this qualified him to stand for Judas’ replacement (Acts 1:21-26).

Apologetics

Christian apologetics can be summarized in two parts: (a) objective reasons and evidence that Christianity is true (it corresponds to reality) and, (b) the communication of that truth to the world (Turek, 2017).

Apologetics is giving reasonable or rational reasons for belief in God. It is not evangelism but countering arguments against belief. Some typical arguments against belief are as follows;

1.    If God exists, who created God?

2.    If God is good and there is suffering, how can say God is good?

3.    The Bible was written by White people to enslave Black people

4.    The Bible has undergone too many changes to reflect the views of the original authors

5.    How come there are so many Bible translations?

6.    The Bible is fraught with far too many contradictions

Answering these questions requires rigorous love for our brothers and sisters and mental fortitude to unravel the real objections. Studies in philosophy can help one structure appropriate response to sceptics who reject the authority of scripture, Philosophy may provide some theological content and help to strengthen theological arguments.  It is an essential branch of theology that helps explain some things that may not be explicitly contained in scripture (Hemsworth, 2017).

To a believer who accepts the Bible as the word of God, I can merely quote scripture and settle a debate, but to someone who rejects the Bible as God’s inspired Word, I need to appeal to logic, biology, psychology and statistics to argue for the existence of God for example. Paul said the evidence of God is plain to them (Romans 1:19).

 If I can get someone to think about the plausibility of God using science, I may gain some hearers to the gospel. One person once asked me, how many people get converted this way. I respond “a few”, and ask a follow-up question, how many people were saved by Noah’s one hundred and twenty-year preaching ministry? The answer is that outside his family, zero.

“We are entrusted with the ministry of the gospel, not its results.” Dr RC Sproul

Missiology

In Missiology one can learn about missions, the biblical rationale for missions and proven strategies for effective missions. African Independent Churches began because of the abuse by the Missionaries, some remained in the mainline denominations but the African Independent Churches has endured the test of time as well.

One does not simply pounce upon a culture with zero strategy unless they are on a suicide mission.

Ethics

The Billionaire Mark Cuban once said that in the future, a code would write code, so Philosophy as a profession will be in demand in ensuring that the code compiled is ethical (Montag, 2018). The study of ethics is now spreading even to Engineering sciences and accounting, laws enforcing the ethical use of accounting practices are now also on the rise. Theology can inform these ethics, and ethics itself is not an easy task. There are many approaches (Deontological Ethics, Utilitarian Ethics etc.) to ethics and studying them formally can lead to an appreciation of them and guide business and government to ethical and sustainable projects. Seminary provides modules in Ethics, UNISA makes it mandatory for first year and second year students.

Systematics

Systematics involves organising the Bible into manageable topics called doctrines, and doctrine is merely a set of instructions, Baptism is a doctrine, Trinity is a doctrine etc. A failure to accurately classify scripture can result in error, and Paul warns that certain errors can lead to eternal damnation and one should be diligent enough to test “spirits” (1 John 4:1).

“The Bible is not a work on Systematic Theology, but only the quarry out of which the stone for such a temple can be obtained. Instead of giving us a formal statement of a theological system it gives us a mass of raw materials which must be organised and systematised and worked up into their organic relations. Nowhere, for instance, do we find a formal statement of the doctrine of the Trinity, or of the person of Christ, or of the inspiration of the Scriptures. It gives us an account of the origin and development of the Hebrew people and the founding of Christianity, and the doctrinal facts are given with little regard to their logical relations. These facts need to be classified and arranged in a logical system and thus transformed into theology. This fact, which the material in the Bible is not arranged in a theological system, is in accordance with God's procedure in other realms. He has not given us a fully developed system of biology, or astronomy, or politics. We simply find the unorganised facts in nature and experience and are left to develop them into a system as best we may. And since the doctrines are not thus presented systematically and formally, it is much easier for false interpretations to arise” (Boetner, 2015, p. 15).

Historical Theology

Historical theology traces the development of church’s faith through the ages; It helps theologians by looking at various interpretations throughout the history of the church.  By doing that it makes us aware of the presuppositions we sometimes read into the text (Hemsworth, 2017). The study of church history can enable us to avoid errors of the past. “We learn from history that people do not learn from history.”

One might say – I'm unconcerned about history as it is past, I am concerned about my salvation and that of my kin, this objection fails to consider that Christ’s Church is universal and Jesus is coming back for his church which is his bride and as an individual I am not a complete bride, the whole church consisting of every believer in any denomination that is Biblical confesses Christ as Lord and Saviour. This church stretches all the way to Abraham’s calling in Ur.

Seminary education will not be able to help a student grasp the full length and breath of the Bible but it will equip one with the intellectual and spiritual framework for understanding any topic one will be challenged with during the course of their ministry.

Summary

One can serve and love the Lord without education. But Seminary gives those in ministry an edge that is available no place else. A formal seminary will ultimately yield the same results to someone who studies on his or her own so long as they are disciplined in their studies.

Bibliography

Boetnner, L. (2015). The Reformed Doctrone of Predestination. New York: GLH Publishing Reprint.

Darling, D. (2012, 07 23). 5 REASONS WHY I’M GOING TO SEMINARY. Retrieved from http://www.danieldarling.com: http://www.danieldarling.com/2012/07/5-reasons-why-im-going-to-seminary/

Hemsworth, W. (2017, 01 04). Four Branches of Theology. Retrieved from Theology Still Matters: https://theologystillmatters.com/2017/01/04/four-branches-of-theology/