1. How do you become a theologian?
1. Read/hear God's gracious gospel.
2. Accept it in its entirety.
3. Pray to your heavenly Father, be obedient to Christ as Lord, and walk in the Holy Spirit.
4. Join with God's people as they do all of the above.
2. How do you become a good theologian?
Keep doing all of the above. Grow in the knowledge of God.
3. How do you become a discerning theologian?
Do all of the above as you engage with non-Christians and Christians with whom you disagree.
4. How do you become a well read and discerning theologian?
Do all of the above and read lots of books.
12 comments:
Going to college may or may not help with any of these.
I know you are right because 'the Bible tells me so'.
what are good reasons to go to college then? not saying i disagree of course, but while you're on the topic...
Yeah very true Andrew. It's a work of God's regenerating spirit from beginning to end.
If God's Spirit is at work in a person, I would say that being exposed to his Word at Moore College could be a means that God uses to turn someone into a theologian. The temptation to pray against all the while would be against being puffed up by the wonderful things it is possible to learn.
I'm lost, Andrew. Haven't you just described Moore College?
I think there are many reasons to go to a good Bible/Theological/Missionary college, but you do not become a theologian there.
You get exposed in three or four years to Hebrew and Greek, church history, philosophy, large slabs of the Bible, exegesis, doctrine, pastoral theology etc... For the most part it is really good. But you do not become a theologian there.
As I wrote it earlier, you become a theologian when you come to know God. You become a good theologian as you grow in that knowledge and you become a discerning theologian as you grow in discernment etc....
College usually gives an opportunity for development in this, but not always. Most people do become more discerning, but some actually become less.
The best teacher you can ever have is the Lord and he doesn't solely reside at any seminary or college.
I think it is an important mindset shift. I am so often taught things by godly men and women at my church. We have a church full of theologians. I have little theologians in my family and I must be growing in my theology for my whole life and not just those four years.
Sure, AB. But those four things happen at Moore College. That's what Moore College is. Where you have the opportunity to:
1. Read/hear God's gracious gospel.
2. Accept it in its entirety.
3. Pray to your heavenly Father, be obedient to Christ as Lord, and walk in the Holy Spirit.
4. Join with God's people as they do all of the above.
That was my experience, anyways.
Just not the only place, right?
@ Justin.
Hopefully you are a theologian before you go to college. :) And growing in your knowledge of God may or may not happen at college. For most people it does.
@ Justin. See my post about Eta Linneman (I don't know how to make links in a commment). She was a professional 'theologian' and then became a real theologian. That is a work of God not an establishment.
This is what she said:
"The god of historical critical theology is like the statue of three monkeys: one is covering the eyes, the next covering the ears, and the third covering the mouth—seeing nothing, hearing nothing, speaking nothing—and as the hands are always occupied, doing nothing. But now I became aware of the living God! And in the same moment I became aware that I had been a blind teacher leading my blind students. I repented of my wrong teaching. I also realized that, despite all my years of study, I knew nothing of God. But through the grace of God, my reaction did not lead me to despair but to the conclusion that now I must get to work learning about this God."
This was of course Luther's fabulous insight - every Christian is a theologian!
If we understand theology in this broad sense, then theological college is serving the particular purpose of forming theological ,teachers for the service of all the theologians in the churches - to help them grow and protect them from falsehood.
@ Michael.
Very well put.
Do you know where Luther described every Christian as a theologian?
'Omnes dicimur Theologi, ut omnes Christiani'. [We are all called theologians, just as we are all called Christians!]
Sermon on Ps 5:17, Jan 1537 (WA 41:11.9-13)
Oswald Bayer's book on Luther's Theology opens with a chapter entitled 'Every Person is a Theologian: Luther's Understanding of Theology'.
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