Theological Training

Qualifications – Blog.1

I have been thinking about what qualifies God’s servants and considering the role of Theological Training. Within some Christian circles a great deal of emphasis is put on people receiving formal theological training. Many churches will not allow a person to preach unless they have been through a theological seminary and in fact in some churches you could not be a preacher unless you had been through their own theological halls. Is this position Scriptural? I don’t believe it is.

Before I go any further in this blog, I want to state that I am not opposed in principle to the existence of theological seminaries. Such schooling has been of great benefit to many of God’s people before embarking on a life of service for God. However, we should not overstate their importance in helping make the man or woman of God. After all, the gifts to serve God are gifts that God imparts to believers. If God has not given a man one of the speaking gifts then four years in Bible College will not make him a preacher. God makes preachers not Bible Colleges. However, I will say more about gifts in a future blog.

If we look at the early Church in the book of Acts we see that the Apostles who pioneered God’s work were not ‘college men’. This truth is illustrated in Acts 4 where Annas the High Priest and his family challenge the Apostles for healing an impotent man. As part of the exchange Peter boldly preaches to them about Jesus stating ‘Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.’ After listening to this bold preaching the Jewish religious leaders marvelled that these men were such bold preachers despite the fact that they were ‘unlearned and ignorant men.’ This phrase ‘unlearned and ignorant’ does not mean that Peter and John were stupid people who had never learned to read or write, rather it meant that they had not been through the rabbinical schools of theology. They were not ‘college men’.

On the other hand the Apostle Paul was one who had been through the rabbinical schools. He had sat at the feet of one of the greatest Jewish teachers, Gamaliel. No doubt this teaching was of great benefit to Paul in his ministry, and in particular I’m sure God used this background of Paul to great advantage for the Church, in that much of the theology of the Church was written by the hand of Paul inspired, of course, by the Holy Spirit.

So, I think we can conclude from the Biblical example that theological training can be useful but it is by no means essential. In my opinion the model where Paul mentored Timothy should be better applied in our Churches where older, wiser men take young believers under their wings. It’s called discipleship, and is that not what the Saviour did with Peter, John and the other disciples?

A Greater Concern

However, I have a deeper concern about theological seminaries, which goes beyond any concerns about people’s over emphasis of their importance. I am concerned that theological halls can be structurally dangerous for the Church. Allow me to explain.

As I read church history I see a sad pattern, theological seminaries are often the seedbed for doctrinal error. For example, the error of Higher Criticism, which was developed in Holland and Germany in the 17th & 18th Centuries was born in theological halls like the Tubingen School and has spread to such an extent that most theological seminaries now approach Biblical interpretation from the Higher Critical position. Most of the well-known Ivy League universities that we can think of, started their lives as excellent theological schools but over the years have embraced many other disciplines. If you look now at their theological departments you will find that they are theologically corrupt in their interpretation and understanding of God’s word.
For some reason there seems to be a tendency for those with great intelligence to lose the run of themselves, and in their desire to probe the things where God’s words is silent, to speculate and philosophise to a dangerous level. Paul warns in 1st Corinthians 8 that ‘Knowledge puffeth up’ and perhaps too much learning has made some people mad.

A similar trend was evident in the inter-testamental period. At that time the Jewish religious system largely separated into to schools of thought. There was the sect of the Sadducees and the sect of the Pharisees. The Sadducees were the ‘higher critics and the modernists’ of their day, they denied life after death, resurrection and the existence of angelic beings. The Pharisees on the other hand were the Biblical purists. They took God’s word literally and were, more often than not, theologically correct. However, in their zeal for purity they moved onto the ground of legalism and introduced an array of extra biblical commandments. The point is that both of these erroneous systems were born in what we might call theological schools.

My concern essentially is this, if Satan wants to corrupt the Church then one easy way to do it is to corrupt the place where the Churches leaders are trained. If he can poison the fountainhead then he can poison the whole watercourse. As we survey Church history we can see how he has done this time after time. We could broaden the discussion into church government. Church denominations that have abandoned the Biblical model of local Church independence are also easy pickings for Satan, the same model applies, corrupt the leadership to corrupt the denomination. That is one reason why local Church independence is so important. If Satan wants to corrupt the church he has to do it one assembly at a time.

This is one reason why I believe there needs to be a greater emphasis within the local church for developing gifts. In many cases the local church totally abdicates this responsibility, saying ‘that’s not our remit, that’s the Bible Colleges department.’ This is wrong thinking! We need to develop those within our midst, rather than sending them of to some Bible school or other, which might not even teach the same doctrinal position that the local Church espouses.

So should we close Bible Schools? Certainly not! As I have already stated, they are useful and helpful for the edification of God’s people for service. However, we need to have a more realistic view of what they can achieve, to use on old phrase ‘they cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’ Bible Schools don’t make preachers, God does. We also need to have a watchful eye on Theological Seminaries, knowing how Satan has corrupted so many in the past, let’s not imagine that he is going to abandon a winning formula now.

‘Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain,’ Revelation 3 v2