Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Seminary is Not a Church

This is a good article from my prof James Hamilton about what seminary can and can't do, as well as perhaps should and shouldn't try to do. Here are the opening paragraphs. 
In my humble opinion, seminary students should seek from the seminary what the seminary exists to give them, and the seminary exists to give them the Bible. Let me be quick to add that the seminary’s main purposes include systematic theology and church history, but God has revealed himself in the Bible. Let me say that again, because it’s that important: God has revealed himself in the Bible.
Seminaries exist to teach people the Bible, which means seminaries exist to teach people Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, introduce them to the Bible’s big story, and teach them how to read that story parts and whole.
This means that there are many jobs the seminary does not exist to do: the seminary is not a church. The seminary is not an evangelistic crusade. The seminary is not your small group, your missions and evangelism coordinator, or even your pastoral internship.
I have often heard preachers comment on some pastoral difficulty then say, “They don’t teach you that in seminary!” I usually think to myself, “nor did they intend to; nor were they supposed to.”
Cars don’t sprout wings and fly, and they don’t teach you to pilot a plane in Driver’s Ed. Evaluate a car, or a Driver’s Ed. class, according to what it is intended to do. The seminary is built to prepare people for ministry, yes, but it’s a school. That bears repeating: a seminary is a school. This means, by definition, that a seminary is not a church. So the seminary is preparing people for ministry, but it can’t do everything necessary to prepare people for ministry. It’s not built to do everything necessary to prepare people for ministry. It’s built to be a school.
-James M. Hamilton,  http://jimhamilton.info/2012/03/26/use-the-right-tool-for-the-right-job-gospel-maturity-for-seminary/#comments

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