I still remember the gist of something my professor said in seminary: “Watching a documentary on whales does not make you an expert on whales.” His point was that spending a small amount of time learning about something does not make you a specialist on that subject. People who like to snorkel are not oceanographers. People who change a lightbulb several times a year are not electricians. Parents who pull a sliver from their child’s finger are not surgeons. And people who take a summer Greek class are not Greek grammarians.
One of the realities of living in our modern world (with the access that we have to an overwhelming amount of information), is that many people subtly begin to believe they are an expert on something that they simply haven’t studied very long and actually know little about.
This has become clear to me in several instances working as a pastor. It became clear, for example, when a visitor to a Bible study I was teaching told me that he had “studied the Greek” of a particular passage the previous Saturday and thus had the correct interpretation of the text (which differed from mine). My issue was not that he disagreed with my interpretation of the text, but rather the ease with which he claimed knowledge of a language he had never studied. He spoke confidently about “the Greek” without being able to correctly pronounce the words he was saying.
In another instance, I was attending a Bible study at a local coffee shop. One of the men at the Bible study honestly admitted that he had not read the entire Bible. I appreciated his candor. The problem came when another man in the room piped up, “Who has?” Yet this same man would often dogmatically assert strange ideas about various Bible passages. It apparently had not occurred to this man that there were people out there who had indeed read the entire Bible, and who had devoted their lives to studying all of its component parts. The only conclusion I could draw from his comment was that he believed even the pastors he knew personally had never read the Bible. And I have wondered since, “How many Christians today believe the same thing?” And why might they believe that, even about their pastors?
Perhaps the reason is found in the absence of the systematic teaching of Scripture in so many churches. Perhaps it is the unfortunate reality that many pastors are not consulting ancient, historic, or the best scholarly resources when preparing their sermons. This is manifest from the size of the average pastor’s library. Secondly, it is manifest from the quality of the books that are in their libraries. I still remember walking through the office of one evangelical pastor who had virtually no old or scholarly books. He did, however, have a large section of material from Andy Stanley. And this was the man tasked with feeding the flock every week! Either he was not able to interact with the scholarly commentaries, or he didn’t find it necessary to have them in his office. In either case, if this is the summit of academic learning and study of the Bible for the pastorate in broader evangelical circles, it’s no wonder Mark Noll has written, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”
Lest we think that the problem of a loss of academic activity does not hinder and infect Reformed pulpits, we should also be aware that a pastor who rarely consults anything but one or two devotional Reformed commentaries (like the Reformed Expository Commentary Series) before preaching will rarely be fresh in his homiletical presentation.
One of the hopeful improvements we should wish to see in the coming generation is a renewed desire on the part of congregants for their pastors to have a high level of academic ability, and to use that ability in service for the church. We should hope and pray that in the future a new and profound sense of the importance of the pursuit of academic proficiency will again wash over the church.
To not desire this is to reject God’s use of the many examples we have of the authors of the Bible. Moses, for example, was clearly academically trained, “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” and yet used greatly by God, being “mighty in words and deeds” (Acts 7:22). Commentators on Isaiah have noted how masterful Isaiah's use of the Hebrew language is. Daniel was employed by the Babylonians to great effect for the welfare of that empire. But he was used in such a way by Nebuchadnezzar because Daniel was one of the academically brightest and best of Israel (Daniel 1:4). In the New Testament, we read of Paul’s education and perceive his clear proficiency in the Scriptures. Apollos is another example of a gifted man, famous for his preaching of the gospel. Martin Luther translated the Scriptures into German, something a person could only do with academic competence. And what did his efforts produce? Glorious reformations in the church! A modern example of the importance and use of academic ability for ministry is the life of R. C. Sproul.
Hopefully, in the coming generations we will see a growing disdain for pseudo-expertise both in the pew and in the pulpit (and in the broader culture!). With a new and profound sense of the need for academic ministerial training will come a renewal of spiritual energy to study and understand the Bible. Here is a quote from John Murray that ties these things together:
“When we think of the power of the Holy Spirit as that by which the Word is certified and made effectual, correlative with this persuasion will be the blood, sweat, toil, and tears of devoted and sustained study of that Word to which the Spirit adds certification. We must bear in mind again that the power is attendant in proclamation and therefore in the preparation that is antecedent. The Word is explored as the Word of God sealed by the Spirit, and the attendant power is indispensable to effectual preparation as well as to the subsequent proclamation.”
The point is that this preparation that will unleash the meaning of God's word entails necessary academic proficiency!
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