Seminary Student: Don't Mix Up What Biblical Maturity Means!

"Sin is not first about the breaking of an abstract set of rules. Sin is first and foremost about breaking relationship with God, and because I have broken this relationship, it is then easy and natural to rebel against God's rules. So it's not just my mind that needs to be renewed by sound biblical teaching, but my heart needs to be reclaimed by the powerful grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The reclamation of my heart is both an event (justification) and a process (sanctification). Seminary, therefore, won't solve my deepest problem–sin. It can contribute to the solution, but it may also blind me to my true condition by its tendency to redefine what maturity actually looks like. Biblical maturity is never just about what you know; it's always about how grace has employed what you have come to know to transform the way you live" (italics mine). 

Paul Tripp, Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 26.

How to Stay Christian in Seminary

At the beginning of this year, Desiring God ministries began an excellent series on their website titled, "How to Stay Christian in Seminary". To the layperson this might come as a shock: how to stay Christian in seminary? What do you mean? These are pastors-to-be! These are people who read books about Greek and Hebrew!

A big library or a seminary education is not protection against a heart that grows cold towards the gospel. 

In fact, there is a very real sense in which seminary students might grow indifferent towards the richness of the treasures of God. More than one seminary graduate has decided, over the course of time, to leave the ministry-- some even, to leave the faith. 

Of course, seminary does not necessarily lead to indifference and coldness of heart. Education can just as easily be a means of softening the heart as it can harden it. So, to my seminary friends, I encourage you to read this series of posts of "How to Stay Christian in Seminary" and ask yourself what is seminary doing to your love for Jesus?

To other readers, you may want to read this post to consider how you can pray for seminary students that you know and to find loving questions you can ask them to see how their heart is doing.

Ray Ortlund's post on "Seminary is for Deeper Humility" was a post that I found particularly challenging. He provides this excellent insight: 

The Bible bluntly says to every seminary student, “Who sees anything different in you?  What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).  Seminary students should be the most grateful people on the face of the earth, because what they are receiving is the precious Word of God.  It is not their own, and it is not for self-display.  It belongs to God, and it is for Christ-display and for serving others.

What do you have that you did not receive? That is a question that we would do well to ask ourselves daily. Ortlund provides further words of wisdom that challenge seminary graduate and high school drop-out alike: 

There is no shortcut to the personal significance every one of us rightly longs for.  Significance is not as simple as going to seminary.  It comes at the cost of deepening character.  And there is no way to go deep without humility before God.

For those interested in reading this series, you can follow the links posted below:

Introduction: Seminary: Life or Death? by David Mathis (January 17, 2012)
Know Your Value of Values by Jonathan Parnell (January 17, 2012)

Be Fascinated with Grace by David Mathis (January 24, 2012) 

Love that Jesus Calls the Weak by Jonathan Parnell (February 6, 2012) 

Study the Word For More Than Words by David Mathis (February 13, 2012) 

Pray With Your Books Closed by Jonathan Parnell (February 20, 2012) 

Be a Real Husband and Dad by Jonathan Parnell (March 13, 2012) 

Keep Both Eyes Peeled on Jesus by David Mathis (March 20, 2012) 

Seminary is for Deeper Humility by Ray Ortlund (March 24, 2012)

Husbands, Love Your Wives More Than Seminary

Husbands, love your wives more than seminary! 

I arrived at this critical reminder to seminary students via Justin Taylor's blog. The article was originally published in the Southern Baptist periodical Towers (February 21, 2011 edition). As a Seminary student, I feel that daily crunch of Hebrew assignments, reading books that are sometimes enjoyable and other times tempt me to towards self-harm by slamming a copy of Calvin's Institutes against my forehead, and studying for midterm exams. Yet, as this article reminds me, a man's wife is exceedingly more precious than mastering Hebrew syntax.