Note: This is a modified version of a talk I delivered at New Student Orientation for the South Texas School of Christian Studies for the fall semester of 2016.
In Romans 11.13, Paul says, Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry. Paul does not say he glorifies the minister - he is not proud of himself. Paul says he glorifies the ministry - he takes pride in what he does. And it is worth noting that the apostle makes this statement in the midst of a sustained theological argument that gives the biblical and theological basis of the calling he pursues. I want to talk about glorifying your ministry by submitting yourself to the training necessary to carry out God’s call on your life.
You may have seen the following meme: Please do not confuse your Google search with my medical degree. There is another version: Please do not confuse your Google search with my law degree. I want to challenge you to consider yet a third version: Please do not confuse your Google search with my theology degree. After all, does a profession that deals with people’s money, or with people’s bodies, deserve more honor than one that deals with their souls?
There are people who will tell you that the glory of Christian ministry is that anyone with the Holy Spirit and a Bible can do it. They are wrong. That is the glory of the believer priesthood. The glory of Christian ministry is that one loves God enough to submit oneself to the sustained discipline of training the mind for theological thought. As pastoral theologian Craig Dykstra says, “In our society - and even in the church - the malignant assumption that pastoral ministry does not really demand or require very much surreptitiously undermines both our legitimate expectations of and our sense of gratitude for the Christian ministry.” In other words, we fail to glorify our ministry.
We might think - we certainly might wish - that the Holy Spirit worked in us like Neo in the Matrix: Someone plugs a needle into our heads, images of Greek and Hebrew and Augustine and Barth flash across our mental maps and we jolt awake to declare, “I know kung fu!” . Well, the wind bloweth where it listeth; God could do that if God chose to. But the problem with such a process would be that it robs you of the opportunity to love God with all your mind. Your investment of money, time, and energy; your sacrifice of leisure, sleep, and relaxation - are burnt offerings laid on the altar of your service to Christ.
So if you feel a call to Christian ministry, I want to challenge you to pray about pursuing a seminary degree. Such study offers you the opportunity to develop not only the practical skills or the intellectual knowledge, but also the habit of mind to think in a deeply Christian manner about all of life. Dykstra calls this “pastoral intelligence,” the idea that “to be a good pastor, you have to be very smart in lots of really interesting ways.”
And if that goal seems a long way away and you feel you are floundering just thinking about it, remember that Usain Bolt was next-to-last out of the blocks in the Olympic 100-meter dash. They don’t give medals for starting fast; they give medals for finishing well.
Do you need to pursue education to be a good minister? Let me answer in the words of the legendary pastor and scholar Dr. Gardner C. Taylor: “Formal theological training is not strictly required to begin ministry. Someone might go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive. It is not likely.” You’re headed for the rapids. A boat beats a barrel. Plan ahead. Glorify your ministry.
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