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Wednesday 5 June 2019

Bible Colleges - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

A New Reformation
Any 21st century reformation - a return to the doctrine and practise of the New Testament - would, I have no doubt, sweep away Bible Colleges as we know them.

Of course to say that is to say something as alien and strange to the Christian world as "Justification is by Faith Alone" sounded to the ears of the Roman Catholic Church of the 14 and 15  hundreds. That's what reformations are about. They tackle issues that have become so "the norm" that they are unquestioned and have become the Ruling Tradition of the day.

A new reformation, building on the work of previous reformations will tackle more than Bible Colleges, but that will be one of the issues it will confront.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage local churches to train their own people rather than send them to institutions. 

Here is the indisputable fact from God's Word: The only place to train God's people for works of service is in the local church apprentice-style alongside seasoned Gospel workers - that is the thesis of this blog and the clear and unambiguous teaching of the New Testament. Jesus trains the Twelve by taking them on a three-year journey, where they spend much time with him, watching and learning. And he sets the model for all training, a model which the apostle Paul clearly followed in the training of men like Timothy. 

Prove this wrong from God's Word.

The Good
Many Christians have benefited from spending a few years at Bible Colleges. This, by the way is no defence of them, just an observation. (God is pleased to bless us even when we get things wrong, thankfully, or else we would hardly ever experience his goodness). At Bible College pastors, evangelists and missionaries have learnt the Scriptures, studied church history and become familiar with Christian doctrine.

Moreover, men and women who have worked in Bible Colleges have produced helpful study guides and commentaries, which have blessed the church. But once again, these materials could easily be produced by men and women who serve in local churches around the world.

At the moment, while our local churches refuse to take up the Biblical challenge to train in-house many are "forced" to take the second-best option of going to Bible College.

Bible Colleges have and continue to do good - there is no question about that. It's just that there is a far better and far more Biblical way. 

The Bad
First,  Bible Colleges discourage the local church from her task in preparing people for works of service. They give the impression that if you have a gifted and called person in your church who wants to serve the Lord full time, the only way to do training is to send them away from the church.  They give the impression that the local church is inadequate, unequal to this great task. They give the impression to ordinary pastors and leaders that they are not well enough equipped to train the next generation. This is an outrageous impression, for Christ has gifted apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to "prepare God's people for works of service" (Eph 4:12). Ordinary pastors can pass on the truth to reliable men.

Second, as a general rule, a Bible College is geographically isolated from the local church. Thereby, an institution is established which has no New Testament warrant. There is no difference, in this sense, between a monastery and a Bible College. The only "institution" known in the New Testament is the local church. (The "schools of the prophets" in the Old Testament, mysterious in any case, are no model for New Testament practise.)

And it gets worse. New offices are introduced which are unknown to the Scriptures. The office of "Professor" and "Lecturer" and "Scholar" are nothing short of impostor offices in the Church of Jesus Christ, of the same category as "priest", "monk" and "nun". We should never introduce a Christian as "Professor Y" or "Lecturer Z", but just as brother John, or perhaps slave of Christ Jesus.

Third, the emphasis of a college is on the head and on knowledge - it has to be. Listening to knowledge lecturers and writing knowledge essays. This is a striking difference to the emphasis, for example, given in the twenty or so requirements listed for elders in the New Testament, of which only one is a an ability to teach the truth. All the others - by far the greater number - concern godliness and godly character.

Fourth, the method of imparting knowledge at a Bible College is all wrong. Christian knowledge cannot be passed on by distant lecturers  but by living life and example. We have copied the academy whereby anyone can deliver a lecture on anything with the person delivering the lecture separated from the substance of the lecture. In the New Testament, the nature of "discipleship" determines how all learning takes place - one godly example walks with a second and by speech plus life teaches them the truth. The living day to day example of the teacher matters as much as what they say. Academia separates out the person from the teaching experience (unless of course, students and teachers 'do life' together: but that expereince is called the church in the New Testament).

Fifth, the tragic result of Bible College can be this, "I have finished my training, I don't need any more, I am ready." I am sure that Bible College inspires some to life long learning but it could equally give the impression to others that training is now over. 

The Ugly
The first ugly is pride. It is of course the supreme danger of any kind of knowledge which tends to puff up. The young trained pastor thinks he knows more and better than anyone else in his congregation. And they can think the same, "Oh, he's been to Bible College."

Then there is that ridiculous letters-after-the-name game. I have a whole-Bible commentary written by men from a non-westen continent on my shelf and when it introduces all the contributors, that's all they boast about, what degrees and what-nots they have and where they got those what-nots from. (In heaven no-one will be known as Doctor This or Doctor That and this kind of folly will be unknown).

When seven men were chosen to serve the early church in Acts chapter 6, what mattered is that they were "full of the Spirit", "full of faith", "full of wisdom." Not a single BA or PhD among them. When Paul talks about himself, he calls himself slave or servant or boasts about his sufferings. Not a mention of any academic achievements.

Can we imagine the following reformation change of blurb on the rear cover of a Christian book, to bring it in line with Scripture:

Worldly Title: John Smith, PhD, MA, BSc

Christian, New Testament Title: John Smith, almost killed in the Congo for his faith, a slave of Jesus Christ

If such a change sounds outrageous, that shows how far the mighty have fallen.

Thirdly, we now have a church full of experts. If a church newspaper is seeking an opinion on some issue in the world today, they don't ask for a seasoned church pastor, they find someone who has done a PhD on this or a PhD on that and ask them. Just like the world we have parcelled out truth to experts. It's as if we are saying to ordinary church members and pastors, "you can't know anything about such and such a subject because you're not an expert."

Fourthly, we tragically give the impression to young pastors, that if they are really to get on and improve themselves, they are going to either have to go away and do a higher degree or write a book or  a "paper" or two: academia is the way to climb the greasy pole. Not godliness, not love, not suffering, not enemies made on account of truth, but academia is the way to prosper.

Fifthly, we introduce into the church a formal - and frankly sometimes boring - method of discourse. How many times do we read books cluttered with endless numbers marking footnotes which clog up the reading and are there because they were written by someone who took on the "critical apparatus" of the academy. You read some of these books wondering if it was written for the believer in the pew or for the academic colleagues of the author, who is looking over his or shoulder to see if their peers would peer-review this sentence or that. We also find the unbiblical terminology of the secular academy entering the church: Scripture passages are called "texts" and the Old Testament temple worship is called "the cult."

Finally, and most tragically of all, Theological Institutions (including Bible Colleges) can easily become the source of error for the church. This may heppen when a teachers is  not accountable to a local church, which alone is the pillar and ground of truth. It could be because of the intellectual itch for the new and novel. (This is a radical difference between the academy and the church: the academy is concerned with the new and novel, the church with the apostolic and already-given). It could be because the lecturer is really writing for his peers whom he wants to impress by his "wide learning." Or it could be that the institution has to play a political syllabus game with contemporary secular institutions in order to dish out "proper" degrees, resulting in the inclusion of heretical subjects. For whatever

A Reformation Needed 
Ordinary pastors and ordinary churches can - and should - train the next generation of evangelists, teachers and pastors. We do not need outside help. We do not need unbiblical institutions. We need to regain our confidence and authority in God's calling to train the next generation and get on with the task, aided by the Holy Spirit who has clearly shown us God's ways and methods.

As painful as such a transition would be, it will glorify God because it will line up with his revealed will.

A Reformation that might just happen all by itself
I do wonder if an orchestrated reformation in this area will actually be necessary. As our Western culture darkens I can see the day when no western government will allow an institution to exist within its bounds which will not "celebrate" all the anti-biology, anti-truth perversions of political correctness. Institutions  will have to conform or be abolished (my guess is that some will conform - it's happening in the US already). What we will be left with is -  pure church!

So perhaps this reformation will happen without any Christian lifting their hand or nailing their thesis.

Churches get ready to train your own people! The future is bright!

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