I graduated today in absentia mainly because I thought that graduating with some form of latin might make me look educated. Five years spent in theological education and the money saved on pitching up at graduation can go towards a meal for our wedding anniversary or something (books?!).
I suppose this post goes under the show him what he could have won category. It is a quote from R. C. Sproul in his contribution to the excellent 'Feed My Sheep' (edited by Don Kistler).
'A few years ago as a faculty we reviewed our curriculum and we began to tinker with it a bit. We asked ourselves: what does a man have to know in order to be a godly pastor?... We said let's step out of the academic world for a minute and design the curriculum here not so the professors can be fulfilled in the areas of their specialties. To be a servant of Christ by equipping men to be pastors in the church- not to be theological universities where people could get academic credentials.... [In] many of the mainline theological denominations the ministers no longer teach from the content of scripture at all. How does that happen historically? It is axiomatic that as the seminaries go, so go the pastors; and as the pastors go, so go the congregations. If you want a reformation, you have to look seriously at what the seminaries are teaching.... What God expects from a minister of the gospel is the sober, accurate presentation of His Word.'
All of that said it was with a great sense of honour that I stood alongside several other guys a couple of weeks ago at a college thanksgiving service who are Bible men who long to devote themselves to godliness, and who deeply treasure timeless truth. All this not in a defensive way but in a way that seeks to be offensive with the gospel of Jesus Christ, who know what they believe and are happy to put their signature to it becuase doctrinal certainty is a good thing and what the churches need and what the world needs.
They are young men who have a dissatisfaction with the emptiness of much of what suffices for Christian learning and the pursuit of new truth and are content to rest on the sufficient, timeless and perfect authority of God's Word. They are men who have a passion to preach the cross and present Jesus in His redeeming, atoning, resurrected and ascended glory to a world looking on. They are, in my experience clear minded, clear thinking and plain speaking fellows and I am humbled to be their friend and associate. I believe that God is once more raising a generation of Bible men in Scotland and that the preaching of truth by men who love and trust God's Word will bring about the reformation that Dr Sproul speaks of.
I am pleased that three men of this generation have seen fit to grace our conference with the gifts that God has given. Now the work really begins!
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