The following is a copy (though not exact. I added the verses for this posting, for example) of an email I sent to a friend of mine in response to his encouragement for me to attend seminary. While I whole-heartedly appreciate his encouragement and the friends God has blessed me with. I'm continually forced to contemplate the extent of wickedness in my own heart (i.e. my selfish motivations). Perhaps I'm seeing sin where there is none, or at the very least over exaggerating my negative motivations, however, I prefer to accept this sin and thus my ever present need of Jesus Christ.
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Not 100% sure of seminary as I was before. Kind of realizing my motivation may have been driven more by my desire for change then a true calling, at least right now. To be honest, most of the men I've met or known or seen preach, who attended seminary seem to have big heads full of knowledge which has, for the most part, been divorced from their hearts. Out of touch/clueless men trying to touch the hearts of the flocks entrusted to them. Christianity isn't a form of learned knowledge, at least not when compared to knowing Jesus Christ. We would have no need of the Holy Spirit if our own intellect could achieve holiness or true wisdom (Job 28:28, Proverbs 1:7 & Proverbs 9:10). You don't study someone to bond with, relate and love them. You live and share life with them, you don't study them. In the case of Jesus Christ we all do need to study His word, but we shouldn't study it as one would study a history book. We most definitely should pray, but not as if speaking to thin air, but as speaking with our king.
So I'm forced to ask myself the question: What is my motivation in desiring to attend seminary? Am I hoping seminary will open a door God alone is somehow incapable of opening? If I am then this is most definitely a wrong motivation. Do I desire seminary because I want to meet and marry a supposedly truly godly woman? If I am then this is also a bad, as God is fully able to do this with or without my help, let alone seminary. Do I desire seminary to be able to wield the knowledge and wisdom of the word as a sword to strike down those who would oppose me? This would be a most heinous and wicked reason to attend seminary. However, if I feel God stirring in my heart a burning desire to know His son Jesus Christ through discipleship and mentoring with and by godly men. If I feel I'm humble enough in spirit to handle the knowledge the Holy Spirit can use through me to comfort and minister to others, then this is a more noble and godly calling to attend seminary. It's always about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's about Him changing my appearance into His image. It's NEVER about me and my glory or personal knowledge. Knowledge, as with any gift God showers upon us, is a crown, which should decorate the area around the feet of Jesus Christ and not any of our heads.
2 comments:
Bill, this writing is a most supreme indication of maturity in Christ. I love what you wrote here. I remember long ago my struggle with desire to attend seminary then that faded and I realized that my desires were for selfish reasons...namely the end was to make my head big and full of knowledge and to ensure that I had all the answers to peoples' problems and for me then to write books and call out all who are heretics and shame them with all my seminary knowledge. What's so funny is that my selfish and prideful ambitions to know the Word more than anybody and make sure I had all the answers so that I myself could be on a pedestal of correcting others' wrongs ended up leading me down a path of being a heretic myself. I started dabbling with other theologies that were and still are wrong and filled my head with so much evilesque knowledge that I endangered my own relationship with my wife. Praise the Lord for people like you and some others who whipped my but to correct me. At the end of all this I've realized so much more about what all this worship of Christ is all about. You said so succinctly where you mentioned "...head full of knowledge divorced from the heart..."
When I understood the main focus of Scripture, I could live in peace with God. The whole aim of the Bible isn't primarily a textbook filled with proper ways of living & how to teach how to live, or a history book, nor certainly not a book that one is to use so as to become more enlightened than everyone else and to be used to "put people in their place". I would say that the first ones I mentioned are more secondary. The Bible, in my opinion, on the surface, is a collection of many different persons, male and female, telling their stories (which are either eyewitness accounts or personal testimonies) about the Creator of the universe. To go deeper, these stories and accounts involve almost every known aspect of human emotions, mindsets, attitudes, personalities, and character traits both good and bad, and how all these human aspects were encountered upon personally by God and how God changed them or others about whom they were witnesses of. Basically it's 66 books that tell a collective story of how God interacts with His creation and is so internally involved with each and everything He touches.
Therefore our aim is to desire that God is involved with us just as intimately as He was with these "story tellers". It's like if I told a whole bunch of wonderful and awe inspiring stories about a friend who none of you ever met and all the wonderful things this friend and I get to do and the things this person has done for me. You would be intrigued and want to meet this person too. You would hope that this friend of mine would want to be just as involved with you as he was/is with me. That is the primary aim of Scripture. All other descriptions of the Bible are secondary to that. Free insight - The Kingdom of God isn't something to be looked primarily as an external and physically observable place. It's inside of us. The Kingdom of God is all about a spiritual place. It's a place where our flesh needs to be crucified before entering.
I remember discussions you and I had about seminary, although brief. I'm glad you see that it would be good to go there if it was a way God wanted you to be closer and more intimate with Him. I'm glad to hear someone raise the cons about going to seminary in light of wrong motivations. More young believers need to hear that.
Thanks again for your refreshing words.
Bryce
Pride is such a wicked sin.
I watched a show last night called 'Without a Trace'. I like this show, however, last night's episode was better then most. The acting was great, but the storyline was very interesting. Though I'm sure the writers didn't intend to show the nature of sin, they did an excellent job. They showed their characters as not being able to control their sinful natures, yet strongly desiring change. I wanted to tell them about Jesus Christ and how He alone could set them free of this sin. Not only could they be free from the eternal death of hell, but they could also be free of the physical bondage IN THIS LIFE. I say could, but even Paul had to deal with a personal thorn in the flesh all his days, yet God's grace was sufficient for him and all of us.
Again, I have to point to the versus under the title of this blog. I also want to point out some encouraging verses about Jesus Christ in:
Hebrews 4:14-16 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
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