Preaching and Scholarship
By Aaron Menikoff June 20, 2007
There are a lot of men at Third preparing for pastoral ministry and the question often comes up, just how much formal education is appropriate beyond the MDiv (most of the guys at Third are getting an MDiv since we are in Louisville near Southern, a great seminary–so that decision has usually been taken care of).
Recently, a friend of mine reminded me of the great work that I’d not looked at for quite a while, The Preacher and Preaching, edited by Samuel Logan. James Montgomery Boice, the late pastor of Tenth Pres has an essay entitled, “The Preacher and Scholarship” in which he addressed this very question. Here is his advice:
1. Get all the formal training you can. Not everyone is in a position to do long years of formal academic training. Sometimes financial concerns hold one back. At other times a job opens up, and it seems wise to accept it. But these circumstances aside, if the possibility is present and the student has ability to do further work, it is good to get the training before taking up a ministry. For one thing, it is hard to do it later. Many ministers will confess that the pressures of pastoral work, demands of a growing family, and burden of administration have all but eclipsed serious reading or study from their schedule. Work toward an advanced degree if possible. One of my predecessors at Tenth Presbyterian Church, Donald Grey Barnhouse, used to advise young ministers that if they knew the Lord was returning at the end of four years, they should spend three hours in intensified training and only then use the last year in full-time service (95).
Getting a PhD is not easy and it is costly in more ways than one. It is a burden financially, sure, but in many instances (mine included) it requires certain sacrifices to be made by all members of the household. Thus, he advised the pursuit of “all the formal training you can” only “if the possibility is present.” For some men, the possibility is simply not present–and that is God’s providence. Thankfully, the lack of a formal education does not keep a pastor, an elder, from studying, and learning, and growing. As Boice wrote later, “The preacher who is not continuing to learn is limiting himself unnecessarily.”
May all of us–whatever stage we are in–have wisdom!