AN ILLUSTRATIVE TREATISE ON THE DYNAMICS AND ESSENCE OF THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY/BIBLE COLLEGE TRAINING
[An Address By Olatokunbo Odunuga at the Inauguration of UBCI Bible College, Mile 2, LAGOS on 21st September 2018]
This forum and season are very appropriate for the topic under consideration. And some may surmise my message as an apologetic in defence of the very idea of Theological Seminary and Bible College training. This topic will be of little or no interest In a typical church setting especially in the denominations which had never thought it necessary to establish seminaries or Bible colleges and such are in the overwhelming majority.
I am aware of a particular denomination which closed down its Bible College after many years of its being in existence. Some even refer to Seminaries as cemeteries. Over a decade ago, I was physically present at a programme during which the guest preacher, an internationally renowned preacher, who was himself a Rev. Dr., a product of a seminary, referred to seminaries as cemeteries.
Recently, another man of God, whom I know have studied to Ph. D (Theology), preaching in a large meeting with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance, suddenly blurted out, “This is not Theology….”. I am aware that this man of God studied to acquire the Bachelor’s, Master’s and the Ph. D degrees, never having passed through any secular university. What could have made such men disdain their basic source of training?
On the contrary, I was in another large meeting where the preacher, Dr. Myles Munroe eulogized Seminaries and Bible Colleges to the sky. He shared with us that he attains two Bachelor’s degree, one Master’s and three doctorates, all in Theology. He concluded that if one is anointed but does not study extensively, that person only has anointed ignorance!
Now, why do we have these diametrically opposite perspectives from the children of the same “household”. Amazing! More often, a preacher who publicly disdains theological training wants to convey the impression that his message is inspired by the Holy Spirit and not by mere study or head knowledge.
It is even gradually becoming a mantra for preachers and teachers to hammer it to their audience that their message is not head knowledge. Someone should please help me. What is wrong with head knowledge if the vessel is also filled with the Spirit of God and ministering under the inspiration or auction of the Holy Spirit?
More often, it is those who basically are not so highly gifted intellectually before the call to the ministry who make such declaration. It is probably an utterance from a complex, whereas it ought not to be. God did not package his children as mass-produced goods. The calibre of Oxford Prof. C. S. Lewis who had a triple first-class at Cambridge would not have such mind-set
I had addressed this issue somewhere when x-raying the complementary “letter killeth” perspective. The “letter killeth” in 2 Corinthians 3: 6 is not about anti-intellectualism, as many suppose. If it is about that, Festus would not have cried out an accusation against Paul in Acts 26: 24 in this manner :
* “Paul, thou art mad, much scholarship is driving thee into madness”-ACV
* “Paul, you are off your head, your great learning has made you unbalanced”-BBE
* Paul, you are crazy! You have read too many books……”-Message
* “You are mad, Paul, your higher learning is driving you into madness “-Complete Apostles’ Bible.
As insighted by Witness Lee, the letter in that verse is the written code of the Law, an expression of the ministry of the old covenant, a covenant of the dead letter engraved on stone tablets and which kills in contrast with the apostolic ministry of the new covenant, a covenant of the living Spirit, who gives life.
I believe that the same God who gave a commission to the extraordinarily brilliant theologian, named Paul also commissioned a stark illiterate fisherman, by name Peter (1Peter 5:12). But Peter was humble enough to concede that there were indeed some “technicalities” in Paul’s messages declaring in 2 Pet. 3: 18 that there are some things in the writings of Paul which are hard to understand.
Apart from Paul, no other apostle made mention of reading books beside their bibles-2 Timothy 4: 13, “Bring with you the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus when you come and the books, especially the parchments”.
I was having a chat with one of my colleagues in the Seminary, expressing my gratitude for the privilege of passing through the Seminaries and the Bible Colleges that trained me. In spite of my incontrovertible new birth experience by the mercy of God, how would one have received further help to accurately interpret the scriptures and rightly divide the word of truth [ 2 Timothy 2: 15] without exposure to the courses such as Principles of Biblical Interpretations or Hermeneutics.
My colleague indeed admitted that one of the most helpful courses of study is Hermeneutics and he further complemented it with Contextualization. I further included Hermeneutic Exegesis, Hebrew/Greek Languages, Manners and Customs of Bible Land, Church History and History of Revivals. Of course, others, Bible Geography, Archaeology, and scores of others have their own roles in Theology, but the first six are fundamental for accurate interpretation.
Jim Bakker, a foremost American evangelist, very prominent and world-renowned in the seventies confessed that his “failure ” as a preacher was also due to not heeding the principles he was taught in the Seminary, but that he swayed to preach the popular gospel of his contemporaries ostensibly because money was easier to obtain with ”another gospel”. I recommend anyone interested to order the 641-page book, “I WAS WRONG” by Jim Bakker. He erred especially on John 10: 10, 1 John 3: 2, etc because he failed to apply the hermeneutic principles his seminary professors taught him.
The weekly Sunday School and mid-week Bible study held in churches have their values but limited as they cannot meet the depth and varieties which seminaries and Bible colleges explore. Sunday Schools don’t make use of tools, such as Concordance, Maps, Bible Dictionaries, Archaeological Discoveries, Atlases, Dead Sea Scroll. They don’t revert to Greek, Hebrew and Etymology.
Hence preachers and teachers being eisegetical rather being exegetical is generally inevitable. How do you convince a pastor, who is covetous or is struggling to make up his children school fees from collecting the unscriptural first fruits and firstborn redemption offerings when these are written in the Bible.
The one-hour nett of midweek Bible study is not the place to highlight hermeneutic exegesis. An average regular seminary or Bible college may run for about 16 hours a week as against the one-hour denominational weekly Bible study.
The 16 hours students tarry in the presence of their lecturers are not even enough compared with the fact that the disciples were daily with the Lord for more than 16 hours, not to talk of one-hour weekly Bible study. I did a calculation some time ago. We need over 400 years of weekly Bible study to have the effect the disciples had with the Lord’s 42-month intensive discipleship.
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