Words That Stick
If you were to consider how many conversations you have with people on a weekly basis the number would add up very quickly. You have said and heard so many things that it is a wonder that remember anything at all. Yet, we can all recall certain things that were said to us - words that stuck in our mind. Of those words lodged forever in your brain, certain ones had such power they changed the course of your life.
One such instance occurred in my own life when I heard someone say, "I used to be very spiritual until I met a theologian." What this person was saying was, "I used to passionately love Jesus, be evangelistic, love worship, etc.; then, I met this guy who forced me to think deeply about spiritual truth and it took all of the fun out of it - religion became boring." This comment caused me to stop and think for a minute. I was a fairly new follower of Christ as well as a new student of theology. I thought to myself, "Oh my, maybe I should just stick to reading Max Lucado rather than trying to read Berkhof." After all, the last thing that I wanted was to lose my passion for my new master!
Confused and perplexed, I encountered someone who would say something to me that would change my life forever. My professor, in a theology class that I was taking at the time, made this ever so profound statement, "The most important thought you will think is a thought about God, for it will determine every other aspect of your existence." This wordy phrase stuck in my mind like a bullet wedged in its victim. How could I turn a blind eye to the deeper things of God and expect to "be spiritual" in my life? If I failed to seek after God with all that was within me, including my mind, then the most I could hope for was a life of group dates with God, but never an intimate marriage.
"Pastor, here's what I want you to do." This bizarre statement, "The most important thought you will think is what you think when you think about God, for it will determine every other aspect of your very existence," led me to begin a lifetime expedition of study. However, my fear is that this is not the same expedition that most pastors find themselves on today. I fear that most pastors spend their time wrapped up in the world of marketing, church growth, and people pleasing. Without making excuses, I will say that a major part of this is because of the demands placed upon them by their churches. Their churches do not understand the role of the pastor and therefore expect them to meet certain job requirements. In order to make change, pastors must rescue their job descriptions from the hands of people who know nothing about the job of a pastor. Saying no more about this, more courageous men are needed to lead churches.
As truth is continually flushed down the toilet, the church is in need of pastors who are theologians. Not pastors who know a theologian. Not pastors who have a theologian in their church. Not even pastors who have lots of books by theologians (mostly unread). In this dark hour of the church, the body of Christ needs to be led by men of God who are theologians set on fire by the riches found far below a surface level understanding of John 3:16.
Locked Away vs. Locked Out
There was a time in which pastors spent the majority of their day locked away in their studies. Consider a husband and wife who have just been married and are on their honeymoon. They could go to Hawaii or to Jamaica, or they could even go to West Texas. It really wouldn't make any difference at all, for their interest is not found outside of their hotel room. They would rather spend the day locked away with each other no matter how gorgeous the scenery of the island. This is the way it was for men like Jonathan Edwards who spent thirteen hours a day studying. Today, it is the opposite. We are like men who take their wives on a honeymoon and can't wait to escape the hotel in favor of sightseeing. When it comes to the study we would rather be locked out than locked away. What's the big deal anyway? All we have to do is figure out something to say for a short period of time on Sunday morning so that the people will like us and bring their friends back to like us as well. Furthermore, how are you going to grow a church if you spend your time devoted to being locked up with God? Yes, we may grow large churches by spending our time wrapped up in professional scheming and marketing, but any church growth we may experience will pale in comparison to what Edwards experienced - The First Great Awakening. Edwards was a theological giant and the people who met Edwards (a theologian) probably did not wind up less spiritual than they did before ("I used to be very spiritual until I met a theologian").
Another example would be Charles H. Spurgeon. The Prince of Preachers, as he is called, was a theological giant. Spurgeon read half a dozen books a week, was a writer, and grew a giant church. Obviously he found time to grow a church while having his head buried in books all week. And to think, they didn't even have the internet back then.
The list of pastor-theologians could go on forever it seems up until a certain point in history. If you were to look around today you find few pastors that you would consider theologians. Men like R.C. Sproul or John Piper are rare. The majority of guys coming out of seminary today want to pastor churches that employ the latest and greatest way to grow their church. Therefore, they read all of the greatest books on church growth while all of the greatest books on God never make it to the best-seller list. What the body of Christ is in desperate need of is pastoral reform!
It is time...
It is that time that we as pastors return to our studies rather than our offices. It is time that we as pastors teach our secretaries to say, "I'm sorry he is unavailable. It is time that we as pastors spend more money on books. It is time that we as pastors become students of church history and learn that we don't know it all and have much to learn from those who died long ago. It is time that we as pastors wrestle with divine questions that others dare not to ask. It is time we as pastors exhaust our minds making every effort to be precise and completely accurate when we speak about our triune-God. It is time we as pastors realize the most important thought we will ever think is what we think when we think about God, for it will determine every other aspect of our existence. It is time we as pastors reclaim the title that rightly belongs to us. Theologian!
May it be said by those whom we are privilege to serve, "I never truly understood what it meant to be spiritual...until I met a theologian - my pastor."
