2014 Resolutions - Avoiding the Dangers in Studying Theology

I first read Benjamin B. Warfield's "The Religious Life of Theological Students" prior to my 1991 seminary graduation. However, as I try to recall its content, I could not remember anything substantial. So in my decision to revisit classical Reformed theology, among 39 files I gleaned from the web, I would like to start with this one. 

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As I analyzed Warfield's paper, I observe that his recurring themes evolve around the dangers theological students are prone to, and with them, he also offered corresponding correctives. The insights from this paper have wider application than the religious life of seminary students. I think they deserve to be included in our prayer list. In this article, I intend to share these insights in the form of a resolution this 2014, that is, avoiding the dangers in the study of theology. 

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Summary of Warfield's Paper 

A minister must be both learned and godly. This is the central argument of Benjamin B. Warfield in this paper. My initial understanding of godliness is the awareness that a student of theology must have, that he is always living before the presence of God. In his study, he is expected to do it with delight and with the glory of God in mind as his end. This kind of life requires a regular discipline in studying the word and prayer. In the language of Warfield, being both learned and godly means that a theological student is studying in the Spirit of God, actively participating in public stated worship, and zealously keeping his private communion with God. 

A minister must be both learned and religious. It is not a matter of choosing between the two. He must study, but he must study as in the presence of God and not in a secular spirit. He must recognize the privilege of pursuing his studies in the environment where God and salvation from sin are the air he breathes. He must also take advantage of every opportunity for corporate worship, particularly while he trains in the Theological Seminary. Christ Himself leads in setting the example of the importance of participating in corporate expressions of the religious life of the community. Ministerial work without taking time to pray is a tragic mistake. The two must combine if the servant of God is to give a pure, clear, and strong message.

Dangers to Avoid

In reading Warfield's paper, I observe at least six dangers wherein theological students must guard themselves from. 

Danger # 1 - Antagonizing study and prayer. Divorcing student life from being a man of God. For Warfield, there is no contradiction between being learned and godly. To have one without the other renders a man unfit for the ministry. Those preparing to become gospel ministers must be both. 

Say what you will, do what you will, the ministry is a "learned profession"; and the man without learning, no matter with what other gifts he may be endowed, is unfit for its duties. But learning, though indispensable, is not the most indispensable thing for a minister. . . But aptness to teach alone does not make a minister; nor is it his primary qualification. It is only one of a long list of requirements which Paul lays down as necessary to meet in him who aspires to this high office. And all the rest concern, not his intellectual, but his spiritual fitness. . . But before and above being learned, a minister must be godly.

Someone antagonizing study and prayer could not avoid the conclusion that the "intellectual life is in itself accursed." No, it cannot be. As a student of theology, you must bring the spirit of prayer in your study room, and you must bring your insights from your study in your prayer room. 

Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books. . . Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God? If learning and devotion are as antagonistic as that, then the intellectual life is in itself accursed, and there can be no question of a religious life for a student, even of theology. 

You are students of theology; and, just because you are students of theology, it is understood that you are religious men—especially religious men, to whom the cultivation of your religious life is a matter of the profoundest concern—of such concern that you will wish above all things to be warned of the dangers that may assail your religious life, and be pointed to the means by which you may strengthen and enlarge it. In your case there can be no "either—or" here—either a student or a man of God. You must be both.

Danger # 2 - Studying theology with a spirit that is in the world. 

It is possible, I have said, to study even theology in a purely secular spirit. But surely that is possible only for an irreligious man, or at least for an unreligious man. And here I place in your hands at once a touchstone by which you may discern your religious state, and an instrument for the quickening of your religious life. Do you prosecute your daily tasks as students of theology as "religious exercises"? If you do not, look to yourselves: it is surely not all right with the spiritual condition of that man who can busy himself daily with divine things, with a cold and impassive heart. If you do, rejoice. But in any case, see that you do! And that you do it ever more and more abundantly.

Danger # 3 - Making divine things common. 

We are frequently told, indeed, that the great danger of the theological student lies precisely in his constant contact with divine things. They may come to seem common to him, because they are customary... The words which tell you of God's terrible majesty or of his glorious goodness may come to be mere words to you— Hebrew and Greek words, with etymologies, and inflections, and connections in sentences. The reasonings which establish to you the mysteries of his saving activities may come to be to you mere logical paradigms, with premises and conclusions, fitly framed, no doubt, and triumphantly cogent, but with no further significance to you than their formal logical conclusiveness...It is your great danger. But it is your great danger, only because it is your great privilege. Think of what your privilege is when your greatest danger is that the great things of religion may become common to you!...The very atmosphere of your life is these things; you breathe them in at every pore; they surround you, encompass you, press in upon you from every side. It is all in danger of becoming common to you! God forgive you, you are in danger of becoming weary of God!

Danger # 4 - Withdrawal from stated public worship and personal prayer

I am not counseling you, you will observe, to make your theological studies your sole religious exercises. They are religious exercises of the most rewarding kind; and your religious life will very much depend upon your treating them as such. But there are other religious exercises demanding your punctual attention which cannot be neglected without the gravest damage to your religious life. I refer particularly now to the stated formal religious meetings of the Seminary. I wish to be perfectly explicit here, and very emphatic. No man can withdraw himself from the stated religious services of the community of which he is a member, without serious injury to his personal religious life.

Who are these people, who are so vastly strong, so supremely holy, that they do not need the assistance of the common worship for themselves; and who, being so strong and holy, will not give their assistance to the common worship?

In my own mind, I am quite clear that in an institution like this the whole body of students should come together, both morning and evening, every day, for common prayer; and should join twice on every Sabbath in formal worship. Without at least this much common worship I do not think the institution can preserve its character as a distinctively religious institution—an institution whose institutional life is primarily a religious one.

I trust you will not tell me that the stated religious exercises of the Seminary are too numerous, or are wearying. That would only be to betray the low ebb of your own religious vitality. The feet of him whose heart is warm with religious feeling turn of themselves to the sanctuary, and carry him with joyful steps to the house of prayer. I am told that there are some students who do not find themselves in a prayerful mood in the early hours of a winter morning; and are much too tired at the close of a hard day's work to pray, and therefore do not find it profitable to attend prayers in the late afternoon: who think the preaching at the regular service on Sabbath morning dull and uninteresting, and who do not find Christ at the Sabbath afternoon conference. Such things I seem to have heard before; and yours will be an exceptional pastorate, if you do not hear something very like them, before you have been in a pastorate six months. Such things meet you every day on the street; they are the ordinary expression of the heart which is dulled or is dulling to the religious appeal.

Danger # 5 - Absence of realization about the seriousness and the greatness of Christian ministry.

One hint I may give you, particularly adapted to you as students for the ministry: Keep always before your mind the greatness of your calling, that is to say, these two things: the immensity of the task before you, the infinitude of the resources at your disposal. . . In a time like this, it is perhaps not strange that careful observers of the life of our Theological Seminaries tell us that the most noticeable thing about it is a certain falling off from the intense seriousness of outlook by which students of theology were formerly characterized. Let us hope it is not true. If it were true, it would be a great evil; so far as it is true, it is a great evil. I would call you back to this seriousness of outlook, and bid you cultivate it, if you would be men of God now, and ministers who need not be ashamed hereafter.

Think of the greatness of the minister's calling; the greatness of the issues which hang on your worthiness or your unworthiness for its high functions; and determine once for all that with God's help you will be worthy. "God had but one Son," says Thomas Goodwin, "and he made him a minister." "None but he who made the world," says John Newton, "can make a minister"—that is, a minister who is worthy.

You can, of course, be a minister of a sort, and not be God-made. You can go through the motions of the work, and I shall not say that your work will be in vain—for God is good and who knows by what instruments he may work his will of good for men? . . . 

Danger # 6 - Replacing godliness with mere activity

There is no mistake more terrible than to suppose that activity in Christian work can take the place of depth of Christian affections.

A minister, high in the esteem of the churches, is even quoted as declaring—not confessing, mind you, but publishing abroad as something in which he gloried—that he has long since ceased to pray: he works. "Work and pray" is no longer, it seems, to be the motto of at least ministerial life. It is to be all work and no praying; the only prayer that is prevailing, we are told, with the same cynicism with which we are told that God is on the side of the largest battalions—is just work. You will say this is an extreme case. Thank God, it is. But in the tendencies of our modern life, which all make for ceaseless—I had almost said thoughtless, meaningless—activity, have a care that it does not become your case; or that your case—even now—may not have at least some resemblance to it. Do you pray? How much do you pray? How much do you love to pray? What place in your life does the "still hour," alone with God, take?

Correctives

Corrective # 1 - Study theology as a vocation

Now, as students of theology your vocation is to study theology; and to study it diligently, in accordance with the apostolic injunction: "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord." It is precisely for this that you are students of theology; this is your "next duty," and the neglect of duty is not a fruitful religious exercise.

Certainly, every man who aspires to be a religious man must begin by doing his duty, his obvious duty, his daily task, the particular work which lies before him to do at this particular time and place. If this work happens to be studying, then his religious life depends on nothing more fundamentally than on just studying. . . you cannot build up a religious life except you begin by performing faithfully your simple, daily duties. It is not the question whether you like these duties. You may think of your studies what you please. . . But you must faithfully give yourselves to your studies, if you wish to be religious men. No religious character can be built up on the foundation of neglected duty.

Corrective # 2 - Study theology devotionally and religiously. By "devotion," Warfield meant "zealous application" and "religious exercise." 

Whatever you may have done in the past, for the future make all your theological studies "religious exercises." This is the great rule for a rich and wholesome religious life in a theological student. Put your heart into your studies; do not merely occupy your mind with them, but put your heart into them. They bring you daily and hourly into the very presence of God; his ways, his dealing with men, the infinite majesty of his Being form their very subject-matter. Put the shoes from off your feet in this holy presence!

Corrective # 3 - Always keep in mind the goal of your study, which is to grow in godliness. 

Are you, by this constant contact with divine things, growing in holiness, becoming every day more and more men of God? If not, you are hardening! And I am here today to warn you to take seriously your theological study, not merely as a duty, done for God's sake and therefore made divine, but as a religious exercise, itself charged with religious blessing to you; as fitted by its very nature to fill all your mind and heart and soul and life with divine thoughts and feelings and aspirations and achievements. You will never prosper in your religious life in the Theological Seminary until your work in the Theological Seminary becomes itself to you a religious exercise out of which you draw every day enlargement of heart, elevation of spirit, and adoring delight in your Maker and your Savior.

Corrective # 4 - Take Jesus with you. What does Warfield mean by this? 

And let me tell you straightout that the preaching you find dull will no more seem dull to you if you faithfully obey the Master's precept: "Take heed how ye hear"; that if you do not find Christ in the conference room it is because you do not take him there with you; that, if after an ordinary day's work you are too weary to unite with your fellows in closing the day with common prayer, it is because the impulse to prayer is weak in your heart. If there is no fire in the pulpit it falls to you to kindle it in the pews. No man can fail to meet with God in the sanctuary if he takes God there with him.

You are here as theological students; and if you would be religious men, you must do your duty as theological students; you must find daily nourishment for your religious life in your theological studies, you must enter fully into the organic religious life of the community of which you form a part. But to do all this you must keep the fires of religious life burning brightly in your heart; in the inmost core of your being, you must be men of God.

Corrective # 5 - Realize that on your own you are insufficient for the task and that the seriousness and greatness of the ministry requires you to pray.

I am sure that if you once get a true glimpse of what the ministry of the cross is, for which you are preparing, and of what you, as men preparing for this ministry, should be, you will pray, Lord, who is sufficient for these things, your heart will cry; and your whole soul will be wrung with the petition: Lord, make me sufficient for these things. Old Cotton Mather wrote a great little book once, to serve as a guide to students for the ministry. The not very happy title which he gave it is Manductio ad Ministerium. But by a stroke of genius he added a sub-title which is more significant. And this is the sub-title he added: The angels preparing to sound the trumpets. That is what Cotton Mather calls you, students for the ministry: the angels, preparing to sound the trumpets! Take the name to yourselves, and live up to it. Give your days and nights to living up to it! And then, perhaps, when you come to sound the trumpets the note will be pure and clear and strong, and perchance may pierce even to the grave and wake the dead.

Whenever I hear of stories of seminarians who lost their zeal for the Lord after graduation, this makes me wonder. Questions come to my mind. Why are these students so negative about church life and ministry? Why are they so bitter and skeptical? Are these graduates really called into the ministry? Is there something wrong with their attitudes? Or was the seminary too lax in accepting them in the first place? What did they learn in the seminary? Did they see any role model there who are actively engage in church ministry? What ideas influenced them that caused them to loose their passion? I think I will be praying for all these questions together with the dangers and correctives identified in this article.

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After reading Dr. Warfield's paper, I made two resolutions for 2014:

First, I resolved to avoid the dangers in the study of theology, which includes antagonizing study and prayer, separating my life as a student and as a man of God, studying with the spirit that is in the world, replacing godliness with mere activity, withdrawal from stated public worship and personal prayer, taking divine things as common, and the absence of realization of the seriousness of my calling to Christian ministry.

Second, I also resolved to follow the correctives in the study of theology, which includes treating study as vocation, to study both devotionally and religiously, to always remember the end of my study, which is to grow in godliness, to humbly accept the seriousness and greatness of the calling to christian ministry for me to be always reminded of my insufficiency causing me to only depend in God through prayer, and to bring Jesus with me always.