Words of advice on study and prayer (and vocation) from Benjamin Warfield to theological students…and everyone else

When I was in Bible college I acquired (and read) a little booklet by Benjamin B. Warfield titled The Religious Life of Theological Students, originally delivered as an address at Princeton Theological Seminary on October 4, 1911.  In the opening pages Warfield is dealing with the qualifications of Christian ministers.  I was going to pull an excerpt out of these two paragraphs, but on second thought I’ll reproduce them (nearly) in full.  Close to the heart of his words, I think, is the supposed incompatibility of study (including the Bible) and prayer.  Here is what he had to say (all bold emphasis is mine):

I am asked to speak you you on the religious life of the student of theology.  I approach the subject with some trepidation.  I think it the most important subject which can engage our thought.  You will not suspect me, in saying this, to be depreciating the importance of the intellectual preparation of the student for ministry.  The importance of the intellectual preparation of the student for the ministry is the reason of the existence of our Theological Seminaries.  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 his duties.  But learning, though indispensable, is not the most indispensable thing for a minister.  “Apt to teach” — yes, the minister must be “apt to teach”; and observe that what I say — or rather what Paul says — is “apt to teach.”  Not apt merely to exhort, to beseech, to appeal, to entreat; not even merely, to testify, to bear witness; but to teach.  And teaching implies knowledge: he who teaches must know.  Paul, in other words, requires of you, as we are perhaps learning not very felicitously to phrase it, “instructional,” not merely “inspirational,” service.  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.  A minister must be learned, on pain of being utterly incompetent for his work.  But before and above being learned, a minister must be godly.

Nothing could be more fatal, however, than to set these two things over against one another.  Recruiting officers do not dispute whether it is better for soldiers to have a right leg or a left leg: soldiers should have both legs.  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.  “What!” is the appropriate response, “than ten hours over your books, on your knees?” 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. . . .In your case there can be not “either — or” here — either a student or a man of God.  You must be both.

He then goes on to connect this with the doctrine of vocation (work, calling), and while it’s not directly related to the point of this blog post, it does relate to some earlier posts on this blog, so I’ll include these next paragraphs for anyone interested in the subject of “work.”  What he has to say about “work” applies to everybody, not just “theological students”:

Here comes Monday: Encouragement for everyday, average Christians regarding the value of work, their job, and their calling

This was originally posted by Justin Taylor last week on his blog, I found it encouraging, and I’m posting it here thinking it may encourage others in their work and in their lives.  This quote especially hit home because I’ve been a carpenter off and on through the years since and including my college days.

From Dorothy Sayers’s essay, “Why Work?” in  Creed or Chaos (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949):

The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.

. . . Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside of it. The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meant they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meant for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.

The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work—by which she means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is Church embroidery or sewage-farming.

We need more Aquilas and Priscillas

One of these days I’m planning to write a few blog posts about ‘work’ and the biblical way to think about it.  This is not that day, though perhaps this coming winter I’ll find the time to tackle that task.  In the meantime this post will have to do.

So what do you do when you seem to have a compelling desire to be actively involved in Christian ministry and it seems that one of your spiritual gifts is in the area of teaching but God hasn’t seen fit to place you in an “official” capacity in a church or other Christian ministry?  And what if you also have a God-given entrepreneurial spirit and drive.

I suppose you could do what I’ve done and start a construction company (9 years running next month) and just recently, a website design, development, and hosting company.  Coupled with those ventures you could also start (plant) a church (which I haven’t done) or get involved in a church plant that’s only a couple years old (which I/we have done).

Christ, the cross, and the marketplace

Something to think about at the beginning of the workweek…

I simply argue that the cross must be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Christ was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage-heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek; at the kind of place where cynics talked smut, and thieves cursed, and soldiers gambled. Because that is where He died and that is what He died about, that is where the churchmen should be and what the churchmen should be about. (George MacLeod, as quoted in Tentmaking: Business as Missions, p. 4)

Loving God and neighbor – a lifelong process

I found this story on the last page of The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspecive, by R. Paul Stevens.  If, like me, you’ve ever wrestled with those topics in your own life, this book can help, along with his other books on the topic.

One of the desert fathers was approached by an eager young man who said, ‘Abba, give me a word from God.’ The wise mentor asked if the student would agree not to come back until he had fully lived the word. ‘Yes,’ the eager young student said. ‘Then this is the word of God: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.”‘ The young man disappeared, it seemed, forever.

Twenty-five years later the student had the temerity to come back. ‘I have lived the word you gave. Do you have another word?’ ‘Yes,’ said the desert father. ‘But once again you must not come back until you have lived it.’ ‘I agree,’ said the student. ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ said the desert father.

The student never came back.