The main banner of the New Perspectives has been reading Paul the way he intended to be read. At various times throughout the twentieth century, that meant ensuring that Paul was read in his Jewish context. Perhaps in the twenty-first century it means protecting against the overcorrection towards which the Church is often so prone to bend.

“As we finish up our work this semester and prepare for Christmas break, I want to challenge you to think about one thing: you are doing what most Christians will never have the opportunity to do. Most believers will be equipped by their pastors and Sunday school teachers or missionaries over a lifetime of learning. They will hear the Word preached to them week in and week out over the years. Yet you, our students, were chosen by God for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to sit under pastor-scholars for an intensive time of study, vocational and spiritual formation, and preparation in Word and prayer, with added practical experiences at your church internships or counseling centers or other ministry sites, and with the added blessings of seminary collegiality.”

In short, if I as a pastor want to help both believers and inquirers to relate science and faith coherently, I must read the works of scientists, exegetes, philosophers, and theologians and then interpret them for my people. Someone might counter that this is too great a burden to put on pastors, that instead they should simply refer their laypeople to the works of scholars. But if pastors are not ‘up to the job’ of distilling and understanding the writings of scholars in various disciplines, how will our laypeople do it?

How much of a Pastor’s time should be spent studying and reading scholarly works?

“…most of the good stuff will be coming from Africa and Asia”

I shared that thought briefly on Facebook and had some interesting (and funny) responses:

What do you think?

Also, I really want to check out the Africa Bible Commentary, written by over 70 African Scholars and released this past September. Any one picked up a copy yet and have any thoughts?

It is important to see that if the Deity of Christ is denied, then the Cross becomes a terrible monstrosity. If Jesus Christ is man only and not also God, then we lose faith in God and man. We lose faith in God because we could not believe in aGod who allows the best man that ever lived to be hounded to death on the Cross — is that all that God cares about our humanity and its search after God, after truth and righteousness and peace? Put Jesus Christ a man on the Cross, and put God in heaven, like some Mohammedan deity imprisoned in His own lonely abstract Deity — and you cannot believe in Him, in such a god who is monstrously unconcerned with our life, and who does not even lift a finger to help Jesus. But if you deny the Deity of Christ we lose faith in man also, for that means that man is such that when he sees the very best, the very highest and noblest the world has ever known, he crucifies it in spite, and will have nothing to do with it except to hate it. Put God in heaven, and Jesus a man only on the Cross, and you destroy all hope and trust, and preach a doctrine of the blackest and most abysmal despair. Denial of the Deity of Christ destroys faith in God and in man, and turns the Cross into the bottomless pit of darkness. But put God on the Cross, and the Cross becomes the world’s salvation. All the Gospel rests upon the fact that it is God who became Incarnate, and it was God who in Christ has reconciled the world to Himself.

Kevin DeYoung put out a list of 20 Tips for Theological Students and Young Pastors, here are a few highlights:

1. Take advantage of opportunities to be taught by others. Get the most out of books, lectures, and special speakers in seminary, because soon you’ll be be doing all the putting out with few people to put it in to you.

2. Beware of closing your heart to people.

8. Expect people to leave your church when you come.  Be kind when they do.  Follow up, ask why they’re leaving, pray for them, then move on. Don’t let a few folks on the way out determine the plans for the rest of the church.

13. Learn to think in 5 year, 1 year, 6 months, and 1 month increments.  When you start out at a church you’ll feel three months behind everyone else; you need to be six months ahead.

14. Guard your day off and don’t let your work creep into your evenings at home.  You’ll be miserable and ineffective if your life becomes a rhythm-less mush.

15. Spend more time getting to know your people and less time trying to figure out the culture of your city.