Words from Wags

• Just hottie ground in Port au Prince Haiti. Great med team and a few Dads and sons. 6 great days ahead http://twitpic.com/2erna2 #

• Several asked about our Watermark App..check out http://bit.ly/9tzRYR #iTunes #echo10 #
• #echo10 Praying for each of you as head home. May the Lord use you to display His revelation with excellence and relevance. Ps 16:11 #
• #echo10 praying now for all folks in hotels hanging with us at watermark/echo conference. Be pure, redeem your time. Meditate in truth..rest #
• Driving home from great week of teaching and encouraging others at Kanakuk family camp. Blessed to be driving home to a church family I love #

• Snowing today in Vail…maybe Al Gore needs to divorce his global warming postion rather than his wife. #
• Watermark Dallas 90*+..
  Watermark Denver 46* and getting colder. Got snowed on yesterday as we left Etses…crazy http://twitpic.com/1whs7q #

• The reward for faithful service is the opportunity for more service. Are you living now so tomorrow affords you more ops to serve the King? #

I’ll post my next couple of thoughts soon, but meanwhile it looks like I am not the only one who has been asked this question. 

A friend just sent me a link from Piper…His response is below and it looks like we have shared many of the same things…my point #9 which is soon to be posted, talks about why I am glad some Christ followers are led to pursue lifelong academic disciplines…and it is similar in heart to Piper’s comments about Don Carson. 

Here is the link   http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2414_should_pastors_get_phds/ and here is his answer to the question “Having been through PhD studies, would you recommend other pastors pursue this course of education?” 

You mean, already-pastoring pastors or planning-to-be pastors? I’ll answer both.

If you’re already a pastor, I wouldn’t get a PhD. It’s a lot of work, and the payoff is really small. Really small.

When I say really small, I don’t mean studying the Bible is small payoff. But the way most PhD programs are set up it is small payoff. Because you have to read so much junk in order to get your PhD. You have to become an expert in what other people are saying, most of which is wrong.

Most of the stuff that is written in the world isn’t true. And a PhD has to be an expert. And so you have to read gobs and gobs of stuff that is unhelpful.

Now I think somebody should do that. I’m glad there’s a Don Carson who seems to read everything under the sun, and therefore has the capacity to respond helpfully.

I’m totally committed that there needs to be a layer of academic scholarship that is aware of what’s out there and is teaching and writing. So, yes and amen.

That’s not what the pastorate is, though. The pastorate is not mainly the place where you have to know every wrong thing that’s being said about some slice of biblical theology. The pastorate is a shepherding of people from the Word.

So now back to saying something positive: if a PhD program is set up—and there are some!—to really let you work on the Bible for three or four years and on understanding its larger implications for life and reality, then, on your way towards the pastorate, that could be gold.

But mine wasn’t set up that way. And when I was done with those three years I had a piece of paper, the German language, and an appreciation for academic theology; but I had not grown much at all, except what I got on my own.

So it is possible to do stupid PhDs for the piece of paper. I would much rather you do a wise PhD—that is, go to a place where they really let you study the Bible mainly. Yes, you’ve gotta read other stuff. But you want to come out of there with three years’ worth with a big, large, strong, robust, deep grasp of God and his ways in the world, not just a little tiny slice of what a thousand wrong people are saying about some teeny verse in the Bible. That’s just a sad use of three years.

And if you’re a pastor, set yourself to study the Bible and take courses. But don’t worry about a degree for goodness’ sake.

I’ve not even opened the tube in which my diploma exists since 1974! I haven’t opened it! It’s in the drawer. Nobody asks about it. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. (Maybe that’s an overstatement.)