“My Bible is in English!”
That’s when I knew I was not going to win the argument. I was fresh out of Bible college and armed with a Zodhiates education in Greek. I’d just preached one of my first sermons and it was on the Christmas story. Apparently some of my comments had blown up an elderly couples vision of the birth of our Lord. My suggestion that Jesus was likely born in something a bit like a ditch in a cave was appalling to them.
When they confronted me the next Sunday I very calmly attempted to give a bit of a history lesson on the ancient nativity scene. They were unmoved and armed with their Baptist hymnal. “Why does it say Away In A Manger?!?!?!!” I dug in a little deeper and then out of deep insecurity attempted to put them in their place with my knowledge of Greek. I’m not even sure how I thought that would help win the argument. But I did, and rightly so, wanted them to see we should get our theology and such from the Bible. And that’s when they informed me that their Bible was in English and not Greek. I knew at that point that I didn’t stand a chance to win the argument.
So I politely said we would just have to agree to disagree. I tried pointing to what we had in common and point them back to Jesus. Then I took my seat a few rows in front of them only to be absolutely mortified that our music ministers song choice that morning was Away In A Manger.
I share this story because it is a decent representation of a large percentage of the interactions that I’ve had in my almost two decades of doing ministry. And yet it is not reflective of any of the discussions I had in classes in seminary. Granted, I’m still a couple classes short of my M.Div. So it’s possible we’ll have a class on pastoring in pop theology. But I doubt it.
What we argued about most in seminary were the intellectual debates of the day. I’m still waiting to be able to use my twenty page paper on John Calvin’s use of ilasmos in 1 John 2:2. Most of the things which were big deals and arguments in seminary are questions which are not even on the radar of people in the pew. And truthfully there is no way that a seminary could possibly train a pastor for all of the questions you’ll get as a pastor.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have gotten great value in almost every one of the classes I took in seminary. And even though teaching a class on The New Perspective on Paul is way off our radar, knowing all of that stuff has been beneficial. It’s beneficial to learn how to argue and how to make a sustained defense of a biblical position. The exercise of writing papers and dealing with divergent view points has trained me for dealing with pop theology. So seminary helped build a great foundation. But there is one thing lacking, I believe.
The One Thing Lacking
That one thing lacking is training in how to discuss the Bible when the foundation is pop theology and not biblical theology. You see the biggest difference between what we do in seminary and what you do in the local church is in the way we go about discussing our viewpoints. In seminary there are rules of engagement. There is a certain format you must adhere to in writing an academic paper. You tend to come from a similar base of knowledge. Throw every bit of that out the window when engaging with folks in the local church. To 99% of your congregation G.K. Beale would be identified as a clothing line instead of a theologian.
I hope none of this sounds as if I’m saying folks within the local church are dolts. We’ve got many dear saints in our church who could shame me in their knowledge of things like Old Testament history. They’ve been going at this following Jesus thing longer than I’ve even been alive. So, I’m no intending to be dismissive of the way in which most within your local church live out their faith. I’m simply trying to say that the way you discuss things in seminary will never happen in a local church. You just aren’t starting from the same place. And it takes a good bit of time to adjust to that. And it’s why some young men just coming out of seminary get eaten up in the local church. They cannot adjust to the way we engage folks in the local church.
A Few Tips
Here are a couple things I’ve learned about engaging folks who had a pop theology with a robust biblical theology:
1. Trust that God’s people really do love God’s Word. If you come into a church with an ‘me’ vs. ‘them’ mentality you’re not going to be as helpful as you could be. God’s Spirit lives within these dear saints. Many have embraced pop theology because it’s all they’ve been offered. Some turn on TBN 24/7 because they are hungry for more of Jesus. Have confidence, then, that people will embrace biblical theology.
2. Don’t too easily dismiss the pop theology. Pop theology often has much truth in it. And it’s been these kernels of truth which have sustained these saints for years. I truly believe a weak faith can lay hold of a strong Christ. As Richard Sibbes so eloquently illustrated, it’s foolish to kill a fly on the forehead with a mallet. In as much as you can build from pop theology, don’t burn the whole thing to the ground and try to start over.
3. Nobody cares about your big words and mastery of the Greek. One of my Greek professors said it well, “Greek is like your underpants. It’s there for the support but should never be worn on the outside”. We harm our people by unnecessarily using big words or foreign languages. Give the fruit, spare the sweat of your exegetical labor. It’s a mark of immaturity to try to use your education to win an argument. If you want people to be entrenched in pop theology then a surefire way to do that is to talk like good solid biblical theology is only for the elite.
4. Don’t underestimate consistent, faithful, long-term Bible teaching. Patient, loving, and relevant biblical exposition will do much to root out all that’s wrong in pop theology and replace it with good biblical theology. Expository preaching not only helps people on a weekly basis through what is proclaimed in the Word of God, it also models for our people the way to engage with the Bible. Modeling faithful exegesis will do much in rooting out pop theology. Just keep patiently proclaiming Jesus. The Spirit will use it.
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