We live in perilous days. The Church needs your scholarship to support believers making their way through a chaotic world, “a strange land”…where everything they have known is being deconstructed and reassembled without the Creator’s blueprint.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV
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It may be difficult to comprehend all the research, writing, editing, proofreading, and email-arm wrestling with your friendly neighborhood professor or doctoral adviser as an act of grace or a gift to others for God. However, for those engaged in theological and religious studies, in ministry (and other humanities, too), the doctoral dissertation or master thesis (or research paper) should be an enduring gift to God and humankind. We can assert this confidently because we see the truth illustrated so powerfully in the Bible. The Apostle Paul, in his Second Epistle to Pastor Timothy, chapter two and verse fifteen, admonishes Timothy to practice diligence in scholarship. He is speaking, of course, of biblical scholarship. However, “rightly dividing the word of truth” refers to the holy Scriptures. Timothy had an example of a man who studied the classics in the apostle Paul. His training as a rabbi was nothing short of the most strenuous and comprehensive study in the humanities. The Apostle Paul was able to quote poets and Greek philosophers. There is evidence in his writings of allusions to other literature as well. The Apostle Paul had studied to show himself approved. Paul also prioritized Christian scholarship in the lives of those who would follow him. Indeed, in 1 and 2 Timothy, the Apostle Paul calls Pastor Timothy to a life of uncompromising scholarship of the highest order. Why? It is because Timothy is to preach and minister the inerrant and the infallible Word of the living God. That is the thing: We who are called to the ministry of the Gospel handle holy things. Doing so requires the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us. Thus, Christ-called and Spirit-guided ministers must transmit the glorious truths of the Gospel to their generation. This incalculable responsibility demands an extraordinary level of dedication to Christian scholarship.
I shall never forget when Dr. James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000) visited our fledgling church plant in Overland Park, Kansas. He graciously preached at our church plant, and over three hundred people came to hear the noted Bible scholar and pastor. Boice, the former editor of Christianity Today and the speaker on the Radio Bible Study Hour preached from the Epistle to the Romans that night. Many who came to hear Dr. Boice would subsequently come into our newly founded Christian community. After the service, Dr. Boice came home with my wife, our son, and me. My wife fixed us a late supper. It just so happened that I was taking off the next morning for the United Kingdom. I had a month of doctoral studies ahead of me. I was halfway through my Doctor of Philosophy program at the University of Wales. Dr. Boice inquired about my studies. A graduate of the University of Basel, Switzerland (where he planted a local church even as he pursued his doctoral studies) and a Harvard and Princeton graduate, Dr. James Montgomery Boice possessed unsurpassed scholarly credentials. Though Dr. Boice’s pedagogical pedigree was unrivaled, his role in the larger Church of our Lord Jesus Christ was that of an undisputed servant-leader and “a doctor of the Church,” a mantle earned without seeking and worn without trying. As the evening ended, Dr. Boice looked at me as if he were sizing me up. He then said words that not only arrested my attention but pierced my heart: “Mike, the Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is where you must apply your doctoral research. There is no greater use for your Ph.D. than defending God’s truths and making them plain to little children. Never forget: the pulpit is worthy of the highest scholarship.”