Correction (5/18/11): In the post below, I attributed a blog post to V. Philips Long of Regent College, when the post was actually written by Phillip J. Long of Grace Bible College. The text of the post has been corrected. ~ Mike
Last week, my response to Donald Miller resonated with many, many people, resulting in (by far) the highest number of comments, page views, Facebook shares, etc. of anything we’ve posted here. I think philosophy professor Mike Austin expressed a common reaction among Christians with an intellectual bend:
I’m simply amazed that someone could honestly believe that the problem with the contemporary church is that it is too intellectualized.
There was also some slipperiness on Miller’s vocabulary, as physicist W. Brian Lane noted:
I’d like to know what his functioning definition of “scholar†is. He switches back and forth between the terms “scholar†and “teacher,†but those are definitely not the same role in the academic world.
In the comments, two distinctions repeatedly came up: the difference between teachers and scholars (not to mention pastors); and the difference between teachers/scholars within the church and outside the church. By “outside the church,” I don’t mean non-Christians, by the way — I’m talking about, say, a high school physics teacher or a professor of Italian literature, who exercise their teaching and scholarly gifts primarily in secular contexts. Most of our readers fall into that category (or hope to, at least). This week, I’d like to spend some time parsing out those distinctions. But first, a couple of questions for you: What examples have you seen of scholars and teachers serving the church or in secular fields? What kinds of scholarly work are needed in the church?
Teaching as an Office of the Church
Ephesians 4 is perhaps my favorite chapter in the entire Bible. If I were ever to tattoo a Bible verse onto myself, it would likely be Eph. 4:5 — “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” — which is a bit odd, since I’ve been baptized twice, but that’s a story for another day. As I quoted last week, it also includes a powerful statement about not only who should lead the church, but also how and why. [Read more…] about Scholars, Teachers, and the Church [Updated with correction]