Nate

For training programs, the church I went to after becoming a believer, Grace Bible Church, had a great mix: they acted as a local site for some of the TEDS (Deerfield) extension courses, in addition to providing a selection of locally provided courses. It was a superb mix, as a high school senior got to take a graduate-level courses from a professor that loves his topic? Major cool!!! They mixed it well with courses that didn’t require as deep of a time commitment, but were just as thought-provoking. The did a great job of moving outside the doctrinal walls of the church, as well; I recall a course that I think came from Grace that used an InterVarsity Press book called “Four View of the Millennium”. Each section was written by someone who held that view. They each started with a chapter that gave a good summary of their position, then added a chapter at the end comparing their view with the others. In the class then, we got the best of the differing views with a chance to interact with the rest of the class. Excellent way to learn! Programs like this require a strong commitment from leadership though; the program ended shortly after the pastor moved on.

If you do offer something locally, I’d be intrigued to see what other resources you could tap to broaden the offerings (and lessen the load). And, for those of us “long commutes” in the group, would you consider a web-based distance learning component? (hint, hint, wink, wink)

Piper’s message (audio, video, manuscript)
Carson’s message (audio, video, manuscript coming soon!)
the discussion that followed (audio, video)

The lectures are really good and would contribute to this conversation. If you don’t have high speed internet, don’t even attempt to watch the video

William Mounce, author of Basics of Biblical Greek has also provided several resources. He has a book called Greek For the Rest of Us that was primarily written to give the average person an introduction to the language in order to help personal bible study and some basics of exegesis.

Mounce has also started a helpful site: Biblical Training. His lectures on Greek are all available (at least they were last I checked). Mounce also taught Greek while he was pastoring in the Northwest.

Some day, I’d love to offer some type of training in this area here at TCF. Speaking of which… I really need to get back into parsing and using the Greek NT on a more regular basis. The study help software (i.e., Bibleworks) is awesome but also makes one lazy because it essentially does all the hard work for you (e.g., determining moods, voices, tenses, and defining words that you so easily forget).

I’m going to blog on some of these Greek resources soon though…

I really liked the mix of seminary, “equipping” churches, and seminarians that you mentioned, Luke. While I took my first semester New Testament Greek class as an extension class offered through my church, I feel the same way JHolmes does — I’d worry about the quality of the program offered. Do you know of places that are demonstrating this balance? (I believe that Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL has a connection with Elmbrook Church in the Milwaukee area, but I’d love to hear about others)

There were many religious teachers who did respond to Jesus’ teaching. Take Nicodemus, for example. It seems that Jesus’ problem was more the pride of the Pharisees than their training.

Luke, good article. I grew leaps and bounds through my seminary education and wouldn’t take any of that time back. I’m not currently a Pastor but I use my training every day of my life.

How would a church incorporate serious theological education? Could you comment more on that topic? I kind of like that idea, but I’m concerned about the quality of the education in that type of environment. Any additional thoughts?