You Can't Do the Work of a Theologian Without the Worship of a Theologian
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Not everyone is ready to do the work of a theologian. This tends to offend modern sensibilities. Thanks to the advent of the internet, we all like to imagine that we can be the experts of any field we’d like.
Do meteorologists get to be an authority on weather? Or does my weather app make me proficient enough?
Does my doctor get to be an authority on health and medication or does WebMD allow me to offer my own second opinion?
Should I hire an electrician or just watch a YouTube video?
It’s easy enough to see how the internet has shaped and blurred the lines of “authority” or expertise.
Our society’s lack of trust in pastors/clergy stemming from high profile moral failings, child sex abuse scandals, prosperity gospel televangelists, and an overall growing disinterest in all things “religious” also means people are more likely to consider themselves equally equipped to do the work of a theologian.
Nonetheless, I’d rather hear theology from my pastor and dental advice from my dentist than dental advice and vice versa.
Not Formal Education
Scripture is quick to make one thing clear: one’s level of education, one’s degrees, or one’s body of published works does not make one more or less equipped to do the work of a theologian. Christianity was led by both camps - the working class poor and undereducated (fishermen and tradesmen) as well as the “intelligentsia” like the Apostle Paul who was a “Pharisee of Pharisees” and sat at the feet of a well-known Rabbi, Gamaliel. Also later, Justin Martyr, who was well-known for donning his philosopher’s robes.
3 Crucial Marks of a Theologian:
Devotion
That God is best known through devotion is a long-standing refrain of the early church. Because God is known through His self-revelation rather than through a process of scientific discovery, one must first have the right posture towards God.
Although at first, such a statement seems open to being criticized as “circular reasoning” it’s actually quite intuitive and “internally consistent” which is often misunderstood as “circular.”
It’s internally consistent because God is a Triune God and therefore He’s incomparably personal. It makes sense therefore that an incomparably personal God would be best known through personal relationship. It’s also God’s nature to be “Holy” or “Other” or “Transcendent” and so it’s logical that when we acknowledge the “Incomprehensibility” of God, He’d have to reveal Himself to us.
We also referred to it as intuitive. Why should God’s self-revelation not be discovered through the scientific process?
There are many different ways of exercising reason. Aristotle long ago articulated one of the cardinal principles of clear thinking: that one studies a thing according to the nature of the thing being studied. If we want to understand a type of rock, we might use a rock hammer or submit it to a chemical process. If we want to understand a butterfly we had better come up with a different mode of investigation, or we will learn little except that butterflies are destroyed by hammers and killed by chemicals.
Beyond this, we also intuitively understand that it’s through relationship (and loving relationship) that you and I are best known. You cannot truly know me simply by reading my writings or looking at my social media posts. The people who best know me are those who are closest to me.
Psalm 111:10 puts it this way: Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Humility
James 4:6 tells us that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Humility gives us a teachable posture before God and others. Humility allows us to see ourselves more clearly and more accurately. It is only through humility that we are able to follow Paul’s counsel in Romans 12:3,
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”
This posture of humility is seen clearly in the Beatitudes as well as in Jesus’ parable of the pharisee and the tax collector. True humility does not equate to self-abasement or self-loathing such attitudes/dispositions still belong to those whose focus is on themselves. Rather, true humility is the ability to focus our attention on God and see ourselves through His light.
A great litmus test for humility to ask yourself how you feel when you perceive arrogance in someone else. Those who despise arrogance or who are quite sensitive to arrogance are usually that way because they can’t stand someone thinking they’re better than them. In other words, the more sensitive you are to arrogance, the less humility you have. Why? A humble person would rarely notice arrogance or care because their focus is elsewhere and they don’t need to worry or concern themselves when someone in the room feels superior to them.
Holiness
Jesus makes it clear that loving him means obeying him and when we do, He’ll be showing Himself to us. Consider John 14:15-21
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
Such qualifications for teachers/elders/theologians is completely biblical:
7 In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness 8 and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.
(Titus 2:7-8)
And so we see a simple, scriptural, and intuitive argument for an unpopular truth: not everyone is equally equipped for doing the work of a theologian. That’s not to say that not everyone can be.