The High Road

By George E. Meisinger

Chafer Theological Seminary

E. Meisinger is dean of Chafer Theological Seminary, as well as teaching in the Old and New Testament departments. He received his B.A. from Biola University, a Th.M. in Old Testament Literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a D.Min. in Biblical Studies from Western Seminary, and presently pursues a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. He also pastors Grace Church in Orange, California.

One cannot become an expository preacher apart from a firm grounding in the original languages of Scripture. He must also add to that grounding a comprehensive working knowledge of the Old and New Testaments and Systematic Theology. Only the student who has a complete introduction to the Bible and a thorough schooling in hermeneutics (the laws of biblical interpretation) will succeed. He must furthermore have the attitude that God calls him to give the rest of his life to diligent study of the text itself. The responsibility to prepare is very high and the most thorough preparation—which the potential preacher and teacher may only acquire over a lifetime of study and ministry—can possibly equip a man to be a worthy expositor of the riches of Scripture.

Chafer Theological Seminary commits itself to the noble goal of preparing men to be such expositors.

It is true that some men by untiring research and study have become extraordinary teachers and theologians without the original languages of Scripture (Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic). Even they, however, would have been better with the languages. Clear-sighted and godly men of the past have stated that five years of Greek and four of Hebrew help provide the necessary foundation. [1]

Along with that indispensable training, the student requires a thorough grounding in Systematic Theology—not any Systematic Theology, but a theology permeated by grace. We are to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. These things are necessary if the student, then pastor and teacher is to invest his professional life profitably and independently without being enslaved to commentaries. This basic grounding is also necessary if the pastor is to analyze and synthesize the Word accurately for its instruction and spiritual values. We assume, of course, that the student himself walks in the Spirit and in the light.

We live in a day and age when many Christian circles frown upon academics. Experience shows that the darker the frown, the greater the inability to teach and preach the Word itself. The tragic consequences are untaught sheep, unstable believers, and dreadful inner vacuums of the soul that absorb every Christian fad regardless of its deviations from sound doctrine. Christians cannot have it two ways: The will either (1) lack discipline in the pursuit of biblical academic excellence, or (2) grow strong and stable displaying a walk that remains fruitful to the end. “Two” will only happen when a person reverses “one.”

Acknowledging this inescapable fact of ministry, CTS gives itself to train men. We seek for men of God called to the ministry, willing to suffer the hardships of academic life. Men who will sacrifice and give up material possessions, pleasure, and comfort if that is what it takes to be what God wants them to be. Men who do not waffle in the face of put-downs for swimming against the stream to prepare in the languages and grace theology. And men who stick to their knitting of studying and teaching from the original texts. They do so even though their contemporaries, who took the route of least resistance in some seminary, pastor mega-sized churches that seem to flourish. They “grow,” however, not through exposition, but through gimmicks, psychologically based counseling, and by making themselves “user friendly”—being translated that too often means there is little, if any, doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.

CTS pursues the high road. And that road requires, in our judgment, suffering hardship, which in our context means eight combined years of Greek and Hebrew. It also means total curriculum without “soft” spots. There is little glamour in the training stages. There is much hard work, late nights, and even tears. And there is no promise that when it is over, the student will have a church of several hundred or thousand members to pastor and teach.

Yet there is a promise: the promise that you will graduate equipped to become the best life-long student and teacher you can be. You will have the tools to dig in the Word for its priceless treasures. You will have learned the attitude that you exist to study and teach the Word and to pastor the sheep, not to be a social lion and entertain the sheep. But along with the training and attitude CTS instills in its students, coupled with your own application and walking in the Spirit, you can expect to hear one day, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

The high road is worth every pain, every long night, every tear, and every inconvenience to hear those words!

Notes

1. The Dallas Theological Seminary Bulletin, Volume 21, January-March 1945, Number 1, “The Highest Standard,” by Lewis Sperry Chafer.