“What kind of man are we training for the ministry? How can men supposedly called by God be indifferent to the Bible?”

This article began, though I did not realize it at the time, in a random conversation with some colleagues. We were a committee of five, and we virtually ran our intercollegiate and interdenominational post-graduate school. Rather grandly we were called “directors of graduate studies.” On this particular afternoon we had finished our formal meeting. Reports had been received, new applications “screened,” subjects for theses approved, and examiners appointed. Our business was over, and it was time to go home. But we lingered, enjoying the informal talk.

The subject of our teaching came up. Students were complaining that they could not see the relevance of their biblical studies. They were given a mass of material to be mastered, and they generally did master it; but they could not see what it had to do with their subsequent work in church and parish. For years I had held—and still hold—that the best theological colleges do not give their students a copious supply of sermons to take with them into the ministry. The task is rather to give the men the tools of their trade. If they have these, they can produce the sermons and Sunday school lessons. They will know the message with which they have been entrusted and will be able to deliver it in all its wide variety, provided that they walk with God and do not spurn the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Now the students were unable to see how the tools were fitted to the job. In other words, they could not use the tools they had been given. It was all rather disquieting.

This was still fresh in my mind when we were invited to a “consultation” on the teaching of biblical subjects. A consultation on systematic theology had been held a short time earlier. Now it was our turn. We listened with respect to an eminent professor who had been invited to speak first. No names need be mentioned; it is enough to say that he has an international reputation.

He told us—and it was new to me—that in his experience he had to “sell the Bible” to his students. “Why do we have to learn all this biblical stuff?” they complained. “Show us its relevance to our later ministry.”

I pricked up my ears. What he said brought back our discussion in the directors’ meeting. Apparently we were not alone in our troubles. But this was worse. Our men did not see how to use their tools in the parish. This professor’s students, however, did not see the need for the tools at all. The implication was that the Bible would have a very small place in their ministry.

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The professor went on to say that in the written work required from his students he would not allow anything in the nature of “relevance” (though he added, a little facetiously, that he had relented to the extent of allowing an appendix on “Thoughts of Relevance”). In the main he insisted on a strict scientific exegesis. This corresponds to the method of the Interpreter’s Bible, where we are given both exegesis and exposition. The exegesis is academic and scientific; the exposition presumably aims at the elusive relevance.

The discussion became general. Nobody disagreed violently; we shared the professor’s academic ideals. But we still had this problem of relevance on our hands. My disquiet continued to grow, and in time I could stand it no longer. “Mr. Chairman,” I began, “whatever kind of man are we training for the ministry? How can men supposedly called by God be indifferent to the Bible?”

There was a dead silence. The matter could not be left there; some further contribution to the discussion had to be made. I thought rapidly and then blundered on. “In our teaching could we not do something like this? Take the parable of the Prodigal Son. [I pulled out my Greek Testament.] ‘Bring out quickly the best robe and dress him in it. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet.’ Could we not link the best robe with the robe of Christ? ‘Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.’ In the background there is the doctrine of imputed righteousness. As slaves went barefoot, the shoes suggest that the believer is no longer a slave but a son. The ring confirms it. The ‘family ring’ or signet ring points to the doctrine of adoption. Grace, justification, adoption—it is all there if we have the eyes to see it.”

The professor protested that I was leaving nothing for the professor of homiletics to do. And a friend of mine with whom I had worked for years summed up his opposition in a forthright statement: “I don’t agree with your exegesis, and there is no theology of the Cross in Luke’s Gospel!”

So that was that. I have long pondered these problems—the one concerned with the professor of homiletics and the other with Synoptic interpretation. There was not the time or opportunity to debate the matter further during the “consultation,” but further reflection has yielded certain conclusions.

We must not leave too much, as I see it, to the professor of homiletics. His business is to help men preach. He may be a master of speech and may have read hundreds of sermons and most of the books about preaching. But he may not be an expert in biblical studies. In a Christian seminary, it is surely the business of the department of New Testament to show how the text of the New Testament can be treated by the preacher. Listeners to sermons used to say (and may do so still, for all I know) that the preacher had such and such a text and “took it another way.” Some “other ways” are legitimate and some are not. Some are spiritually true and some are merely ingenious, and it is the New Testament expert who ought to be able to make the distinction.

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The other objection is more serious. Even if the professor of homiletics has the necessary biblical skill, he cannot deal with all the passages that the professor of New Testament covers. This is a matter of organization and a matter of degree. My friend’s comment, however, touches on the interpretation of a text.

Now, I am prepared to admit at once that my exegesis was not primary exegesis and was thus not “scientific.” But I submit that the primary exegesis was implicit and the secondary exegesis justified. When a sensitive Christian reads the story of the Prodigal Son, and in particular the words already quoted, does he not rub his eyes and say in wonder; “Why, that is exactly how God has treated me. He gave me new clothes and dressed me in the righteousness of his beloved Son. He raised me from the level of servant or slave and made me a son. I have the Spirit of adoption in my heart, and I cry ‘Abba, Father.’ ”

It may be argued that this opens the door to all sorts of odd interpretations. Of course it does, and the uninstructed preacher will bring his odd interpretations into the pulpit. Only the enlightened common sense and spiritual insight of a competent department of New Testament can determine where to draw the line.

Our academic ideals and our ambitions for New Testament scholarship, especially in a university setting, may restrain some teachers from going on to secondary exegesis. But it can be done and ought to be done, and it need not involve a lowering of academic standards.

There is still the question whether there is a theology of the Cross in Luke’s Gospel. Luke has obviously not given us an Epistle to the Romans, but he does suggest a theology of mediation. “I say to you my friends, do not fear those who kill the body … fear him who has authority to cast into hell.…” God the Destroyer and Christ the Friend: this is an implicit mediation. An analogous interpretation is possible with the lament over Jerusalem and the passage about confessing before men.

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But suppose some insist there is no theology of the Cross in Luke? Then it is still legitimate to interpret in the light of our experience. God has dressed us in the robe of Christ and has given us the Spirit of adoption. Support for this line of argument comes from an unexpected quarter.

Lord Eccles has just published a book, Half-way to Faith (Geoffrey Bles, 1966), in which he declares that the Gospels are great works of art. They stand, he says, on an equal footing with the great masterpieces of literature. We ought therefore to look at them from this standpoint, and Lord Eccles hopes we shall.

His point of view is not totally new. In 1952, Dr. E. V. Rieu spoke of the Gospels as “the four masterpieces which conquered the world.” They constitute a miracle “unique in the history of literature,” he said. Their literary and spiritual values are interdependent.

The views of Lord Eccles are thus supported. The Gospels are works of art and should be studied as such. James Denney’s dictum that the New Testament Scriptures are not to be regarded as an Act of Parliament to be interpreted by lawyers has become a commonplace with many. But has our “scientific exegesis” taken on something of the spirit that Denney was speaking against? Let us take another look at the Gospels. Dr. Rieu speaks of “the feelings they evoke” and “their over-all effect.” Such considerations should always be in our minds when we are dealing with great literature. If we are believing men, can we fail to recognize in the Jesus of the Gospels the same Lord Christ of the epistles who has laid his hand in mercy upon us? Are we not moved as we read and see the Synoptic Jesus doing at the Cross what the epistles said he did? Such feelings, such an effect, are appropriate to works of art.

Those of us who are engaged professionally in teaching the New Testament, especially to theological students and future ministers, ought indeed to begin with scientific exegesis; but we should not stop there. Let us not put our own faith into cold storage when we teach. It would be sad indeed if we were to be described in words used of F. C. Baur after his death: “His was a completely objective nature. No trace of personal needs or struggles is discoverable in connection with his investigations of Christianity.…” Sir William Robertson Nicoll even said that Baur was a stranger to the requirements of his own soul and his own need of a Saviour.

If faith were given its place in scholarship, who can calculate what relevance might be discovered? Who knows what spiritual exegesis might be produced? In the long run we might have an upsurge of love of the New Testament and a burning desire to preach it—and this on the part of those students to whom the Bible had once to be “sold.”

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