Choose Your Seminary Wisely

This morning I awoke to read an informative but a bit disturbing blog entry by Jonathan Leeman, over at 9Marks, entitled "Beware Your Seminary Professors." The post was a sad one to read--not for its inaccuracy, but for the very fact that it had to be written. In it we are warned, among other things, of

• professors chosen for their skills at research and writing rather than for their character.
• professors chosen for their exemplary performance in the classroom rather than their involvement in the church.
• professors infatuated with discovering something new rather than with mastering biblical orthodoxy.
• professors who are not qualified to be elders and bear no resemblance to elders.
• professors who are accountable to no one, and especially not to the church.
• professors who extend Christain recognition to apostates.
• professors totally unconcerned with the spiritual maturity of their students.
• professors who are ambivalent about the gospel.

I am very concerned about all of these unfortunate realities, but rather than warn young men about the deficient professors that they have, I'd like to suggest that a more preemptive suggestion--don't choose a seminary with professors like these!

MAS

My Father's World

Heav'n above is softer blue,
Earth around is sweeter green;
Something lives in every hue
Christless eyes have never seen.

Birds with gladder songs o'erflow,
Flowers with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know,
I am His, and He is mine.

I used to think that this hymn text, written by one George W. Robinson, was much more existential fluff than substance. Is the Christian's sky really more blue? His garden greener? Isn't common grace,...well, common?

But the more I've studied apologetics, the more sense this song makes. When an unbeliever enjoys nature he does so illicitly and with little comprehension of why he is doing so. He is, as Greg Bahnsen says, "borrowing capital" from the Christian worldview and incorporating it into his own sorry model. He is snatching one of God's perfect gifts and consuming it greedily without any regard for the giver.

The believer, on the other hand, takes God's gifts gratefully from the hand of God and recognizes the giver in the gift. All that he receives from God makes perfect sense, because our gracious God provides all the necessary preconditions for intelligibility in any event, circumstance, discipline, or pursuit.

When I take my boys hunting, the fall colors are no more brilliant for us than for anyone else, but the awareness of God above allows us to see something in every hue that Christless eyes have truly never seen. For, as another hymnwriter has opined,

This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world: I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
his hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father's world. The birds their carols raise;
the morning light, the lily white, declare their maker's praise.
This is my Father's world: he shines in all that's fair;
in the rustling grass I hear him pass;
he speaks to me everywhere.

And most especially--

This is my Father's world. O let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world. The battle is not done;
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
and earth and heav'n be one.

MAS