Choosing a Seminary
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | An aspiring pastor writes in to ask, "Pastor John, what would you look for in deciding on a seminary?"
00:00:11.000 | Don't look for a building, don't look for a campus, don't look for a library, don't look for a location.
00:00:17.000 | Look for a faculty. That's my advice.
00:00:20.000 | And then if you ask me, "Okay, if I'm looking for a faculty, what am I looking for?"
00:00:26.000 | I would say, "Look for a faculty who reveres the Bible as God's inerrant word."
00:00:34.000 | Which may be easier to sniff out than whether they love God.
00:00:40.000 | Loving God is a little more personal and abstract, but you can begin to detect in the way a person teaches and writes
00:00:49.000 | as to whether their relationship with the Bible is one of amazing, deep, controlling reverence for God's inerrant word.
00:01:01.000 | So look for that.
00:01:02.000 | Number two, look for rigor in their exegetical labors.
00:01:09.000 | That they are drawing out truth from the Word more than they are drawing out truth from systems.
00:01:18.000 | And from books.
00:01:20.000 | When you go to their classes, or when you read their books, or when you talk to students about them,
00:01:25.000 | are they biblically saturated?
00:01:29.000 | Are they bent on proving their points not by saying, "Luther said it," or "Wesley said it," or "Calvin said it,"
00:01:39.000 | but "Paul said it," and "Jesus said it," and "Here's the verse," and "Here's the logic of the verse," and "That's why we stand on it."
00:01:45.000 | Are they that kind of Bible people rather than system people?
00:01:50.000 | Third, look for a solid, coherent, biblical theology with the gospel at the center and the sovereignty of God underneath
00:02:00.000 | and the glory of God at the top.
00:02:02.000 | Look for a God-centered, gospel-permeated theology with the glory of God and the sovereignty of God very prominent.
00:02:13.000 | And fourth, look for people, look for faculty who feel and believe in the lostness of human beings
00:02:25.000 | and the uniqueness of Christ as their only hope of salvation.
00:02:30.000 | Men who weep that people are going to hell.
00:02:34.000 | They believe in hell.
00:02:36.000 | They think people are going there without Jesus.
00:02:39.000 | And Jesus is the stunningly all-sufficient, all-satisfying, unique and only way of salvation
00:02:49.000 | so that there's an urgency about what they teach.
00:02:53.000 | And fifth, look for a love for the church.
00:02:56.000 | Look for a passion to be connected with the church.
00:03:01.000 | Not loners off doing their own academic thing, but they're part of the church.
00:03:05.000 | They love the church. They want to feed the church and provide leaders for the church.
00:03:10.000 | And to that end, I mean, those kinds of faculty, visit classes, talk to students, correspond with faculty,
00:03:21.000 | do what you need to do to find out what kinds of people are going to be teaching you.
00:03:26.000 | That's my way of doing it.
00:03:28.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:03:30.000 | Please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:03:35.000 | At desiringgod.org, you'll find thousands of other free resources online from John Piper.
00:03:38.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
00:03:41.000 | [ Silence ]
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