Last
week, we discussed Carson's take on the Scholar-Pastor. Today we
discuss Piper's take on the Pastor-Scholar from the same book.
Since
Piper’s work is primarily an account of his life, it seems fitting to
start our discussion with just that. Specifically, we want to examine
the path that led him to ministry in the first place. It was in junior
high school that John Piper would make an important decision about his
future. He would never become a pastor. Piper was nervous at the concept
of public speaking and thus ruled out the role that would require him
to preach in front of a congregation at least once a week.
All
of his passions and desires that would lead him to ministry were
already in place, but he didn’t see himself as qualified for that
specific role. So he instead pursued a different passion – writing. Due
to his love for poetry and logical reasoning, Piper began considering
himself a romantic rationalist. But ultimately, he didn’t pursue his
literature even further.
He changed direction
based off of hearing key sermons by Harold John Ockenga and John Stott
in 1966-67. He became impassioned with the thoughts of missions and the
Bible. Additionally, he was asked to pray for a summer chapel. For some
inexplicable reason, he said yes, and somehow he survived the public
speaking experience. At this point, he committed to never deny a
speaking role because of fear again. Yet when he entered the field of
Biblical Studies, his goal was still to be a scholar.
Thus,
Piper’s account past this point is the exact opposite of his fellow
writer of The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor Don Carson,
who studied to be a pastor, then became a scholar. Piper started his
life in Biblical Studies intending to become a scholar in the academic
world, but ultimately became a pastor.
As of
now, we have already seen a distinction between the pastor and the
scholar. While Carson would later in the book stress that the scholar
affects more people more superficially, while the pastor would affect
more people deeply. Piper points out that this is inverted when it comes
to knowledge about the text. For the scholar, he will have a few topics
that he covers extensively, while the Pastor will cover many topics
more superficially.
In relation to the impact
among people, Piper would completely agree with Carson. He would
understand that the pastor’s reach by terms of scope is limited, but
that he has a greater opportunity to develop real relationships with
real people. Indeed, he thinks that one of the reasons that the Lord
moved him away from scholarly work is because he would never have been
satisfied with the detached emotional road of scholarly work (and
neither would I).
In contrast to Carson, Piper
stresses the emotional aspects of the pastoral life versus the
scholarly one. Simply, to Piper, it is an extension of developing real
relationships with real people that he will be required to invest far
more emotionally in his congregation than most scholars would even
consider doing for their students.
That is as
good a place as any to start communicating about what Piper views as the
dangers of scholarship. Piper would agree with Carson that a scholar
should invest in people and serve in a ministerial capacity. One of
Piper’s heroes is a man by the name of Dan Fuller who would take hours
to answer student’s questions, researching the answer when he did not
know it. Simply, Mr. Fuller cared about his students and took time to
pastor them to growth. Piper believes this to be a mold that scholars
should follow; however, he fears that many scholars will lose touch of
this valuable emotional connection.
Another
danger that Piper specifically highlights has to do with a great desire
for peer approval. Piper was beginning to notice how many scholarly
articles were written in technical jargon, which greatly impressed other
scholars but left it out of touch with the layman reader. Considering
the role of the scholar is to reach as many people as possible with a
important message, it is counter-intuitive for him to write in language
that could only be understood by a select few. Simply, these scholars
have fallen into what Carson labeled “The seduction of applause,” rather
than actually serving the Lord with the gifts that God has entrusted to
them.
The final danger we shall highlight
here is that Piper believes that it is all too possible for the scholar
to disconnect the study of the gospel from its power and majesty. Since
your job demands that you sit and study the Bible extensively, you can
begin to see your goal to merely understand the Bible perfectly - a
merely academic exercise. But the Bible is supposed to be seen and read
for the purpose of bringing you closer to the Lord. Knowledge about the
Bible only exists to give us a greater appreciation and love for the
Lord our Savior.
The fact that knowledge is
needed for greater appreciation of the Lord is one of the two ways that
Piper views scholarship as specifically relating to his role as a
pastor. A pastor is supposed to engender love for Christ in the lives of
others and naturally have such love himself. However, it is not enough
to love the Lord if you have no grounds for loving Him in the first
place.
Piper here uses the analogy of a guy
who stops you on the street announcing that he is trusting you with all
of his bank account information. If he tells you that he simply saw you
on the street, you would not find his appreciation to be honoring.
Instead, you would find it to be simply blind and irresponsible.
However, if the same event happens, and he tells you that he has been
watching your practices at your job and in your life and has found you
to be a responsible, honorable man, you will feel honored by his trust
in you. (Piper neglects to mention that you will also find this complete
stranger to be a creepy stalker.)
Trust and
honor without cause or rather, without knowledge to verify is blind and
irresponsible. However, trust and honor, backed by knowledge is very
much more pleasing to the Lord.
The other
reason why scholarship is so intrinsically linked to the pastoral life
is that a deeper study is needed for communicating to members of the
congregation. A simple fact of education is that it requires more
understanding to articulate a point than to just have a vague
understanding of the doctrine.
To have learned
in the book of Job that there are more reasons for suffering than
punishment for sin is easy enough, but to communicate why Job
illustrates this fact requires deeper understanding and a deeper
knowledge.
As pastors are called upon to
communicate to the people truths they have learned in God’s word, it is
necessary for them to actually spend time searching the Scripture for a
deeper understanding. Piper describes that as being a scholarly impact
upon the pastorate.
Piper thus
describes a relationship between the pastorate and the scholar that he
believes at times can become too pronounced. At the end of the day,
these discussions about the scholar and the pastor are just extremes
used to demonstrate the different focus that each has. We must remember
that they are not as distinct as our binary mind wants to think.
