Seminary student Simon writes to ask about how to choose where to serve upon graduation.
Vocation
Who Should Go to Seminary? (1)
Dan writes to ask this question. It’s a good and important question and the answer is in two parts: anyone but not everyone. First, anyone may go to seminary. Since I teach at a seminary and I know how we operate, I’ll . . . Continue reading →
Who Should Go to Seminary? (2)
Part 1. Anyone may go to seminary but not every one should go to seminary. The second part of the answer is who should not go to seminary. Before I continue let me say, for the sake of our current students, that I . . . Continue reading →
Candid Comments for Candidates (2)
Part 1 Thinking through the business of candidating as a seminary student, recent graduate, first-time pastor or a pastor currently without a call is less difficult than the matter of calling a pastor who is currently serving a congregation. The most obvious reason the . . . Continue reading →
Ministers: Servants of God or Man?
Machen explain to the 1934 graduating class of WTS.
Videos Online Now: Christ, Kingdom, and Culture
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The Last Work of a Student or the First of a Scholar?
That slogan puzzled me the first few times I heard it but I think I understand it more clearly now. I was puzzled because the word “scholar” means “student.” It’s a Latin word derived from the noun Schola or school. A scholar . . . Continue reading →
What Is A Seminary?
The question arose on a discussion board as to how a theological seminary relates to C. S. Lewis’ distinction between “education” and “vocational training.” The premise of the question was that one had to choose between the two, relative to a university I . . . Continue reading →
The Inherent Goodness Of Work
One of the casualties of the West’s cultural shift from Christian theism to Deism, and from that to late modern subjectivism (and neo-paganism) is the death of the Christian work ethic. The act of work has been emptied of its intrinsic value. . . . Continue reading →
Messages To Millennials (3): Work
In part 2 we looked at the way, according to a recent Pew Study, Millennials relate to the visible, institutional church. The third major topic is work. As Bradford Wilcox summarizes the results of the study he notes that 80% of those . . . Continue reading →
Three Messages To Millennials: Marriage, Church, And Work
Marriage On March 7, 2014, the Pew Research Center published the results of a new Survey:Millennials in Adulthood. Bradford Wilcox has a summary in the NRO. According to the study, Millennials have become disconnected from some basic institutions: marriage, church, and work—though not . . . Continue reading →
The Reformation Of Vocation
In the period between the early post-apostolic church (e.g., the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD) and the Reformation (beginning in the early 16th century AD) the church came to develop some unbiblical and therefore unhelpful and unhealthy ways of relating creation and . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: From The Pasture To The Pastorate
Office Hours kicks off its 11th season (247 episodes so far) with an interview with our newest faculty member, Dr Craig Troxel. Craig comes to Escondido from Bethel Presbyterian Church (OPC), Wheaton, IL. Prior to that he was pastor Glenside OPC, in . . . Continue reading →
As It Was In The Days Of Noah (28): 2 Peter 1:3–11 (part 4)
The Christian life is not the instrument of salvation. To attempt to make it so is a self-defeating move, since none of us, in this life, shall attain perfect sanctification. Thus, all of us fall short of the mark. This is undeniably true. In that case, we are left to going back to the dog’s breakfast of the late-medieval doctrine of congruent merit, the doctrine rejected by the entire Reformation, that God imputes perfection to our imperfect efforts unto justification and salvation. Continue reading →
Hodge: New Life Is The Work Of The Sovereign Holy Spirit
No amount of mere external evidence can produce genuine faith. The Israelites, who had seen a long succession of wonders in the land of Egypt, who had passed through the divided waters of the Red Sea, who were daily receiving by miracle . . . Continue reading →
A Reformation Doctrine To Be Recovered: Every Christian Has A Vocation
Finally, this point is to be noted: the Lord bids each one of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling [vocatio].8 For he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is borne hither and . . . Continue reading →
Sean Moore: Serving Christ In The Secular Sphere By Serving His Neighbors
Sean Discovers The Reformed Confession
Sean Michael Moore (BA, University of San Diego) is a native of and Mayor-elect of Hollywood Park, TX. He has been a businessman for 25 years and has served as a member of the city council in Hollywood Park. He is married . . . Continue reading →
Christian, Get Involved
One of the more pernicious misrepresentations of the distinction between the eternal and temporal spheres of Christ’s kingdom, which Calvin called the “twofold kingdom” (Institutes, 3.19.15), is that it counsels or leads Christians to withdraw from society (e.g., politics). Nothing could be . . . Continue reading →
Who Should Go to Seminary?
I was once asked a good and important question: who should go to seminary? The answer to this question is in two parts: anyone, but not everyone. First, anyone may go to seminary. Since I teach at a seminary (Westminster Seminary California), . . . Continue reading →
Who Should Not Go To Seminary?
Last time we answered the question: who should go to seminary? The answer was that anyone may go to seminary, but not everyone should go to seminary. Today we will focus on the second part of the answer: who should not go . . . Continue reading →