{"id":813,"date":"2009-05-26T09:53:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T14:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2009\/05\/26\/academic-folly\/"},"modified":"2009-05-26T09:53:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-26T14:53:00","slug":"academic-folly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/26\/academic-folly\/","title":{"rendered":"Academic Folly"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world of biblical studies is, unfortunately, not filled by people seeking to do God’s will for God’s glory.  What is most disappointing to me is to see this among evangelicals.  This is not a new problem, as illustrated by this letter by John Newton<\/a> (1725-1807), circulated by GraceGems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Dear friend,<\/p>\n

I truly pity those who rise early and study late\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwith no higher prize and prospect in view, than the obtaining of academic honors! <\/i>Such pursuits will before long appear (as they really are) as vain as the foolish games of children!<\/i> May the Lord impress them with the noble ambition of living to and for Him. If these scholars, who are laboring for pebbles<\/i> under the semblance of goodly pearls<\/i>, had a discovery of the Pearl of great price<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhow quickly and gladly would they lay down their admired attainments<\/i>, and become fools\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat they might be truly wise! Their academic studies<\/b>, if taken in the aggregate, are little better than splendid trifles! <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Friend, what a snare have you escaped! <\/i>You would have been nothing but a scholar<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhad not God visited your heart and enlightened you by His grace! Now I trust you account your former academic gains<\/i>, but loss\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcompared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus. What you have attained in the way of learning<\/i>, will be useful to you\u00e2\u20ac\u201dif sanctified, and chiefly so by the knowledge which you have of its insufficiency <\/i>to any valuable purpose in the great concerns of life\u00e2\u20ac\u201dknowing God and walking with Him!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You can spend all your life studying, teaching, and writing about the Bible and yet have wasted your life.  <\/p>\n

A professor at Southeastern Seminary has struggled with the “Danger of Seeking the Acclaim of the Academy<\/a>” and gives some specific counsel in that regard.<\/p>\n

This brings to mind Eta Linnemann, considered by the guild to be a first-rate New Testament scholar. Yet when she was saved<\/a>, she recognized that her scholarship was all rubbish.  She passed away<\/a> a couple of weeks ago, but as her very existence was a stinging rebuke to so many who consider themselves religious, some notices of her passing were less than kind.  She is, no doubt, now receiving the praise of her heavenly Father, which far surpasses the highest accolades of man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world of biblical studies is, unfortunately, not filled by people seeking to do God’s will for God’s glory.  What is most disappointing to me is to see this among evangelicals.  This is not a new problem, as illustrated by this letter by John Newton (1725-1807), circulated by GraceGems. Dear friend, I truly pity those\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}