Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

scholarship

Three Reflections on Being a Pastor and a Professor

by

My school just published this short article:

Naselli, Andrew David. “Three Reflections on Being a Pastor and a Professor.” Bethlehem College and Seminary, 16 August 2024.

I expand on these three reflections:

  1. It is helpful to lay out a spectrum of six options for being a pastor or professor.
  2. It is good for seminary professors to be pastors as they train pastors.
  3. Pastor-professors labor to build up Christ’s church.

Related:

3 Reflections on Evangelical Academic Publishing

by

This morning the latest issue of Themelios released.

It includes an article I wrote entitled “Three Reflections on Evangelical Academic Publishing” (web version | PDF).

It’s the most personal essay I’ve written.

Here’s the abstract:

In light of John A. D’Elia’s A Place at the Table and Stanley E. Porter’s Inking the Deal, this article shares three reflections on evangelical academic publishing.

Ladd inking

(1) Evangelical scholarship is a gift to evangelicals for which they should be grateful.

(2) Evangelical academics should aim to be academically responsible more than being academically respectable.

(3) Evangelical scholarship is ultimately about glorifying God by serving Christ’s church.

Related:

  1. Kevin DeYoung, “7 Ways Christian Academics Can Be Truly Christian“
  2. Dane Ortlund, “Reflections on Christian Publishing“

Thank God for Gifted Professors and Students

by

There’s almost always at least one person who is more gifted than you are at something.

  • It may tempt you to be sinfully discontent with your gifts and jealous of others.
  • It may fuel godly ambition.
  • It may fuel humility and thankfulness.

Would you believe that this happens in seminary—where people are taking classes about the Bible and theology?

It does. [Read more…] about Thank God for Gifted Professors and Students

Thank God for Biblical Scholars Who Write for Lay People

by

Ben Witherington III, Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 83–84:

[excerpt from ch. 7: “The Write Stuff: The Ability to Research and Write”]

Unfortunately, we live in a culture of “experts” where expertise is revered; sadly, people’s egos get bound up in the desire to be a “world’s leading authority in X.” The expert too often feels it is enough to do pure research. He has no need to distill things for the masses; that’s beneath his dignity and pay scale. It is enough to live in one’s head and to talk only to other equally heady folk in the same field.

Whatever the merits of this approach to research in other fields, a Christian who is a Bible teacher or scholar should never take such an approach. Never! Research by a Christian is never done just for its own sake, or even just to advance knowledge in a given field. It is done in service to the Lord and to his church. I must confess I am sometimes baffled by some Christian NT scholars who are perfectly content to just talk to small circles of like-minded experts without any sense of responsibility to share their knowledge with a broader audience—indeed with the church.

Cf. this chapter:

D. A. Carson, “The Scholar as Pastor,” in The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry (ed. David Mathis and Owen Strachan; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 71–106.

It’s based on this talk from this event:

Professors Who Can’t Teach

by

Ben Witherington III, Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 113:

[excerpt from ch. 9: “Honing Your Rhetoric: The Ability to Lecture and Teach”]

Learning Is Not Enough for Good Lecturing

Sadly, some Christian teachers ought not to be teachers, but because there are so few pure research professors in biblical studies or in any sort of Christian studies, these folks become teachers by default. Some of them can’t lecture their way out of a paper bag. I had a teacher like this in college. The running joke was that the difference between this teacher and the textbook was that the textbook didn’t mumble or stutter. As cruel as that joke may seem, it was an accurate assessment of this poor man’s attempt to teach. He couldn’t explain anything. He just kept quoting the textbook.

Tragically, too few Bible teachers or scholars have had any training in pedagogy, much less in Christian education. Furthermore, they have never even been taught the rudiments of good communication.

Pastor-Scholars and Scholar-Pastors

by

John Piper and D. A. Carson teamed up on April 23, 2009 to address “The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor.”

(I live-blogged the event, and audio, video, and manuscripts are available.)

Now it’s been updated as a 124-page book:

John Piper and D. A. Carson. The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry. Edited by Owen Strachan and David Mathis. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.

 

 

Popular Evangelical Scholarship in the Public Square

by

Craig L. Blomberg, “New Testament Studies in North America,” in Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century; Essays in Honor of D. A. Carson at the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (ed. Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert W. Yarbrough; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 281–82 (bullet points added):

Fortunately North American evangelical scholarship on all of these issues is likewise flourishing; if only it could become as well known in the public square as some of the more avant-garde work just noted!

  • Craig Evans , Darrell Bock, and Ben Witherington, in particular, have published widely and also sought out the necessary media attention to spread their views to those who don’t read (or at least who don’t read their works).
  • Bock’s debunking of the Da Vinci Code fiction about Christian origins has sold more than all of his other books put together .
  • Dan Wallace and several coauthors have repeatedly set Ehrman’s textual criticism and other claims in their proper, larger contexts,
  • while Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd, Rob Bowman and Ed Komoszewski , Wayne House, Mark Roberts , and the immensely successful popularizer Lee Strobel have all offered important, accessible rebuttals to the misinformation widely circulating on the formation of the canon, the reliability of the Gospels, and the nature of Jesus.
  • I have continued to pursue my interests in several of these areas as well .