Showing your underwear or lack of it

A good preacher knows that exegesis is like underwear – the congregation would like you to have it, but they don’t want to see it. Andrew Rogers at Deep Church (picture of Melora Creager of Rasputina, goth cello group)

Is theological education a good thing? Yes and No. I had a fascinating conversation Monday evening. One of my mentees talked about a church home study group who handed out 1 Enoch, learned to write it in Hebrew and what were they studying? Can you guess? ...the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

I believe all forms of theological education can be problematic when underwear becomes visible in preaching or study group leading or whatever. There are a number of issues.

Theological education can be a good regulator. Thus someone with training will be cautious to avoid misleading and heretical statements and conclusions, i.e. they know what they believe. This person also understands why they believe and have faith and can give a good account. Unfortunately often people rely on commentaries rather than do the serious work of prayer and careful study themselves. They need fresh underwear! They need to answer the question What does this Bible passage have to say to me personally?

But another person with the same education may in fact have an expert mentality and feel a level of intellectual superiority. They lack intellectual humility because a truly educated person recognizes how much they don't know. People here like to exert power and authority over others and careful listening to them often reveals weak doctrine or heresy. The Bible passage becomes a weapon or tool of coercion of the leader or preacher.

Yet a third version of this person feels everyone should benefit in detail from this education and therefore receive all this knowledge in excess. The underwear goes on full display. Sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and to display it is even more so. The leader or preacher's basic knowledge in fact is only basic. Sometimes this appears as making thing overly simplistic so much that the paradoxes of faith disappear.e.g. God is sovereign but what about human responsibility and action, Jesus was both human and God, etc.

There is one final scenario where things resemble the Emperor's new clothes' story and everything is thrown out the window. Hopefully someone in the crowd has courage to notice they are totally naked and say something about it. This person abandons their education, forgets what was learned and uses others materials and does not do the work of exegesis nor prayer and careful study.

How do I know about this? Cos I've been all these versions/distractions. What does preaching or teaching or Bible study really involve. Well I think important that the preacher, leader etc wear underwear i.e. do the necessary work but as Rogers suggests showing it is not necessary. Well then what is speaking about the Bible all about? Firstly, I think it is important that the people meet with the text. Secondly they need to understand it within what it simply says and thirdly, they should have a context for them to live it out. But the final ultimate goal is not meeting nor analyzing the text nor its historical context but deepening a relationship with God i.e. growing spiritually.