Why do we study and learn?

Watch, study, give attendance to reading! Verily, you cannot read too well; and what you read well you cannot understand too well; and what you understand well you cannot teach too well; and what you teach well you cannot live too well! . . . It is the devil, it is the world, it is our flesh, that rage and rave against us. Therefore, dear sirs and brethren, pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent! Verily, there is no time for sloth, snoring, and sleeping in this evil, shameful time. Use the gift that has been committed to you and make known the mystery of Christ. -Martin Luther

All people are constantly learning. The question is: What are we learning, and how are we learning it? A day-old infant learns that if he cries he gets fed. At the other end of life, the aged nursing home resident learns by experience what it means to wait on the Lord-to "be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10). All of us are constantly learning.

The same is true for pastors. It isn't a question of whether he will be a "studious" pastor, or a "practical" one. Rather, it is a question of what kinds of things he will be learning. For every day of his life-in conversation, by what he reads, through past times, in all his waking moments-he will be engaged in continuing education.

Most pastors and congregational leaders, at one time or another, have bemoaned the attitude that "confirmation is graduation." Such an attitude leads a person to think he has learned all he needs to know of the Faith by the time he finishes the eighth grade. It leads to the neglect of Bible classes at church, and the neglect of Scripture reading and catechism study at home.

But what is true for catechism instruction is also true for seminary training. Confirmation is not graduation, just as graduation is not the end of theological learning for the pastor. Rather, the seminary is an equipping school. Its purpose is not to fill the student with a specific body of knowledge to last for life, but to fill the student with a thirst for theology, a love for meditation upon God's Word, and the basic tools to continue an entire life of such learning. The rabbis in Jesus' day used to speak of such a man as "an ever-flowing spring" and "a plastered cistern which loses not a drop."

Charles Porterfield Krauth once wrote, "Divine truth is the end of the Church; it is also her means. She lives for it, and she lives by it." Thus the pastor is one whose whole life is devoted to "rightly dividing this word of truth" (2Tim 2:15).

Not to read or study at all is to tempt God. To do nothing but study is to forget the ministry. To study only to glory in one's knowledge is a shameful vanity. To study in search of the means to flatter sinners, a deplorable prevarication. But to store one's mind with the knowledge proper to the saints by study and by prayer, and to diffuse that knowledge in solid instructions, and practical exhortations-this is to be a prudent, zealous, and laborious minister. -Pasquier Quesnel

How do we study and learn?

At night always carry in your heart something from Holy Scriptures to bed with you, meditate upon it like a ruminant animal, and go softly to sleep; but this must not be too much, rather a little that may be well pondered and understood, that you may find a remnant of it in your mind when you rise in the morning. -Martin Luther

Just as important as the motivation for such learning, is also the method used to pursue it. Perhaps the single most important factor is for the pastor to set aside a regular daily time for the study of theology. As with his daily prayer, this should be a quiet, uninterrupted time-perhaps early in the morning or late at night. It need not be long at first; that will adjust itself. Consistency is more important. The reading that the pastor does here should be completely apart from his "must do" studies of preparing for preaching and teaching. Before long he will find that such reading and meditation constantly supplies the fertile soil for a vigorous and rich ministry of the Word.

There are many other opportunities for the Pastor as learner. A reading group (perhaps on the circuit level) can help provide the motivation and discipline for study, while also stimulating theological dialogue. The annual seminary symposia provide the highest level of theological discussion on topics that are relevant for the whole Church. Finally, there is no substitute for the good hard work demanded in a classroom setting.

The Church deserves the best to be her pastors-men who listen to the questions that are being asked, who are sensitive to the challenges and needs of their people, and then continue to learn theology in order to proclaim the truth of God's Word afresh to each new context in which they serve.

Let us go forth now with the minister, who has the "mind of Christ", into that most sacred place, the study. Here is to be enjoyed a sweet and blessed fellowship with all that ennobles character and life. The best of thoughts of the wisest and best men are the environment of the study, in the books that line the walls . . . Men who are to move their fellow men must often be alone. Meditation precedes effective activity . . . Even Jesus of Nazareth, who had no where to lay his head, converted the hillsides into a study after sleep had fallen upon the world. Whatever else you neglect, do not neglect the opportunities of communion in the study. If they are improved, you will come from them with a radiance upon your countenance, which will convince men that you have been with God. -Henry M. Booth