Would a theology degree help me to regularly study the Bible?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1994.

The solution to the problem seems to me to be not necessarily simple. For some people a degree programme in theology at some Bible college or university does seem to provide a solution; but in my experience it does not necessarily and always satisfy completely the desires that motivated it. Degree courses can—and do generally—supply an enormous amount of factual knowledge, both about the background of the biblical books and the books themselves. The danger is that such courses do not always improve the spirituality of those who take them; nor do they necessarily communicate that depth of spiritual insight which enables the student eventually to communicate not only knowledge but the sense of the wonder and wealth of God that the biblical text ought always to convey to its hearers.

All biblical study to be profitable must be practical; so that if we become mere theorists we are perverting to some extent God's revelation. On the other hand, it seems to me that we need to define very carefully what we mean by 'practical' in this context. It is so frequently used to denote what I call the 'grindingly practical', that is to say, a preacher or teacher is not regarded as being practical unless the major part of his sermon is concerned with duties to widows and orphans, plus frequent exhortations to carry a smiling face, otherwise people won't realize that they are Christians at all! By that definition of the term 'practical', it is easy to see that some two-thirds of the Bible is not practical in that sense of the term. And that shows, of course, that it is our definition of the term that is at fault, otherwise we should have to accuse almighty God of having written a large volume, the most of which fails to be practical, and which therefore is of little use, if not positively injurious to the majority of the people of God.

So let us think again. Those passages of Scripture that talk about the necessity of the new birth are not teaching us practical ethics; but are they not practical in a much more profound and important sense? Those passages of Scripture that feed our spirits and our imaginations, as well as our intellects, with the glory and majesty and wealth of God, will often do more to feed a person's faith, to maintain him or her in times of stress and temptation, and to enrich people with a sense of wealth in their hearts that makes it easier for them to feel that they can afford to forgive others who have trespassed against them. Is that kind of thing not hugely practical?

And then another consideration. All too often our desire to be practical sends us to the word of God with our own agenda: we are looking for solutions to our problems. And that is very wise and helpful because the Bible does eventually have solutions to our problems. But if that is our only or predominant approach to Scripture, we are in danger of reducing the Bible to the same status as the manual on car maintenance that is supplied by the car firm along with our new car. Such manuals are practical indeed. When anything goes wrong with my car I get the book out and read it—sometimes feverishly, but I would have to confess to you that, unless the car goes wrong, I don't read it and have no intention of reading it; it is very dull stuff. I fear that many people treat the Bible in the same way. It is a book that solves our problems; but if the Bible were merely such a book it would not go very far towards developing our friendship with almighty God.

The Bible is God's conversation with us; and, when we come to hold conversation with the Almighty, it borders on impertinence if we demand every time to set the topic of the conversation and insist on God limiting his talk to those matters that are for us of practical importance. If we do so, it means that there are large acres of material in the Historical Books and in the Major Prophets that God cannot use to speak to us at all, simply because they are not immediately practical in the narrow sense of that term. Both reverence and common sense would suggest that when we come to talk to the Almighty, and he with us, on the majority of occasions we should let God himself set the topic of the conversation, and if for the moment what he talks about stretches our intellect or goes completely above our heads, then that is an exceedingly good thing: it will help to get us out of the nursery. On the other hand, if we let our little interests dominate the conversation, we shall remain very little, both in spiritual stature and in outlook. We shall be tied to the nursery floor.

But then, of course, large tracts of the Old Testament—and some of the New as well—are confessedly very difficult. At least they are so in my experience. One has to come at them with determination to believe that they are God's word, and that if God opened the heavens and talked to us directly, he would say no other than what he says in these difficult tracts of Scripture; and therefore it is worthwhile spending long hours and much energy on trying to understand exactly what it is that God is saying, and why it is important that we should know it.

We must be prepared to do this even though, when the light dawns and it begins to make sense, we still cannot see how on earth you would start preaching it to an ordinary congregation. Of course, bearing in mind the limitation that strong meat cannot be fed to babies, we must persevere in our waiting upon God and in our study of his word until fuller understanding of it shows us what its eventual application to us and our congregations should be. The danger here is that the pressures of life demand of us that we must get quick sermons out of Scripture—or else fall upon the aforementioned criticism that we are not being practical. But this pressure can lead us to draw superficial, moralistic interpretations from the text that were never the intention of the text itself to preach.

I think, by way of example, of the multitudes of sermons that have been preached about the Gibeonites in Joshua 9, which have drawn the lesson that the Gibeonites were unmitigated scoundrels for deceiving Israel, and that the Israelites committed a disastrous offence against God by steaming ahead without asking God's guidance and making a covenant with the Gibeonites, which is supposed to have brought on them spiritual embarrassment and distress for many subsequent centuries. More patient consideration of this passage in the context of the book as a whole shows of course, that this much preached application of Joshua 9 is way off the mark. The fact that God eventually himself intervened to save the Gibeonites shows that God always intended from the very beginning to save the Gibeonites. The idea that God wanted the Gibeonites destroyed, and was then put out and irritated severely because Israel stupidly made a covenant with them that guaranteed them salvation, so that God sat up in his heaven saying to himself 'Look what those stupid Israelites have done, without consulting me. I wanted to destroy the Gibeonites, and now the Israelites, in my name, have sworn a covenant with them, and I am obliged to save them against my own will and intention.'

All this, of course, would be nonsense, bordering on irreverence; but it shows that the aforesaid practical moralistic interpretation of this chapter is not what the Holy Spirit intended when he wrote the book.

Now, where does all this leave us? I am not sure that I know! Rigorous amassing and learning of the biblical facts and background, such as is offered in many a Bible college is, of course, very useful. It should not be despised. On the other hand, theological courses in Bible colleges and universities will never satisfy you completely—perhaps they never set out to do that anyway—and they are not renowned for helping their students to hear the voice of the living God in Scripture. Their courses are didactic more than they are prophetic. What to advise you, I scarcely know.

Yours truly,