It would be great if Peter preached more, wrote more, and archbished less. In fact, how great it would be if he were back at Moore College; not necessarily as principal, just speaking and teaching theological stuff.
It's a humble job, of course, to be a theologian, whereas to be an Archbishop is to be a prince of the church. Tony Payne compares the job of theologizing to being a sewage worker [edit: originally, Jim Packer—see comments], whose task is to make sure that once the brown stuff generated by humans hits the ocean, it's pretty much been cleaned up. It's a dirty, inglorious job they have, but true health depends on it.
Others want to glorify the job of theologian in deeper and profounder ways, turning them into mystics, magicians and wise people teaching the rest of us poor saps how we ought to be thinking about God—a sort of real life 'Defence against Dark Arts', where the poor students hope that they can pick up enough to save them from bad stuff.
But:
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.
That's all we little ones need in the way of theology, and if the academic theologians are doing their work well, we won't really notice that anything else is going on.
6 comments:
I think the 'theologian wading through sewage to give the church clean drinking water' illustration is JI Packer Knowing God (intro?)
As to Defence of the Dark Arts - what are the chances of getting you & Michael Jensen together for a cage fight? Let's settle this thing.
Michael
Settle, separate, or stalemate if we were thinking of a cagefight, which is an interesting thought.
OR continuing to argue a view, praying, and seeing what God decides.
So Payne stole it eh?
Not the first time, surely not the last.
I only know cause I've stolen it for years myself.
Great image isn't it. It even sounds like the something an Australian would have come up with
Michael
well, I'm right outside all those circles, and sometimes hang around the edge of discussions wondering if I should know what "modalist" means, and if I am one.
Should I? Or is life too short and too urgent? Today is, anyway.
Being a Gen Q (we're techno-savvy, but a bit slow sometimes on account of the fact that we see with our elbows and hear with our fingernails), I was just about to get on and disavow ownership of the sewage analogy, but y'all have beaten me to it.
Yes of course it's Packer, a fact that I always mention, as in "I think it's Packer who says that …". But such remembrances are no doubt lost somewhere in the planet-sized brain of the Cheng.
So I'm not a thief. When you say who've stolen it from you can call it research I think.
TP
If I did cite the illustrations I've stolen my sermons would be getting even longer.
Anyone who knows me will know I'm not clever enough to think up half of them
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