By Dr. Bill Wilder

Do you remember watching Sesame Street as a child? I’m thinking of those times in the show when, say, a peach, an apple, an orange, and a potato would be pictured side-by-side as someone sang, “One of these is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you tell me which thing is not like the others, by the time I finish my song?”

That illustration comes to mind, because I’m aware that a rigorous, academic study of the Bible can seem to be as out of place in the spiritual formation of Christians as a potato in a bowl of fruit. This came home to me one day in Nigeria when it came my turn to answer some questions from a man sent out by my missions agency. “What is the nature of your ministry at the seminary?” he asked. “I mainly teach Greek and Hebrew” was my reply. The man was incredulous. “You teach Greek and Hebrew to students planning to be pastors in the bush?” It was clear that he considered such education an immense waste of time. Alongside practical courses like preaching and evangelism and counseling, Greek and Hebrew were a set of courses that just didn’t belong.

I can well imagine a similar response to the requirement in the Trinity Fellows Program to take and pass challenging academic courses in the Bible. Compared with one-on-one mentoring, working through relational issues, direct involvement in ministry or missions, studying theology may simply represent an unwelcome intrusion into the wounding and wonderful labor of building relationships. “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.” Or so it certainly seems.

The first thing to be said, of course, is that such detractors may be right. It is perfectly possible for the study of Scripture to be “out of place”—for such study to lead to the neglect of other obligations in the Christian life. But then again, such disordering is possible for any good gift of God. We may indeed honor study (of theology or anything else) more than we should; I am guilty of it myself. Yet we may also love our friends or our children or our spouses or even our ministry more than we should. Because we are fallen, we tend to love things both more and less than we should. Study of Scripture and theology is not exempt.

So the question isn’t whether it is possible for the rigorous study of Scripture or theology to be misused. Of course, it is. It is no less exempt from our fallenness than, say, our relationships. The question is whether such study, properly used, is necessary for spiritual growth and transformation of God’s people. It seems to me that the answer to that question is yes, for at least two reasons. The first has to do with our growth in understanding of the truth. The second has to do with the role of that understanding in our sanctification. Let’s take these in turn.

First, study of Scripture is necessary because of our distance from the times and places in which God’s Word was first revealed. Put provocatively, we have to study (which may include taking courses) to even begin to approach the level of an ancient Near Eastern or first-century Palestinian peasant. Those things they took for granted—language, cultural conventions, genres, customs peculiar to their cultures—are foreign to us and so must be studied and learned with some effort on our parts.

Indeed, I am quite certain that the missions representative would have affirmed the need for diligent study with respect to understanding the particular people group (the Yoruba) to which we were called. It is commonplace in missions these days to claim that one cannot hope to understand a given people group without a knowledge of their heart language and an appreciation for their cultures, their customs, their stories, their history.

And yet, if this is true (as I think it is), then is it not also true that a deep understanding of Scripture cannot come without the same commitment to the particular times and places (languages, cultures, customs) in which it was revealed? True understanding of anything (people groups, friends, husbands, wives, children, and, yes, the Word of God itself) requires careful attention, even study. Since God has chosen to reveal himself in particular times, places, cultures, and languages, we must attend to the particularities of that revelation in order to understand and know him better.

This leads me to my second point. Study of the Bible is also necessary because of our distance from God’s truth in our fallen minds and hearts. Or, put more positively, study is necessary because the transformation God intends for us is comprehensive: it includes our minds as well as our hearts and actions. If every part of us has been affected by the Fall, every part of us (mind, hearts, bodies) is included within God’s redemptive purposes for creation in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

This total transformation is ultimately a work of the Spirit, of course, but it is not without its struggle on our parts. We are tempted to do the wrong things (actions), to succumb to our feelings and inclinations of the moment (affections and will), to accept a version of reality that denies God’s truth in some way (minds). Sanctification thus involves a transformation of all these aspects of our being (mind included).

Indeed, there’s very little hope of transformation in these other areas apart from a transformed understanding of the world through sustained study of God’s truth. If the substance of Christian obedience comes down to love—of God, fellow human beings, and his world—in both our affections and actions, it is also true that Christian love cannot be divorced from the truth: love is, among other things, “rejoicing in the truth” (1 Cor 13).

Why study then? Because we are created, time-and-space-bound beings who must be alert to the very particular times and places, languages and cultural forms in which God has revealed himself and his truth. Because we’re fallen beings who are being redeemed—not without struggle—in our minds as well as our wills, affections, bodies, world. Because such study is therefore not out of place in a faithful Christian community. It is rather one more appointed means of grace which God deigns to use in his gracious work of transformation in our lives. Diligent study belongs to our vocation as Christians as surely as all that we are belongs to Him. Now that’s worth singing about.

Dr. Bill Wilder is current Director of Educational Ministries at the Center for Christian Study in Charlottesville, Virginia. Besides regularly teaching on a host of Biblically centered and theologically driven classes throughout the year, he is also intimately involved with the education of the Trinity Fellows. Among several things, Dr. Wilder yearns to see a resurgence of “worshipping God with your mind” within the Millenial Generation. You can read more about his work and life here.

By Peter Moore, D.D.

The Fellows Initiative has been diligently working to spread the idea of the fellows program to other churches. In the next year, our programs will double and hopefully the development of leaders who think deeply about their vocation, faith, and culture will follow. Trinity Fellows, and other friends of the program
the one thing I want to say to you — and I actually know a couple of you reasonably well — is that you should dream great dreams. That’s one of the results of Pentecost, that “their young men will see visions, and your sons and daughters will prophesy.” (Acts. 2:17,18)

To me this has always been a challenge to think about what I could do in life that others couldn’t. What unique contribution might I make to the world that would leave it better, and more ready for the Kingdom that is here and coming? It’s led me in many strange directions, and I’ve started more organizations and movements than I probably should. But, the adventure of seeking where the Spirit is leading next has been exciting, and has caused me to have a better understanding of what I could do (and what I shouldn’t do, too) than any other single thought. So, go ahead, and dream. Where would you like to be in 10 years? What would you like to accomplish with your life? These things ought to keep you awake at night — at least for a while.

Peter Moore is the founder and current executive director of FOCUS, an organization devoted to seeing private school students and families come to know the grace of Christ. Peter desires for young people to think about the really big questions: God, life, death, suffering, hope, and relationships. Dr. Moore also serves on the board of the Fellows Initiative and is the former President of the Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Pennsylvania.

By Courtney Carlisle

“I apprehend the essential practical characteristic of true Christians to be this: that relying on the promises to repenting sinners of acceptance through the Redeemer, they have renounced and abjured all other masters, and have cordially and unreservedly devoted themselves to God…. It is now their determined purpose to yield themselves without reserve to the reasonable service of the Rightful Sovereign. They are not their own: their bodily and mental faculties, their natural and acquired endowments, their substance, their authority, their time, their influence, all these they consider as belonging to them…to be consecrated to the honor of God and employed in his service.”

So wrote William Wilberforce in his manifesto, A Practical View…of Real Christianity, in his ongoing efforts to practically apply faith to life and vocation. While he is perhaps best known for his efforts to abolish the slave trade in Britain in the late eighteenth century, Wilberforce was first and foremost a man deeply devoted to Jesus Christ, with core beliefs that became the basis by which he worked to accomplish his cause.

However, without his unique circle of friends, Wilberforce’s goals may not have been realized. This group, the Clapham Sect, began to form after Wilberforce’s first motion for abolition was defeated in 1789. Led by Wilberforce, the group included Parliamentarians Henry Thornton, Charles Grant and Edward Elliot, brother-in-law to William Pitt; William Smith; abolitionist Granville Sharp; former Governor-General of India John Shore (Lord Teignmouth); poet and playwright Hanna More; Reverends Thomas Gisborne and Charles Simeon and more who joined over time. Remarkably, even with the shifting numbers of the group and the widely varying occupations of its members, the Clapham Sect remained committed to its general goals: incorporating their faith into all aspects of life, making family life and friendships clear priorities, and reforming the political and social policies of the British Empire.

Those in the Clapham group were held together not only by their common desire to apply their faith to all areas of their lives, but by their common concern for a variety of moral, religious and social causes, and their strong love and support for each other. It is certain that the fellowship of this group and the important contacts created through its members empowered Wilberforce to throw all his weight behind the mighty task set before him. Indeed, as John Wesley told Wilberforce concerning his unenviable mission, “unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you?”

The love of God and common love for each other significantly strengthened the Clapham Sect’s community. Historian Sir Reginald Coupland wrote, “It was a remarkable fraternity—remarkable above all else, perhaps, in its closeness, its affinity. It not only lived for the most part in one little village; it had one character, one mind, one way of life…They could mostly have been of leisure; but they all devoted their lives to public service. They were what Wilberforce meant by ‘true Christians.’”

The Clapham Sect of course presents an extraordinary model for all Christians to follow in respect to fellowship and community. Gathering together with similar goals to be God’s representatives in all areas of life and to spur one another on, like the members of Clapham, we strive to work together unified in Christ’s love and purposes.

Not only should this be the goal of every church, especially our own, the centrality of the gospel present in the Clapham Sect should be a target aimed for by any discipleship group, Bible study, small group or simply one’s circle of friends. And the group of Trinity Fellows is no exception, as is outlined in the Trinity Fellows Mission Statement: “We affirm that we belong to Christ, and we are committed both to serving others and to pursuing a mission greater than ourselves.”

The 12 of us hail from places across the country, from California to Indiana to Alabama. We represent different personalities, perspectives on life and callings to which we are committed. However, it is our hope that this year as Fellows we have strived to have the resolve of the Clapham Sect: that our faith might overflow into all aspects of our lives, and that the character of our community might reflect Proverbs 27:17, in which “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Like Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, may we all be empowered, by Christ and each other, to go forth valiantly with a mission greater than ourselves.

Courtney Carlisle is a graduate of the 2006 Trinity Fellows Program. As a fellows class, we urge you to learn more about William Wilberforce’s life, leadership, and vocation by attending the movie, “Amazing Grace” currently showing in theaters nationwide.