In the preface to DA Carson's Jesus Confrontation with the World Carson tells of how he was going to spend an academic year in Cambridge on sabbatical and ended up spending the first six weeks filling the pulpit of a local church. He writes, "...I am deeply persuaded that those whose privilege and responsibility it is to study the Scriptures owe the church whatever help we can give at the popular level, quite apart from the responsibility of producing work that attempts to influence teachers and scholars. If the purpose of my sabbatical was to complete a syntactical concordance to the Greek New Testament, there needed to be space as well for something that served the church more immediately."
Do you feel the same way?
What is your view of the church?
2 comments:
Here's a paraphrase of something John Goldingay once said in class: "There is no use bringing up critical issues to laypeople, unless you can bring some answers and show that wrestling with the question and holding a critical position hasn't destroyed your faith." not exactly what you are looking for, but I think he for one would agree that being a biblical scholar is for the Church.
Anthony, you answered like a true scholar: by quoting another scholar. It is an interesting insight, but you are right, it doesn't really answer the question.
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