The challenge for seminaries, as they serve the Body of Christ, is to enable pastors and educators to join the members of the Body of Christ in discovering how to listen to what Chrst is saying in their midst. The heart of a pastor’s task is not in what s/he brings to the congregation but in what the pastor and congregation hear together.
It is in the Body of Christ, not in books no matter how insightful, that Christ addresses the faithful. This requires skills in listening to God through Christ that the seminary can and should offer, but the focus is still the congregation. The task of exegesis is a form of listening which relates to how to exegete Scripture and how to exegete the continuing revelation in the Body of Christ.
A part of seminary training would certainly include learning how to listen for the Word of God as we study church history. What has God been saying in the unfolding of the story of the church? How does Christ address us as we listen to that history? Listening to God through reflecting on church history prepares us to listen to God in the present. The pattern of God’s work in history sensitizes us in how to read the history of a local congregation and hear the whispers of God there as well.
The revolution that has occurred in Scriptural studies in the past several decades has been the reintroduction of the laity into the study of the Scriptures. Certainly church history should have suggested to us that whenever the Scriptures are shut off from the laity, the revelation of God suffers. The “base communities” in Latin America and elsewhere have reminded us again of the power of Scripture when it is released into the hands of the people of God.
Effective seminary training will prepare pastors to release laity in more effective Bible study so that they might learn to listen to how Christ is addressing them in the community of faith. Biblical scholars have long suggested that to clearly understand the writings of Paul, one must understand the context of each church to whom he wrote. Paul was not writing universal truths but bringing his understanding of the Gospel to bear on specific situations.
The same challenge confronts us within the many congregations that we serve. Each has its specific situation and challenges and God’s call is evidenced in different ways in different congregations. While the Gospel is universal, it reveals itself in the concrete lives of specific congregations. It is by listening to and reminding the people of a congregation of their own history that we learn to discern signs of obedience and disobedience as well as the revealing of the Word of God.
