An (Unintentional) Introduction

Within the span of a few days, I ran across two media, one by TEDS‘ very own Kevin Vanhoozer and another by Michael Kruger over at RTS, both addressing this idea of a pastor-scholar (or vice versa).

This topic of pastor as scholar is particularly interesting to me because I originally wanted to go into academia but have since change my plans and now desire to go into pastoral ministry. I suppose my reasons for shifting directions are more complex than I will explain here in this paragraph (see this post for further elaboration). But in short– My reasons for doing so are not that my concern for scholarly or “deep things” has somehow lessened over time or that I value such things to a lesser degree than I once did. Hardly. If anything my concern to become more studied has increased now that I want to be a pastor and feel the weight and breadth of that task. Nor is this because I now have become more of a “people person” (if you know me well, you might laugh at the thought of that) or more pastoral or that I now value pastoral matters more than I once did. Hardly. When I wanted to be a professor, that was what I wanted to do primarily. That is, that’s what I wanted to do to make a living. And I wanted to serve in the church as a lay elder-pastor. Now I just want to be a pastor as my primary “gig.”

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