A Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion

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I. PREPARATION IN COLLEGE FOR THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY



The value of any study depends chiefly, not on its intrinsic content, but on the content of the student’s mind. What we find in a subject depends on what we bring to it. The horse and his rider look on the same landscape, but they do not see the same things.

Sevetal men may enter on a course of theological study in the same institution at the same time. One brings a philo- sophic mind, trained to the search for truth, alert to all those subtle distinctions in thought that create far-reaching differences in life. Another man brings only a desire to get “sermon outlines” and secure a pulpit. A third brings a sociological training, and finds – or rather seeks – in every creedal formula primarily a means of social uplift. A fourth man brings an intellect stiffened by disuse, and finds in theology a tedious discussion of things that do not count. The theological teacher faces an almost impossible task when he is asked to deal with minds undeveloped, or closed by prejudice, or unfired with any real passion for truth. A prepared student will receive and assimilate more in a single year than a crude mind can admit in many years.

The preparation for theological study may be either indirect and unconscious or direct and intentional. Indirect preparation includes all that we mean by the development of personality, mental growth, spiritual experience. All that goes to make a deeper, richer inner life inevitably makes a more successful student of theology. This unconscious preparation is of value in any calling, but especially in one where all that a man achieves depends absolutely on what he is.
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