Andersonville Theological Seminary

Ehud...Ehud..your answers please for the 31 issues???

 

To my fellow Brothers & Sisters in Christ:

I have been watching this thread for the last few weeks and I guess to all of you "scholars", I must be very inadiquite (probably didn't spell that right) but I am a student of Andersonville Theological Seminary. I know when I enrolled into the program that I was not going to have the high-aclaimed "accredited degree" that the secular world desires, but I have learned, I have agreed, and I have disagreed with items within the studies of Andersonville. However, I do not regret this decision I made to attend.

Because I am not proficient in Greek or Hebrew, I don't believe I am any less of a Pastor in spreading the God News, teaching Sunday School, or Discipleship Training. I may never write a book on theology but then again, what is more important: the study of how the people of the Bible ate, splept, and socialized or is it more important to tell others about God's Kingdom, Jesus Christ, and His word. Through many books I read about theology, I found numerous sholars give more their opinion then facts. Just remember (even if you are not KJV) God will reveal His glory to those who seek it.

Weather it is through Andersonville, Covington, Liberty, one of the six Baptist Seminarys or other, or through what ever Bible Translation you choose: God will open Himself up to you.

 

Timothy

If you have read all that I said about Andersonville, you will have seen that I would state a final opinion about Andersonville ONLY after reviewing the objectives, strategies, materials, and evaluation methods done for classes. I have not done that. My hunch is that it is substandard.

You will have seen that I said "IF a school well-prepares one to understand Scripture, then that is a good school whether it be Dallas OR Andersonville!!"

I also think that one can pastor adequately without training in the Biblical languages OR, even in some cases with NO degree!!!

. But IMO would do better with that training.

My issue is not these questions. My issue is with the presumption that the languages cannot help one in understanding what God has written.

IMO languages do help!

God bless you as you study,

Bill G

 

Ehud, oh Ehud, prove your claim in the 48th post on this thread by addressing the 31 issues.

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Off I go now to teach my SS

And yes, I will in my lesson teach this morning why the KJV in 1 Pet 3:19 implies the wrong thing when it says, "preached"!!

And that is your #32 .

Your inspired response is.??

 

I am at the present enrolled in the biblical Studies course. I wouldn't in any sense of the word call it a full blown college course. I think it is a very good structured Bible study. I like the cd lectures. I also like the warren Wiersbe commentary. The only problem I have is the KJVO attitude they have but I can deal with it. I respect their opinion on it the same as I do with people here. I didn't take the course to have any diploma to show or anything like that. I just wanted to go to a different level of study and it covers that.

 

TomVols:// The idea that research doctorates (Ph.D., Th.D.) from evangelical seminaries are just programs filled with people theorizing ways to demean the Word of God is a bromide. Some Ph.D seminars are quite practical in their end. But I know that being critical on spec is an easy way to score cheap points.

A PhD is a doctorate in philosophy. You are supposed to theorize in a PhD - that's the whole point!!! How else would you come up with a thesis topic? Also, the Enlightenment culture and philosophy that comes along with this sort of research degree does demean God's Word.

 

UZThD:// I don't understand why anyone would suppose that academic qualification and godliness are mutually exclusive. Neither do I understand why one who is godly is supposed to be prepared to teach just on that qualification. If one even looks at the Pauline requisites for elders, one sees that education in the apostolic tradition is required.


Spiritual things must be taught by the Holy Spirit. A man must be godly before the Spirit will teach through him. Any Sunday School kid could tell you that!

 

UZThD:// But the apostolic tradition, that is, the New Testament, is an exceedingly difficult subject given that we are distanced from it by language and social changes and a whole lot of doctrinal baggage accumulated over centuries. I think only a know it all sort of pride would allow a different view , ie, that the NT rather is simple to grasp (not saying that's you!)

So, how does mere "godliness" enable one to teach, say, the hypostatic union or Trinal relationships? That is, if one is teaching Christology , how does "godliness" determine whether Alexandrian or Antiochene Christology, or Cyril or Theodoret, had it right.

Or, are Grudem and Dahms or Erickson and Warfield correct that economic Trinal relationships do or do not equal eternal ones?

Or is Hoover's and NT Wright's research or Wallace's and Burk's right that harpagmos in Phil 2:6 or the articulated infinitive there requires that Christ not have or have relational equality with the Father.

Or is Hodge or Chemnitz right about the communication of attributes?


1. (SNIP). It's all simple in the English. Learning the Bible from cover-to-cover in English would solve any of these problems. Compare Scripture with Scripture. Then you will know that monogenes means "only-begotten" - without going to a Greek textbook (SNIP) Father has many sons, but only one is begotten. It really is quite simple!

2. A godly man would teach his flock what God had put on his heart and caused him to understand.

3. I am not saying that a lecturer should not have any sort of learning. I am saying that I prefer to listen to godly men who may not be topflight academics. The top academics have attained those positions by adhering to a culture of education which I believe is inconsistent with walking with God.

4. Please do not assume that Andersonville is the only study I have done. Trying to impress me with your knowledge of Greek, Theology and Church History is not going to work. I have settled upon Andersonville because I have come to despise the higher learning which once fascinated me.

(EDITED DUE TO VIOLATIONS OF RULE 3 and 4)

 

Andersonville A Magnet For Discension

I am replying to the May 2007 question concerning Andersonville Theological Seminary. I've just finished my Masters of Theology there and was very pleased with most of the courses. Many of the courses took about three months to complete while I was a minister at two different Baptist churches. There were a couple of courses that seemed less than professional (it wasn't the material, but the way it was taught), although most were fairly top-notch. The professors that taught these courses could have taught at most any seminary. It's all in how much effort you want to put into your degree. The problem with Andersonville is that it is looked at as a diploma mill. Yet they are constantly changing and updating their programs. What you see written on this board in 2003, 2005 about Andersonville should not be used to evaluate their institution now. The tragedy that I'm seeing is that you will never measure up when it comes to other ministers with "accredited" degrees (you could have 20 "unaccredited" Phd's and still never be considered to have "professional credentials"). I know because someone mentioned this to me just this week. I hope one day this might be resolved, but I doubt it. So, to make a long story short, try as much as possible to get your degree from an accredited school, even if it's just a bachelors and then you will not have to put up with what I have for the past 10 years. Personally you can learn a lot if you will just read the right books. Most of what I've learned in the last 26 years has been from my own studies. And, as I posted last night, your "real" problems in ministering to churches will not be which school you went to (I'll leave this to your imagination). Send me a personal message if you'd like more detailed information). :godisgood:

 

uz-thd #31

(SNIP DUE TO VIOLATION OF RULES 3 and 4 and version issue).

Wow!
question 31. "The Christ Hymn"

(SNIP, violation of RULE 3 and 4).

Is fee right that his view of harpagmon (Robbery) is that of res rapienda or "A thing to be sought after with violent force" creates a separation between “form of God” and “Equal to God” but the natural force of the grammatical construction and the fact paul used a adversative Conjuction “but” to begin v.7 suggests that there is no seperation. No Fee (whoever he is) is wrong. Actually the term

1.RES RAPIENDA: A thing to be sought after with violent force = PREY.
This is the meaning preferred by non-believers of Christ s divinity (INC, JW, Christadelphians & other Subordinationist) almost to a man for it seems to them an opportunity to defend their contention that Christ did not have true equality with God to begin with since He did not covet it. They have the mistaken notion that if something is not coveted or desired then necessarily it is currently not in possession.

Thus, according to them Christ did not consider equality with God a thing to be sought after with violent force.

Answer from the KJV John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

How was that.

Ehud.

 

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I didn't say a teacher should not be a godly man, I sais a teacher should be a godly educated man.

 

(SNIP, quoted edited rules violation)
Alexandrian Christology? Athanasius was Alexandrian. What do you mean by "Alexandrian Christology"?????????


My sort of learning is the kind written and taught and learned by many thousands of devoted servants of God.

(Edit...quoted rule violation) I never made such an attack on this board to any who disagree with me.

You speak so vehemently against your brethren. sad. Thousands of writers, teachers, pastors, translators in the mission field,students hard at work ALL are corrupt because they use the languages in which the Word of God was written.

You are Amazing! Such hatred!


You are saying that "textbooks" that writers as Fee, Feinberg, Moo, Geisler, Machen and Warfield and Lightfoot and Hodge and Ralph Martin and all the others who use textual criticism and exegete the Greek or Hebrew Bible and who contributed to all the lexicons and grammars, systematic theologies and commentaries,

and the saintly men who teach using Greek or Hebrew I have known as House and Derickson, and Cook, and De Young

and all of those I have not known at Dallas and Trinity (ie TEDS) and Masters and Baptist in PA and the half a dozen or so SOuthern Baptist seminaries and those at Bob Jones and Liberty and all the thousands of others who believe they serve God better with the languages are CORRUPT LIBERALS. And so are all their students.

Your wide (snip) brush paints thousands and thousands of good, Christian, devoted men and women as corrupt .

**********I'm a bit surprised that moderators here would accept that tone.

Now where I have seen that method: "Everyone who disagrees with me is evil."

Oh, did you think I was trying to impress you.? huh, uh. The issue is what should seminaries teach, not what impresses you.

***********Would you explain how my views are Alexandrian? IMO, I am more Antiochene. Please explain.

 

(SNIP...edited due to quoting of rule violation).
===

That was Not a bad try! Good effort! Thanks. Only 31 to go. To help me give full attention to your responses on the other 31, please respond one at a time. Thanks.

But I must have confused you.

I didn't dumb it down enough as you say. If you do not understand issues related to the other 31, I'd be happy to explain.

You don't understand Fee's reasoning. Fee is arguing using grammar against that view not for it. [ note: "no separation"]You might actually read Fee sometime before condemning him.

He agrees with you, so he is one of good guys!

Of course, the KJV also says, "the Father is greater than I" (14:28) So, we need to deal with such.

But, did you answer that ONLY using the KJV? Really?

Where does the KJV define harpagmon? That is precisely my point!

We can at least, it seems, agree about one thing: Jesus Christ is God in the fullest sense.

IN my opinion to say that as God, Christ is relationally subordinate is to is say He is essentially subordinate because qualities of God inhere in the essence of God. I think the obedience of Christ occured in His humanity not in His deity.

I am wanting to honor Christ in the way that I think the NT honors Him. I think Paul honored Christ by using Greek, so maybe I can be forgiven for trying to do that? hope you have forgiven Paul and John for that.

I suppose I could try to do that in other ways bthan using languages, but to my thinking I need to answer the arguments advanced by those Evangelicals who, IMO, subordinate the Son. And these arguments are often based on language.

My methodology is to answer their reasons if I can rather than say they all are wrong because they disagree with me.

So, if their reasons are based on linguistics , that is where I try to answer them!

So, if Dahms says monogenes means that the Father gives the Son deity or the divine nature by eternally begetting Him, I try to point out that monogenes cannot mean a birthing or "only begotten" because David 's soul in the Hebrew is yahid (precious, unique) and the Greek equivalent according to educated Jews in the 3rd c BC is monogenes, yahid is translated by monogenes, and neither was Isaac "only begotten", he was instead the UNIQUE son. And neither is that bird birthed which the disciple of Paul calls monogenes.

And if Wallace and Burk say that the Son is not the relational equal of the Father, I respond that harpagmos with hegesata is used idiomatically in the history of that word to mean that the subject has that but does not use it for his own advantage and that the articulated infinitive ""THE to be l does not function always in NT literature to indicate a separation.

I think the method of just saying to those we disagree with, " you're a liberal because you disagree with me " is not efficient or even Christian.

IMO, I am not "correcting" the Bible as IMO the KJV is not the precise equivalent of God's written Word. The KJV was made by scholars who knew and used the languages.

Although much I like the KJV and use it much, I don't know of any place in the KJV where that version is said to be inspired..do you?? HMMMMMMMMMMMM???????????

If you know where the KJV says that it is inspired tell me.

Its translators did not claim that.

BTW, they did not immerse and they subordinated the Son. So, I guess in your view those translators of your Bible are liberals?


re SS: The verb in 1 Pet 3:19 without a qualification never refers to preaching the Gospel.

 

(Edit...quoted material in violation of BB rules)

If you will try a little more to actually answer what I write , not what you THINK I write,

you will see that I did not write "HIS VIEW"!:BangHead:

Greek is not for you as you do not even read English very well.

 

That is a caricature that is not correct. I have been associated with doctoral programs for years. Some of the Godliest defenders of the faith (and practical men in practically focused topics) have been in these programs.

You obviously have no experience at a good seminary's research doctoral program as I have and as many others here have.

 

Moderator's note

UZTHD asked how could a moderator let this slide....we'll, this one isn't. We've gotten way off topic and there have been far too many violations of Baptist Board posting rules. Therefore, this thread is closed.

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