The Pastor as a Theologian, Part 2
By Rev. Dan Thompson, Ph.D.

I didn’t set out to become a theologian.  I didn’t even set out to become a pastor.  I grew up in a Christian family, attending church every Sunday and hearing the Bible read to me by my parents, but I wasn’t all that interested in understanding the Bible. I went to church and listened to my father read the Bible because that’s what I was supposed to do. I didn’t have any reason to disbelieve what I was taught.  I accepted it.  I thought I understood it.  I knew the basic message of the Bible and believed that I was a Christian.

When it came time to leave home and go to college, my desire was to study music and become a professional musician. I was young, and my parents, probably sensing something of my distance from a real relationship with God, asked me to attend a Bible college for one year, after which, they said, I could go to whatever music school I wanted to pursue. I agreed to that request, and chose a Bible college in Chicago, Illinois, where I could also begin to pursue musical studies. During that first year of college, I found myself in Bible classes with teachers who loved Jesus and loved the Bible, but interpreted the Bible in a way that was very different than the way I had heard it taught when I was growing up. I didn’t understand the theological views from [...]