The level of literacy of the human race is steadily and rapidly rising. If the Seventh-day Adventist preacher is to carry the message of salvation to this generation, his training and consecration must rise to meet the demands of the time.
The time was when men became medical practitioners after a brief period of apprenticeship with a successful doctor and little or no actual training in school. But gradually, as the years passed, professional training for doctors of medicine has been extended until now the normal course of medical training includes a full college curriculum of four years, plus four years of medical curriculum, plus one year of internship in a hospital—a minimum of nine years after academy or high school.
But how has it been with the Seventh-day Adventist minister of the gospel? Until a comparatively recent date he was permitted to enter the gospel ministry without a college education. Later he was required to finish the college curriculum before beginning his ministerial work, and only recently has the requirement been raised to include a fifth year of training at the graduate level in the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary before he enters the field as an intern.
While the physician of the body must take eight years of training after finishing high school before he enters his internship, the physician of the soul is required to take only five years before he becomes a ministerial intern. Despite this discrepancy between the training given the medical evangelist and the pastoral evangelist of the soul, we may be very happy over the advanced steps taken to train a more efficient Seventh-day Adventist ministry.
There is still greater cause for rejoicing when we note how many of our ministerial workers are realizing the value of more than five years of ministerial training. These brethren are qualifying for the Bachelor of Divinity degree, which is attained at the close of a three-year curriculum of graduate studies in the Seminary.
Where are these Bachelor of Divinity graduates? The following current service record of the nineteen men who have taken the Bachelor of Divinity degree from 1950 to 1955 inclusive shows that the well-trained Seventh-day Adventist minister has ample opportunity for service. The field needs him.
One of the first graduates of the Bachelor of Divinity curriculum (1950) is president of a senior Seventh-day Adventist college in North America.
Six graduates are professors or instructors of Bible and religion, Biblical languages, practical theology, and religious education in senior colleges in North America and abroad. One is in the Northern European Division, one in the Southern African Division, and four in the North American Division.
Three graduates are teaching religious and allied subjects at the graduate level, two as professors in the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, and one as assistant professor at the College of Medical Evangelists.
One is a Bible teacher in a South American training school, one an instructor in the Home Study Institute, and another a school principal in a local North American conference.
Two are chaplains in the United States Air Force, and one is a medical laboratory technician in a Federal hospital. One is a minister in a Canadian conference, one a ministerial intern in the Oklahoma Conference, and one a retired minister serving in a local district.
Of the May, 1956, graduates from the divinity curriculum, one is teaching Bible and allied subjects at our college in Argentina, one is pastor of a large metropolitan church in the Columbia Union, one is a chaplain in the United States Air Force, one is a pastor in the Pacific Union, and one has begun his ministerial internship in the New Jersey Conference. These men are conscious of the challenge of the following counsel of the servant of the Lord:
Everyone should feel that there rests upon him an obligation to reach the height of intellectual greatness. While none should be puffed up because of the knowledge they have acquired, it is the privilege of all to enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that with every advance step they are rendered more capable of honoring and glorifying God. They may draw from an inexhaustible fountain, the Source of all wisdom and knowledge.—Gospel Workers, p. 279.
In the attainment of a perfect Christian character, the culture of the intellect is necessary, in order that we may understand the revelation of the will of God to us. This cannot be neglected by those who are obedient to God's commandments. In our intellectual faculties, we possess God's endowment.—The Signs of the Times, Nov. 5, 1896.
Mistakes have been made in not seeking to reach ministers and the higher classes with the truth. People not of our faith have been shunned altogether too much. While we should not associate with them to receive their mold, there are honest ones everywhere for whom we should labor cautiously, wisely, and intelligently, full of love for their souls. . . . We have had altogether too much talk about coming down to the common mind. God wants men of talent and good minds, who can weigh arguments, men who will dig for the truth as for hid treasures. These men will be able to reach, not only the common, but the better classes. Such men will ever be students of the Bible, fully alive to the sacredness of the responsibilities resting upon them.—Testimonies, vol. 5, pp. 580, 581.
(Other excellent statements from the servant of the Lord will be found in the Counsel section, page 15.)
