10 Reasons not to go to Bible College
Ten Reasons not to go to Bible College
Institutions termed as seminaries would also be included here.
One) They tend to promote a cookie cutter approach to Christianity and Christian ministry.
The Bible college and seminary system is a mass assembly line for producing Christian ministers which is not derived from the Bible. It also inherently promotes a narrative which props up this wicked assembly line and implicitly states that “THIS is the way that a Christian minister MUST be formed.” Anyone not formed in this way is looked upon as an alien by those who are produced from this assembly line in spite of the fact that, from everything which we can know, from the Bible, its examples of faithful men and its own inspired writers were not formed this way. The faithful men in the Bible did not operate according to this assembly line process. Think of John the Baptist and Jesus who never even preached publicly until they were thirty years old. There was an assembly line process in those days of producing spiritual leaders in Judaism. And those who had gone through that process, and those who were most attached to that process, were the quickest to discount, reject, and oppose them (and Jesus’ Apostles).
Many go to Bible college or seminary because they operate on, or relent to, a false narrative. There is no quick fix for a Christian spiritual education and ministry training. Two or four or eight years is not a magical time frame for adequate preparation.
In a way, a thorough Bible knowledge and sound enough discernment to lead and train others without guidance from another might take at least twenty years of diligent Bible study and faithful Christian experience to attain (maybe ten or fifteen years in favorable circumstances; maybe thirty or forty in less favorable circumstances). Regardless, obedience over much time and overall experience are keys to this attainment.
In another way, one month is enough preparation to evangelize and to exhort within a fellowship for someone who has surrendered to the Lord, is eager to learn from a faithful and knowledgeable man, and has such a faithful and knowledgeable man to guide him.
Two) Modern Bible colleges and seminaries tend to promote compromise and pragmatism. If not in other ways (though very likely in other ways too), at least by the narrative which they operate on.
Modern Christendom awards compromise in a similar way that the political system rewards compromise. If a man can be an eloquent and intelligent sounding speaker with charisma, he can typically gain a following- as long as he doesn’t actually deal accurately with the spiritual state of his group and those in it who follow him. It’s actually important for Bible preachers and teachers to not sound more eloquent nor intelligent than necessary (2 Corinthians chapter 4 and 1 Corinthians chapter 2 elaborate on this). Many gravitate towards unnecessarily dramatic talk. The priorities and values of those who so gravitate are wrong. Their hearts are filled with sin- which would be proven if someone were to hold them Biblically accountable. They look for preachers and environments which will gratify them and make them feel spiritual in Jesus’ name, but they don’t actually want the Lord’s Word (Jesus is Lord) to reign over them. The congregants are drawn towards the professional speakers who are hired by churches (hirelings) hoping to draw in a crowd which will keep the church afloat and bolster its income.
This is also why the Purpose Driven and Seeker Sensitive churches are so evil and misleading. One has a good chance of building a sizable church if they will make church exciting and/or intellectually stimulating enough without actually soberly addressing reality so that it practically hits home to their hearers. Most churches are filled with people who would quickly leave if Biblical truth were taught without compromise and applied faithfully to the people and circumstances of those present in the church. The vast majority of those leading and running the Purpose Driven and Seeker Sensitive churches are products of Bible colleges and seminaries.
Preaching against sin in general in a church, and sin prevalent in other churches, means nothing when sin is tolerated right in the midst of the church and Biblical standards aren’t enforced there. This very day, many churches have talked about the sin related to the Super Bowl- while many in the church will partake of the festivities of the Super Bowl (and that is if the church even exposes and rebukes the sins of the Super Bowl at all- and probably the vast majority won’t even do that).
And another devastating result of the compromise and pragmatism inherent in the typical Bible college narrative and mode of operation is that men who have built big churches are held up as standards of Christian ministry whom it is considered evil to point out as wolves in sheep’s clothing- even when the evidence of that is overwhelming. It is even considered heresy practically to even say they are wrong about anything significant or to even second guess their stance in something significant.
Who would want to hold onto a church where they’d (the people in it) turn against you for preaching the whole counsel of God and/or pointing out their incompatibility with the sound living that the whole counsel of God demands ? Compromisers who use church as a means of gaining a name, a reputation, an income, and/or a secure social network surely do. And they are often Bible college products operating, not contrary to, but according to, their Bible college education.
In relation to the inherent promotion of pragmatism (which is the norm in the Bible college mentality and mode of operation, not the exception) co-ed Bible colleges and seminaries also tend to be mate finding centers. And because of the mass assembly line narrative inherent in the Bible college system, the students at co-ed Bible colleges tend to be highly hormonal 18 to 26 year olds. Come on! Besides inviting fornication, they are inviting prospective students to come based upon what they can get for themselves. That is not a good environment for discipleship, especially if someone’s life of service to the Lord were to be entirely dependent on two or four years of study at school. Yet people’s lives and eternal salvation are indeed dependent on the track that they get on and follow. The right way in Christ is painful and complicated enough without this trap of pragmatism to be a stumbling-block there for them. I am not promoting secular Universities, yet a Christian young person could be spiritually safer at one in spite of the many varieties of filthiness which abound at them. If finding a mate is not a factor in them being there, and there is no great expectation that they will find a mate there, they at least have a better chance of not diluting their Christianity with the filthiness of pragmatism (but I am not recommending anyone go to a secular university either- just get my point).
If you think you need a church, a spouse, and/or credibility and congratulations from certain people which you think you’ll get at a Bible college (and which graduation from a Bible college does involve to some extent), then you especially should not be getting a degree from a Bible college- even if there are a few out there otherwise perhaps worth attending. Don’t be double minded. Deny yourself the pursuit of carnal satisfaction that is influencing you. You’ve got to crucify that, not feed it.
Today, it is mixing getting a Bible education with being at a place you think you need to be to obtain a church, a reputation, a wife. Down the road it will be marrying homosexuals (and/or yoking with churches and pastors who do), or not reporting and excommunicating a predator within your church so you don’t lose your income and reputation as a paid pastor. You wonder why so many pastors have caved into stuff like that. It is likely because they conditioned themselves to take the easy road from at least the time they went to Bible college. The modern religious system taught them by implication that serving God and things like career advancement, and the overall pursuit of earthly happiness, are roads that can be walked down simultaneously. When people wonder what has gone wrong in their church, and in the lives of those who have been members of the church, you cannot overlook the impacts of this corrupt influence.
Three) Bible colleges often promote corrupted doctrine, give bad information, and/or spread a variety of often contradictory viewpoints which promote confusion. This requires more education to recover from than getting a good Bible education requires when you’ve never even been exposed to this madness.
And even those who go to Bible college and eventually see through the corrupt doctrine and bad information which they learned there will likely have a harder time getting that corrupt influence out of themselves than they will getting their understanding itself corrected. The same can be said of corrupt denominational influence and those who have left the denominations. Bible school training can really mess up a mind badly, so badly that even if it is corrected a lot, something significant can still remain overlooked and uncorrected which needs to be addressed and corrected.
Four) You don’t need to go to a Bible school to learn what people at Bible schools know (and that’s for good or for bad).
It is not like something is sanctified because it was learned at Bible school. And anyone who claims to have knowledge which you couldn’t get unless you went to a Bible school would surely be a deceiver who is promoting a form of Gnosticism (as the Freemasons do- see our study on that). If you have already listened to sermons at churches or on the radio, then you’ve heard the types of things taught at Bible colleges (again, for good or for bad).
At a Bible school, what you’ll get that the average hearer may not get is a comprehensive glut of whatever the teachers at the Bible school believe and think that they know.
Five) Bible colleges and seminaries can cost a lot of money (see Luke chapter 16- on your part and the part of those at the Bible college).
Can you trust people who are teaching for money? Especially when the Bible college is not truly independent and the teachers at the school’s living depend upon parroting what the denomination, or whatever organization which sponsors the Bible college, teaches?
Six) They often produce lukewarm Christians who are satisfied with (often not even good) knowledge and having a career.
It is better to gain Biblical knowledge and ability to meet true demands and needs of people which we come across. Anyone who is diligent in loving God with their whole being, and their neighbor as themselves, can gain a solid Bible education on this basis (see Luke 11:5-13).
There are also the potential snares of strife and vainglory related to carnal competition at the Bible college. There is a need for mutual, righteous goals. Paul’s traveling companions got a godly education.
Seven) They produce blatant heresy often. And even worse, this proceeds to give cover to not so blatant heresy.
So many Bible colleges and seminaries now openly deny or question the reliability and authority of the Bible. Yet many who profess otherwise still are founded upon heresy and they teach unbiblical concepts on a mass scale (see our study called “The Isms Which Corrupt the Realm of Evangelical Christianity.”
Eight) Bible colleges tend to promote an estimate of spirituality which simply does not, and could not, correspond to reality.
Even the ungodly can excel at Bible colleges and seminaries. People who know less are often more spiritual (this is not saying knowing less is better). The snares of showing off and intellectual snobbery are also no secret (there’s a great danger for this in any environment, especially church environments- yet even more so in Bible college environments). I’ve seen the “Man of God delusion” with Bible college graduates, thinking that they need to initiate and lead in prayer constantly, that they need to lead even informal gatherings, and act like the Bible answer guy constantly among the “uninitiated” (that is, non-Bible school graduates). And I’ve even seen it with people whom I believe were not greatly deluded when it comes to doctrine, proving deeper to me that it is harder to get the bad Bible college influence out of someone than it is to correct their understanding in a general, less practical way.
Consider the rich man who died and went to hell in Luke chapter 16 could have been a former High Priest of Israel with much religious education and a long list of religious credentials. But God didn’t care. God sent the man to burn in hell.
Yet these examples do prove the importance of actually knowing and understanding the Bible. Scripture itself is profitable for understanding sound doctrine, applying sound doctrine to life, and recognizing snares and pitfalls for what they are. And that means discerning that what men call education is by no means such in God’s eyes. It is often even the antithesis of such in God’s eyes. Jesus Himself said that Israel’s spiritual leaders were, generally speaking, further from the kingdom of God than the harlots and the tax collectors (that’s the obvious implication of Him telling Israel’s religious leaders that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you). Anyone who thinks differently regarding Christendom now is spiritually blind. Though in keeping with this point, there are some harlots and other openly corrupt individuals now who have Bible college degrees or at least consider themselves to be spiritual experts. And that is truly the worst of both worlds.
Going to Bible college didn’t make you holy or give you a license to consider yourself “the man of God” who needs to officiate and pray at every gathering he is at nor the one who is the most proper to consult among a group where everyone else did not attend Bible college. And many become like that after Bible college.
Nine) In relation to number eight, there are several important things that Bible colleges cannot train a person for. Several (not all, but several) important Christian characteristics are not academic in nature- not fearing man, being willing to stand alone, etc.
One key thing I don’t believe many men have even got a decent grade on, Bible school or not, is relating properly to their wives. They tend to be controlled by them or to be overly controlling. If you don’t believe me, consider how many pastors preach against the Pagan origins of Valentine’s Day and how improper it is to celebrate it. And how many pastors teach the Biblical truth that women should cover their heads as a testimony of submission to their father or husband? How many would even consider doing such things due to the fear of how their lives and their church could be torn apart by taking a righteous stance in everything to the best of their knowledge? They fear the Land of Nod or the Land of Wandering. Yet those who refuse the righteous discipline and/or suffering which God has appointed as their righteous lot will get something a lot worse eventually (and we can only know what our righteous lot is if we walk in the light of God’s Word and stand for the truth to the best of our knowledge on everything).
A man might not be under the control of his wife, but he may be abusive and overly controlling with her, not encouraging her to think for herself and not to comply with him if he were to really demand that she transgress God’s commandments. The same lack of balance which church leaders tend to have with their wives is reflected in the ways church leaders are often unduly controlled by their congregation or are abusive and beyond correction with their congregation (and sometimes each problem exists somehow in different ways). The training they received at Bible college likely didn’t even potentially prepare them to handle authority properly. And since most Bible college graduates don’t do well in this, they all justify each other and echo the same sentiment that they are all doing well (except for in the most extreme cases which come to tragedy). These are truly perilous times.
Also, with the recent message on how Christianity and Freemasonry do not mix, consider how many churches allow Freemasons to be members. Didn’t the leaders of these churches go to Bible college or seminary? Yet they don’t diagnose and adequately stand against the darkness of Freemasonry. And the same can be said of several anti-christ things which are considered acceptable in most churches labeled as Christian. It is also common that things which are officially forbidden are accepted in practice (and that’s an even greater delusion).
Anyone can seem wise before a sympathetic group of admirers. I’ve seen an old “pastor” (with the Bible college education, the long resume, the pleasant demeanor, the properly prepared point by point detailed sermons, and he even had a church which seemed a lot more holy and conservative than most) wilt like a flower exposed to the burning sun when surrounded by a group hostile towards the true God and His right ways. This guy was counseling a couple having marital issues and some of the older offspring of this couple broke into the home and started making all types of ungodly demands and speaking horrid blasphemous things (against their father and even God). This false pastor sided with this demonically inspired mob so fast that I think even some wicked people who agreed in principle with the mob would have been horrified by his behavior and rebuked him for at least not insisting that this mob show some respect for their father. And this is the type of person you may very well get as one of your professors if you go to Bible college (and I mean an evangelical one which professes to hold the Bible as their ultimate authority).
Ten) Consider: You can’t even know the veracity of what you are being taught about the Bible until you spend considerable time studying it yourself. We need to discern proper doctrine and walk accordingly in real life. This requires a ready and a willing mind to suffer, and be inconvenienced, in order to side with the truth and walk in it. The convenience of taking the “inside track” which is normally the Bible college mentality opposes this.
We should all follow the Christian course set forth in the Bible and God will judge us all by the same Biblical standards. Yet when it comes to the details of how our lives unfold, there is no cookie cutter way to become a mature servant of God and to learn the Bible well from Genesis to Revelation. Psalm 25:12: “What man is he that feareth the Lord? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.” We don’t even have a credible reason to believe that most of the writers of the Bible themselves were formally educated at a Bible college.
Facilitating critical thinking could be a great aspect of certain Bible colleges. But you don’t need a formal Bible college for this still. You also don’t need Bible college to study and meditate on the original document. This costs zero money and doesn’t necessarily require any more or less time and effort than going through a Bible college’s curriculum (though it might hurt your resume). Those who pay attention will be exposed to the questions and issues which they need to deeply consider and have on their radar as they study the Scriptures and meditate upon them.
I’ll ask Jimmy to include a link to a brief message I’ve done in relation to studying the Bible in an effective and interesting way. I will also ask him to include the link to the study on the isms which corrupt modern evangelical Christianity for help in discernment on many of the critical errors in the theologies and doctrine which are most commonly taught in evangelical Bible colleges.
The common corruption in the churches reflects the common corrupt influences in the Bible colleges.
Effective Bible Reading and Study Principles
Isms Which Corrupt the Realm of Realm of Evangelical Christianity
Aaron’s email is: [email protected]
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