Paul Washer on the Importance of Seminary EXAMINED

This video endorsement of The Master’s Seminary by Paul Washer was recently called to my attention. I must admit that I have mixed feelings about Washer. While his preaching on the subject of depravity is among the best I’ve ever heard, I have found that this is radically offset by numerous instabilities and doctrinal errors found elsewhere in the popular brand of Calvinism he promotes, the foremost being the suggestion that though Jesus Christ only died for the elect, that the is nonetheless sincerely offering eternal life to all of humanity, including those for whom he did not die. In the following video, Washer goes on to reveal a host of other instabilities lurking in his particular flavor of “reformed” theology.

Before diving into our analysis, I will take a moment to state that TETH’s standard disclaimer applies: (1) I do not question Washer’s sincerity or profession of faith, (2) I affirm that there are many who believe Washer’s erroneous teachings who are nonetheless blood-bought children of God, (3) but must insist that the contradictory nonsense that Washer promotes is not the faith once delivered to the saints and that it is profitable to correct an erring brother. (James 5:19-20) So with that by way of introduction, I bring you Paul Washer’s endorsement of The Master’s Seminary along with my commentary:

Non-Seminary Trained Ministers are the "Exception"

"If a man feels like he’s called of God and he believes that the scriptures are inerrant and inspired, that’s a wonderful thing. And in history we do know some men who were able to, in one sense, academically at least, train themselves, even though they were surrounded by other Godly men." (Washer)  

I would add to that an innumerable host of prophets and ministers of God found in the bible, very few of which were ever trained in anything remotely resembling a modern Seminary, and none of which were ever instructed to attend a Seminary institution. Let’s listen on…

"An example would be, of course, Charles Spurgeon and Martin Lloyd Jones. And we all, all of us acknowledge those kind of exceptions and we praise God for them most certainly." (Washer) 

But how is it that such men have come to be regarded as “exceptions”?  Are they exceptions to some biblical command for training in a Seminary Institute?  Not at all. No such command for training in a Seminary Institution exists in the word of God. So this is a VERY important observation. Men such as Spurgeon and Jones may be “exceptions” to the cultural norm for 19th and 20th century Christianity, but they are most certainly NOT exceptions to the biblical pattern for the training of ministers because the broad practice of Seminary education has precisely nothing to do with the bible. This observation bears repeating. The ubiquity of Seminary Institutes in modern Christendom may cause us to regard a seminary-trained minister as the norm, and to regard those who are not seminary trained as “exceptions.” But this is a cultural bias, not a bias that arises out of the word of God. If we have a high-regard for the word of God, we must use it to assess what is “normal” and “exceptional” with respect to the training of God called men and resist the temptation to determine such things on the basis of cultural observations. So I’ll state this plainly, if we use the bible as the benchmark for what is “normal” in ministry training it is apparent that the extra-ecclesial Seminary education of ministers is most certainly the “exception” and not the “norm.”  So from the get-go, Washer suggests that a God-called minister should have a high regard for scripture (inerrant/inspired) but then immediately erects a case for Seminary training by ignoring the bible’s testimony, preferring instead to determine what is normal and what is exceptional upon common observation. I won’t belabor this point now, but I would suggest that the ease with which Seminarians promote evident contradictions such as this is one of the noisome byproducts of Seminary addling. Let’s listen on…

Good Seminaries and Bad Seminaries

"In the world today, of course there’s always bad seminaries and bad institutes and things like that, but God in his providence has also raised up some very good places to train." (Washer)  

So in Washer’s view there are good Seminaries and bad Seminaries. Before considering the doctrines taught by Washer’s “good” Seminaries, I would seek to point out that the VAST (and I do mean VAST) majority of Seminaries in the world reject the notion of salvation by the sovereign, monergistic, grace of God. That observation alone means, at a minimum, the majority of Seminary trained ministers are men who have been primped and polished to promote a false gospel.  It also means that what Washer implies is normal is in equal measure horrible. Let’s listen on.

Sola Scriptura = One Must Use Church History to Establish Truth

"If a man who’s called into the ministry, sure if he has the bible and he studies the scriptures, praise God, but he needs to ask himself a question – How do I know my interpretation is right?" (Washer)  

That is true and it underscores the great need for right division of the word of God. The biblical means of knowing that one’s interpretation is correct is by examining one’s theological assertions to ensure that they are NOT logically contradictory to one another, because “The scripture cannot be broken.” (John 10:35) Apart from a minister’s relentless commitment to handling the word of God in a way that is consistent with LOGIC, a never-ending commitment to not allow himself to side-step the matter of LOGIC, one is NOT rightly dividing the word of truth. That is absolutely fundamental to a proper handling of scripture. In contrast, Seminary Theology is absolutely riddled with logical inconsistencies that are promoted as “gospel truth.” When such nonsense is pressed upon men as truth, it poisons their minds against the application of logic. Stated plainly, most Seminaries train men for the vocational promotion of a false gospel, and the rest teach men that truth is illogical. That is a pretty brusque statement on my part, and at this point it is unsubstantiated. Perhaps we’ll put some meat on the bones of that accusation as we listen on. Washer, a self-proclaimed 5-point Calvinist and Sola-Scriptura adherent, goes on to give us some insight into precisely what he means when he speaks of a high-view of scripture and Sola Scriptura.

"And that’s where, well, Church history comes in. Is he in that long line of Godly men and women who had a high view of the scriptures?" (Washer)

Now think about this for a minute folks. Washer has suggested that a God-called minster should have a high-regard for scripture (infallible/inerrant), no doubt consistent with the Sola Scriptura (scripture alone) reformation mantra, but when it comes time to affirm whether or not one’s interpretation of scripture is correct, they must look to church history? I have seen this notion promoted a great deal among the Reformed and it never ceases to amaze me how they seem to lack enough orientation to their beloved Reformation heritage to recognize that they are staking out the precise position that the Roman Catholic Church pressed upon their reformation forefathers, many of them unto death. Washer is promoting an enormous contradiction, as ALL Reformation theology does in such matters, namely that the truth is based on “Sola Scriptura” but the affirmation of that truth comes from church history. He refers to the key question that ministers should be asking of themselves – “[Are they] in that long line of Godly men and women who had a high view of the scriptures?” One wonders, who is the arbiter of determining the composition of that line? Who gets to determine what constitutes a “high-regard” for the scriptures? I’ll state this very plainly – those who suggest that one must look to church history as a means of substantiating biblical truth deny the sufficiency of scripture. Whatever might be said of the merits of believing that the word of God is inerrant and inspired, those affirmations are of absolutely no consequence if the word of God is insufficient to throughly furnish God’s people.

The Danger of Marinating in Contradictions

I recognize that what I have just stated here is sufficient to make most Reformed Christians a little hot under the collar. Indeed, what Reformed Christian worth his salt would deny the sufficiency of scripture? But herein lies the danger of proselytizing men on antinomies and contradictions. I do not doubt that all of the Reformed will stand up and declare, “I believe in the sufficiency of scripture – Sola Scriptura!” What I’m pointing out is that if one must employ something other than scripture to substantiate scripture, then their previous affirmation is meaningless. In my experience, the reformed I so frequently engage have been marinated in this contradiction for so long that they are utterly incapable of seeing the error therein. THAT is the danger. When you think that referring to St Augustine, John Calvin, or the Second London Confession of Faith is any means of substantiating truth, you have denied the sufficiency of scripture, your claim to Sola Scriptura is spurious, and you give evidence of just how little you understand the theological matters you claim to embrace. 

The bottom line is that while church history is a matter of historical curiosity and may give some indication of what people from a previous era believed, it has absolutely no bearing on the interpretation of the word of God whatsoever, and those who insist that it does admit the scriptures themselves to be insufficient to throughly furnish God’s people.  Let’s listen on. 

"Then if he asks, you know, himself the question -  How do I know that I’m thinking as I should be thinking? There’s systematic theology and ethics. Are these prepositions really important?  Yes they are that’s hermeneutics." (Washer)  

A God-called man who has a proper high-view of scripture as inerrant, inspired, and sufficient, is likewise well aware that the words of the bible are important. He must prayerfully consider his own interpretations and insist that they are logically consistent both line upon line (exegetically in context) as well as precept upon precept (systematically across all revelation). Such a man should be taught within the domain of the Lord’s church and discipled by the Lord’s Elders just as we see practiced in the New Testament church. Absolutely none of this requires the creation and funding of a Seminary Institution.

The Biblical Model - Briefly Mentioned and Quickly Discarded as Insufficient

"And so I think that if a man is called into the ministry, if he’s in a really biblical church, he needs to latch on to those elders, he needs to ask them to train him in things like that, and if they have the ability to give him all those things, to sit down with him and disciple him in all these great disciplines of the Christian faith, praise God." (Washer)

Here Washer briefly strays into the biblical model for raising up church elders, but he quickly departs from it, regarding it as impractical and insufficient in most instances…

"But in most cases that’s not the case. And so I heartily recommend that if someone is called into the ministry that they go to a bible institute to a seminary where they can gain the tools that are such a great benefit for the ministry, for the Christian life." (Washer)

I would not deny that there are a great many practicing ministers in Christian churches who are incapable of training men to become ministers. No argument there. But why is that true? Is it not in many instances true because those same ministers are themselves the produce of Seminary institutions that are not within a thousand miles of gospel truth? Statistically speaking that is undeniably so. But a bigger problem with this assertion is that Washer is admitting that training for the ministry is something that must be acquired outside the institution of the church. That is a completely unscriptural notion. It is one that most Christians have become so familiar with that no one gives it a second thought. Nevertheless if we are to have a high-view of the word of God, we must not lose sight of the fact that the bible NEVER instructs even one person to seek training for the ministry in an institution that is outside the domain of the church itself. That may force people to seriously reconsider their view of what an Elder in the New Testament church should look like, but if our view of scripture is appropriately high, this is something we MUST do. That observation alone will make a great many very uncomfortable, but I would ask – What good is one’s profession of having a “high view of scripture” if when it comes time to build the church we ignore the fact that it is the mechanism for training men for the ministry?  The bottom line is this – The Lord Jesus Christ instituted the New Testament Church and he did NOT institute a 501c3, para-church, Seminary, neither did he ever make reference to such a thing as “The Master’s Seminary.”  That observation, based on a high-regard for scripture, should give those brokering in the domain of Seminary education reverential pause.  

"You know when someone goes to seminary and they graduate they haven’t learned everything they need to know. As a matter of fact a seminary can’t teach you everything you need to know. What a seminary does is this – It places in your hands the tools so that for the rest of your life you can be expounding the scripture for your own life and for the life of others." (Washer)

TETH's Radically Different Recommendation

In contrast to Washer’s advice I would recommend a radically different approach to any man who believes himself called of God to preach the gospel. Before you go barreling off to a biblically unwarranted para-church organization that calls itself “The Master’s Seminary,” when the Master himself never spoke of or established any such para-church institution, to be proselytized in their interpretation of the word of God, instead spend a tremendous amount of time reading and becoming very familiar with the word of God and praying to be given some understanding of it. Do you have a high-regard for the word of God as the inerrant, inspired, sufficient revelation to God’s people that it is? If you do that’s good. Has this profession ever been born out by actually reading the bible? I would recommend that a good litmus test for someone’s high-regard for the bible is found in whether or not they’ve ever read it. I submit that if that were a requirement for entering the seminary institutions that produce the majority of what passes for preachers in this world they would all dry up for lack of students. Until someone shows a high-enough regard for the bible to have read it, I submit that their commitment to the ministry call lacks any merit whatsoever.  

I would furthermore recommend that God’s ministers spend time fishing and doing the practical labors of this world. They are very often used in scripture as a means of imparting a spiritual lesson. Those who have spent a little time fishing understand something very fundamental about that enjoyable activity. A man who is fishing is a man who intends to catch the living, not to catch the dead. Perhaps if some of the seminary trained preachers of our day had spent more time in a boat and less time being taught that they must use church history to substantiate the word of God, they would be more apt to understand that gospel ministry involves the acquisition of living fish, not the resurrection of dead fish.  

IN SUMMARY

Let me take a moment to point out some of the nonsense that a TMS student will be prostelytized in upon entering that non-scriptural institution.

• Jesus Christ died for the elect only, nevertheless the gospel is a sincere offer of eternal salvation to all men, whether Christ died for them or not.  

• Eternal salvation involves both God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility and we cannot understand how this is so.  

• The new birth is being challenged by God to abandon everything you’re committed to and totally commit yourself to Him.  

The list could be liberally multiplied but these three TMS precepts derived from John MacArthur’s teachings should be sufficient to give those who have read the word of God and who insist that the scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35) an occasion to rethink the matter.  The bottom line is this: The Lord Jesus Christ established the New Testament Church. He did not establish an extra-ecclesial Seminary institution, neither did he or his apostles ever instruct anyone to create or attend such an institution to be equipped for the ministry.

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