Dr Barnhouse on Study of the Word
Dr. Charles R. Swindoll, excerpted from the inaugural address at Dallas Theological Seminary, October 27, 1994, and quoted in Presidential Inauguration, a special edition of DTS News, December 1994, p. 2
I recall the comment of the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, pastor, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, who said, "If I had only three years to serve the Lord, I would spend two of them studying and preparing."
Dallas Seminary will not be insensitive to the economic struggles and time demands of our students. But this does not mean we will lose the reputation of being a place where the diligent study of the Scriptures occurs.
As C. S. Lewis declared: "If all the world were Christian it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now&md;not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground&md;would be to throw down our weapons, and betray our uneducated brethren who have no defense but us against intellectual attacks of the heathen.
"Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. The learned life is then, for some, a duty."
