The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum How are Elders Trained?

Robin,

I am not convinced that training as such is sufficient to guard against heresy. If training alone is the issue then heresy or liberalism should not originate in the seminaries because these people are trained. Heresy and liberalism originate in seminaries and in the studies of pastors in spite of the fact they are trained people. I agree completely with you that we sometimes cannot stand up against the arguments of the liberal preacher who attended seminary, knows Greek and Hebrew and who spends a lot of time developing some kind of "new" idea. But then I ask myself the question why a person that studies the Bible on a daily basis has a liberal approach or concoct a heresy? If one academic can influence another academic about his/her opinion then a trained elder can also be influenced negatively in the same way.

When we want to guard against liberalism or heresy my opinion is that we have to go down one level to a more basic level. Is this not the level of presuppositions? Is this not where things either go in the right or the wrong way? I quote the following from " Introduction to Biblical Interpretation " by Klein, Bromberg and Hubbard:


Thus, unless in the training of elders we do not first agree on the presuppositions, I cannot see that training alone will do the thing. This is perhaps the reason why I am struggling to understand statements made by some of my fellow elders - our presuppositions differ.


Johan