April 12, 2018 Show with Dr. James M. Renihan on “What Does the Bible Teach About Ministerial Training?”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear

from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who

are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on

this 12th day of April 2018.

I'm delighted to have back on the program a returning guest, Dr. James

M. Renahan, who is President and Professor of Historical Theology at the new

IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas, which will be launching its first

semester, God willing, this September.

And today we are going to be discussing what does the Bible teach about ministerial training?

So if you know of anybody that has a desire to be

a minister, you know of people who are ready pastors, well

call them up, send them an email, send them a text, tell them to tune in to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio

anywhere in the world at ironsharpensironradio .com and if it's impossible for them to listen

live, make sure you tell them about the program that they can listen to tomorrow

on the archived recording, which should be available after 12 noon tomorrow.

But it is my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. James M.

Renahan.

Thanks Chris, it's good to talk to you again.

And let me give our email address for our.

Listeners right away.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. Renahan, our email address is chrisarnsen at

gmail .com.

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you disagree with your own pastor on theology or a particular doctrinal issue,

or perhaps you're a pastor and you disagree with your own denomination or your congregation.

On some theological matter, we understand that you might want to remain anonymous, but other than that, please give us at least your first name, city and

state, and country of residence.

Well, at the outset of the program, Dr. Renahan, tell our listeners who

may be unfamiliar with this exciting new project, tell us about the.

IRBS Theological

Seminary

in

Mansfield,

Texas.

Great,

and

we

will

be

repeating this.

Information of course, but if anybody wants more information about the IRBS Theological

Seminary, all you have to do is go to their website IRBSseminary .org

IRBSseminary .org, and don't forget to put two S's back -to -back in that URL

since it is IRBS Seminary.

And before I take any of our listener questions, which are already popping up,

let me ask a few questions of my own.

Have you considered changing the name of IRBS now that it is independent from Westminster Theological

Seminary?

Because a lot of people obviously, when they see that name, they're not automatically going to understand what IRBS stands for.

Yeah,.

Because we

wanted some

people to understand, and several folks,

because we've had 20 years of experience, we're viewing this as a continuation of what

it would be helpful

to continuity

and identity.

Clunky name,

but people remember, you know, IRBS

Seminary would be

like IBM or BP, which is

BP, and so IRBS Theological Seminary,

that's

our name.

And well, I'm sure that in time it.

Will become a household name just like IBM, at least with reformed people, at

least with Calvinists it will.

I'd be curious to know what a reading list would look like for an IRBS course on Baptist

Covenant Theology.

Of course, there are a lot of people, both Baptists and Presbyterians, who will say that's an

oxymoron, Baptist Covenant Theology, but obviously we do not believe that as Reformed

Baptists.

If you could give us a list, there have been a lot of minor works on the subject from various viewpoints

over the past several years, but there is no single major work that

authoritatively.

Defines our position.

Yeah, that wouldn't be my call,

a reading list.

But I assume

Nehemiah Cox

is a primary

source.

Wow.

Now Sam, if

I'm not

mistaken,

didn't

he

also

write a book on the impassibility of God?

Two of them, yeah.

He did God Without Passions, A Reader, and then God Without Passions.

Great.

I'm going to

take one of our listener.

Calls before I continue on with some more questions of my own.

This is a bit off -topic, but I figure I'll have this one

asked as early as possible so that we can continue on sticking

to the major theme here.

If anybody else has questions, try to keep them to something in regard to the training of

those in the ministry.

But this does apply, since this is a unique aspect

of Reformed Baptist theology, as opposed to Baptists of other persuasions, I think.

We have Jeremy in Arlington, Texas, who says, Can Dr. Renahan develop

why the Christian Sabbath is to be on Sunday?

I know that it is implicit in the New Testament, but I've heard some pushback from people in

my church that it doesn't really matter what day, due to Romans chapter 14, verses 5 through 6.

I am a Sabbatarian, but I want to be prepared to defend that position more.

Now, obviously, you would be giving us a summary, because that could be a lengthy discussion.

In fact, Jeremy, if you send me an email later, I can get you the audio for a

two -day debate that I aired on the old Iron Sharpens Iron radio program broadcasting out

of New York, between one of the faculty members of IRBS Theological Seminary, Sam

Waldron, and a Seventh -day Baptist.

They debated this issue on this program, the old program, which is not on the new

website.

We haven't gotten all the old programs archived on a new website yet.

But if you email me, I'll get you that very lengthy discussion on this.

But Dr. Renahan, do.

You have anything to say about it?

Sure.

Hi, Jeremy.

Thanks for asking the question.

You see a pattern that begins

right at the Resurrect Church meeting together.

And then it's

eight days later, and

he presents himself,

the 8th of

Pentecost, 50 days,

Ashkenazi,

and the

con came together.

It's interesting that Paul doesn't

meet with the Church on any other day.

He waits until the Sunday to meet together.

But I think that

this

between means for people of God, you know,

in Exodus, and in the fourth commandment,

there's a difference between them.

And the writer to the Hebrews,

the Old

Testament

and the

Exodus

are

to

the

Hebrews,

cataphalsis.

We're gonna go to an early break.

Because I want Dr. Renahan to hang up and call a different phone line for our interview.

Because we do have a little bit of a static issue, and I think that if we use a different phone line, it will be cleared

up.

If anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address

is chrisarnsen at gmail

.com.

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only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Well I believe we are now back with Dr. Runahan, correct?

Yes, and you're much, you're sounding much better, there's no static on this line.

Yeah, we have to remember next time we have you on to use this different line because for some reason we were having over

-modulation on the on the original one.

Can you tell us what a theological seminary is?

That may sound like a basic question but some people might actually.

Have misunderstandings about that.

Yeah, you know, a lot of

people who, a

theological seminary

is a school and it supports providing

academic, most

church, it

has

to always be an

entity that is strictly for...

And why is

ministerial

training

important?

Some people would say that if we really believe in the perspicuity of scriptures, that the

scriptures are intended by God, that they are easily understood,

that special training should not be all that important or necessary for somebody

going.

Into the ministry.

How do you

respond to that?

Yeah, that's that the Bible itself,

in the next generation of men, who themselves will be able to train others on and on and

on and on.

And in the context, it's very clearly the Gospel that Paul is thinking of there,

that the need to understand and to spread the Gospel.

Now there's a whole lot more,

that's the first, but

beyond that is the

most important demean

any other...

Everything else that we do, whatever it is,

whether we work in a machine, has to do with this life.

But pastoral ministry has to

do with teaching them and what the Gospel is,

what they must know, and what they must believe in order to receive the forgiveness of sins and to

enjoy the blessing of eternal life.

And I think too often people treat that that

anyone can do.

We're

converted men, we need the power

of the Holy Spirit, we need dependence on the scriptures, but we need to be thoroughly...

And then the third thing

that I've

removed from our

societies are set to understand and communicate

with the individuals on the street or even people in church.

My friends, if you go to a

cardiologist, you

want him to know, give

a prognosis.

I think that there's an analogy from that to pastoral ministry.

We don't want somebody coming to us because

we want them to know thoroughly what the Bible says and be able to minister that to people

of all sorts, of different ages, with different backgrounds,

with different troubles and problems that they bring with them of life.

You know, you begin to think about all of those hundred people

have different challenges.

To think that without the right kind of preparation, you...

problems is really an overestimation of your own abilities.

And the seminary helps men to be able to

face those challenges to

people in all...

Well, you know, a lot of times when this.

Issue comes up, you will have people like Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and

to my knowledge, I don't think he had any formal training.

And here he is known globally over a century later as the prince

of preachers.

And the man's volumes of writings, the transcribed sermons that he

has available to us so many years later after his

departing this earth and entering into heaven, even are used in themselves, and

you'll have the most brilliant of theologians using his sermons and his writings.

So how do you respond to something like that?

Yeah, that's a really interesting question.

All that you said about...

Part of it is that he's

very unusual, maybe the only person

that we have seen in our lifetime who has the mental...

You know, R .C. could stand up and preach for half an hour

without any notes and virtually without any long -term preparation.

Spurgeon seems to have...

Spurgeon spent a lot of his childhood and teen years at his grandfather's, and

so in a sense,

another thing that people forget is

the importance of ministerial training, and he began

in the Metropolitan Tabernacle at what was called the Pastor's College.

And the purpose of the Pastor's College was to train men for the ministry.

So Spurgeon is an advocate of ministerial training.

He's a bad example.

You know, to pull up Spurgeon is to say, you're forgetting what Spurgeon

was all about, because he recognized his circumstances were less than the best that they ought

to have been, and that it was more beneficial...

A man named George

R .R. Spurgeon was an

advocate for.

People to cite.

And going to the actual inerrant God -breathed word, we have

the Twelve Apostles who didn't go to seminary.

So how do you respond to that, which is even more of an important issue?

Yeah, well...

They went to Jesus Academy.

...of walking beside and watching the Lord for three years.

That's pretty good preparation.

They may have been...

Yeah, and could one rightly respond to that argument

that it is interesting that the Apostle Paul wrote most of the New Testament, and he was

certainly a very educated man.

He was a Pharisee.

Yeah, in fact, I would like to

at some point.

Yeah, well, perhaps we can have a full program on that.

What should a seminary teach and provide to its students, first and foremost?

Learning that is presented, and we

really believe, loves Christ.

The details

need to be in a climate where...

And so, you

know, learning

sometimes can be dry, and learning

wonder.

I think you had recently, Steve Martin,

in fact, and we asked Steve to be our Dean of Student

Calvinism.

Calvinism that genuinely...

And we've asked

Steve to, from the beginning, a climate in which our

classes of each of

the men...

I think

that's

where

you

begin.

It's surprising that there are a lot of schools today that are

diminishing the role of the Greek and Hebrew languages.

And it's my beloved friend, Ron Baines, who's now with Christ, used to say, if a

pastor is not able to work, then he and his people are one step

removed from the writings of the Bible themselves.

And Ron was right.

And so we believe that it's...

And that education in the

languages use them in

reading and understanding and interpreting the Bible for God's people and for the lost that

you preach the gospel to.

Sound exposition, the Hebrew Old

Testament, it also ought to provide a

theological training.

Men need to understand what the Bible teaches us about God, about

man, about salvation,

beginning to end, all of those various heads of theology.

They need to know them and understand them.

And understand them in a way that they see the integrated nature of.

Christian theology, how one thing influences another.

By the way, was Ron Baines from England?

No, Ron was pastor up in Maine.

Okay.

He was one of our trustees.

Oh wow.

Yeah, for some reason I.

Was connecting him with some British Reformed Baptist that I saw preach in the 1990s

who went home to be with the Lord, and for some reason he may have a similar name.

Maybe it's Roger Baines?

I'm not sure.

I don't know.

But yeah, August 28th.

Well, I'm sorry for your loss, but obviously.

Ron is not experiencing any remorse about this at all.

No.

You know, another thing that,.

And I emphasize,

another

thing that

I learned

is a formal

relationship with the Church, and a variety of tasks

exposes them to the real -life ministry.

This can be done on a weekly basis, but

have done

that.

They've stayed

at those churches.

Other times, that opportunity to be apprenticed to a pastor

has opened the door for them to go and serve by themselves in another congregation.

But we really believe in this.

You know, the seminary

is about

academics.

The seminary doesn't do visitation.

It doesn't provide people in the midst of their needs.

And so it needs the churches beside the churches, and it's

the churches that have to provide.

We have another Texan.

We have PJ from Bridge City, Texas.

And PJ says, I was previously a seminary student at Grace School

of Theology in Houston, Texas.

I extremely disagree with their soteriology, and 90 of my papers ended up having to be

rebuttals.

You can imagine this was not a very enjoyable situation in most cases.

I am very reformed in my theology in doctrines of salvation, but I am also

classic pre -mill.

Would your school be a good fit for me, or would it be another situation where I have to write rebuttal after.

Rebuttal?

Now, is that

different from historic

pre -millennial?

I'm assuming the same, Chris.

Okay, because the confession certainly doesn't require one specific

understanding.

No, that's right.

PJ, it

would be

a great fit.

Well, thanks, PJ.

And I would love to hear an update from you and see what progresses in the weeks and months to

come in regard to perhaps you enrolling as a student

there at IRB Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

But thank you for your question, and keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and spreading the word in Texas and beyond.

Why start a new school?

Aren't there ones that exist that are sufficient?

Yeah, that's a fair...

There are a lot

of...

In our beginning...

You know, I've

loved...

Two of my sons are grand...

I deeply appreciate different

schools...

The reason

that we

have...

We believe...

We

believe

it

teaches...

My time here

at Westminster,

and I've seen the great

beneficiaries

who graduate from here, are really well

-trained

so

that they don't

have to unlearn or...

That they might get in another school.

There are many really fine men who teach in schools.

There are many really fine schools, but there aren't any residential accredited schools

that will provide what we provide.

And that's why we want to train men, because we want to give to Reformed Baptists.

Now, you've

already, obviously, mentioned some.

Distinctives, but can you mention any other distinctives of IRB Theological Seminary that

makes you stand out, even amongst other Reformed Baptist institutions of higher learning?

Having access...

Likewise, I've

used the...

But we will be applying for accreditation,

and we have determined from the beginning

that we

will meet all

the size

as

we

move in.

I can think of five.

We want to...

And we've already talked about this in a sense.

We want to be confessional.

We want the confession of

faith.

We want people to be able to look at...

We know what they believe.

So we

want

covenantal.

Covenant

theology

will be

a central part of our curriculum.

Now, I told you before, I won't be the one teaching the class in covenant theology, but

covenant theology will be present throughout our form.

And so, like, when P .J.

asked this question...

Non

-negotiable.

Another thing is the church, and

I guess I'm picking up on what I'm...

Church is central.

We have to view ourselves as cultivating

relationships with churches in the Dallas -Fort Worth area, and we already have established relationships

with churches around the country, and even around the world.

People would like, in various places in the world, they'd like our students to come for internships.

And so we...

Fourth thing I would say is the Bible.

Central.

And I'm going in order of importance.

The Bible needs to

be at

the

center.

And that...

We want that to be our identity, and we want them to graduate with

that kind of...

For the Bible.

And then the last

distinct...

It's easy to say, but it's really our desire.

And that's, like I said, that's not a distinctive that separates us from anybody else, because I hope everybody else

has that desire.

But we need to state it.

We need to say, we want the Lord Jesus Christ

to proclaim Him, His majesty and His

glory extolled among all of our students.

So those...

Yes, and obviously there are multitudes of seminaries and

schools that may make a claim like that, that unlike IRB as

theological seminary, are really nowhere on the same planet as biblical

Christianity or even the Christ of the Scripture.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, there are schools that do it well.

Well, I am going to go to our midway break right now, and when I return from the break, I would like

you to introduce our listeners to some of your faculty members by giving us a

brief bio sketch of as many as you care to mention.

And I think that that might be something very enlightening and something of

great interest to our listeners about IRB as theological seminary.

This is a longer than normal break because the Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City,

Florida, requires of us a 12 -minute break between our two segments.

So please be patient as we take this longer break than normal.

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But please feel free to get in line because you never know how many we can fit in.

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and the IRB as theological seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

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Before we return to our discussion with Dr. James M. Renahan of the IRBS Theological

Seminary in Mansfield, Texas, we just have a couple more announcements we have coming

up just in a matter of a couple of weeks.

In fact, even in a couple of days, tomorrow in fact, is when one of

these events starts.

We're talking about the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology.

The title of the conference this year is The Spirit of the Age and the Age of the Spirit,

and it will be held in two locations, neither of which is Philadelphia.

It is called the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology out of tribute or in tribute to

the late Dr. James Montgomery Boyce, now spending an eternity with Christ in heaven.

He had conducted these conferences at the 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia for many years,

so even though it's no longer in Philadelphia, they still call the conference

affectionately the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology.

The first location, which begins tomorrow, is the First Christian Reformed Church of

Byron Center, Michigan.

And the second location, the 27th through the 29th of April, will be held

right around the corner from where I am, Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Well, it's a lot further than right around the corner, but it's about a half hour or more away.

Actually, it's more like two hours away, I believe.

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believe is one of the most powerful preachers alive on the planet Earth.

We just had him yesterday as a guest on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, and if you missed it, go to our archive to listen to that

discussion.

I thought it was truly fascinating.

Richard Phillips, who's a friend of mine, pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina.

Jonathan Masterd, David Murray, and Scott Oliphant.

And if you would like to register once again, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org, click on events, and

then click on Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology.

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That's also the email address where you can send in questions for our guest, Dr. James M. Renahan,

the president of the IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas,

and once again that's chrisarnson at gmail .com, and before I have Dr. Renahan

introduce us to some of the faculty members with a brief

biosketch of each of those he has time to to mention, we

overlooked a very important question during the first half of this interview.

What does the Bible have to say about.

Ministerial training, Dr. Renahan?

Before I get there, I want

to say this, you just mentioned, our director,

great,

people can stop by and get information.

Yeah, I'm happy about that too.

I.

Will be there, God willing, with my two new pastors at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, John

Miller and Simon O'Maney.

Right, and Simon O'Maney is a graduate of?

Yes, that's right, IRBS.

That's right, yeah.

And you're his former pastor.

I was.

It was great to see you when I.

Came out for his ordination service in February.

That's right.

Really thankful for him, and yeah, he's one of our graduates, and really deeply love

Simon and Megan and their family, but let

me,

Paul tells Timothy that he's

to train, will be able to

teach, wasn't

there when

Paul wrote.

It's very clear that he's talking about, is given to Paul,

Paul passes it on to Timothy, Timothy's

deposit of

truth.

By the way,

that who

treated as about

training men for the gospel, it really

troubled and misused,

misrepresented, and I think a lot of people have bought into,

but

that's one of them is, where did

Paul get all of his knowledge?

How did Paul know the Old Testament so well?

Now, I would argue, and if

somebody wants

to, and the reason I

say, but he really understood

and saw how, but where

did he get that knowledge?

Where did he get that information?

He says something, maybe

you remember there

in Acts 22, there's a

riot that

they don't, they're not happy with the fact that many of their own followers have also

been converted.

So a riot breaks out in the temple, and Paul is taken by the Romans, and Luke presents it as a very

dramatic scene.

He stands up on some Hebrew

language, an

even greater quiet when Paul, and he begins making a defense of himself.

He's trying to connect with these people so that he'll be

able to continue the ministry that God has given to him.

One of the first things that he says is, you know me, and you know that I spent my childhood,

my youth, in this city, being trained at the feet of Gamaliel.

Now, we know that Gamaliel was

Jewish life in the first century in Jerusalem.

In fact, his, the premier school, rabbinical training

school, studied there.

He wasn't a believer yet, but his mind was filled.

When he came to faith in Christ, it's as if the light went on, and now he was able to see that the Old Testament was

about Jesus, not just about Israel.

Well, let's take that a step backwards.

What is the school of Gamaliel?

Well, it is believed that the school of Gamaliel is a

revival that the older

translators,

literally the

Hebrew says,

young men who are being trained by older

men, and primarily they were being trained in understanding the law of Moses and proclaiming the law of

Moses.

The Old Testament prophets were not primarily men who told the future, they were primarily men who had the

responsibility of preaching the Word of God.

I think, for example, you have Amos in Amos chapter 7, and he has that famous line, I'm

not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet.

He's not talking about his father there.

He's talking, he's using that phrase to say, I wasn't trained up in the city.

We have this prophetic

office, tutelage,

meaning the next generation.

After the return from exile, there is an attempt to revive or to restore the practice of the

schools of the prophets, and it's believed that Gamaliel school is an example of that strain

of restoring what had been lost in the apostasy of Israel and in the exile.

Paul benefited from it, and we are the recipients of the benefits of Paul's

training, because we read his epistles, we read Galatians, or we read Romans, and we say,

that's what the Old Testament is about.

And that's why Paul was so good.

Of course he worked under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but he wasn't a blank slate in which the Holy

Spirit just poured into his mind all of this truth.

He was a man who had been thoroughly prepared to be used by the Spirit to give us the Scriptures.

So that's a model in the Bible itself that we're seeking to follow.

Now we want converts, that they have a genuine faith in Jesus Christ,

but we want to be like those, that's one of the nicknames,

we want to be like those schools of the prophets, filling the minds of men.

I get excited

when

I say that.

Amen.

Well, if you could now introduce our

listeners to some of your faculty members.

Oh yeah, I'd be glad to do that, take

the time to talk about all of

them, but let me mention some.

I will be teaching, but I will be teaching

courses with some adaptation.

Steve Martin and I are team teaching a first semester course, I think we're calling it Introduction

to Theological Studies, but it's where we want to especially focus on

the call to the ministry.

Steve

Martin will be teaching, primarily that will be

his responsibility, a

professor of

biblical studies, he's

like that.

Dr. Fred Malone,

who I

think you had last Friday and

Monday, Fred has responsibility for the whole

three courses.

He won't teach them all, but he has responsibility.

In fact, we got

some, we had

some very positive feedback from.

People who heard those two interviews, especially from some that were on the fence

in regard to pedo -baptism, and Fred knocked them over into the

Baptist side, the credo -baptist side.

Amen.

I love my pedo -baptist brothers, I've lived in their world for the last...

It was a slam dunk for Fred, no pun intended.

We've just announced recently

his doctoral degree.

And his father

is Don,

correct?

His father is

Don Lindblad, that's

right, and he

has

the

responsibility.

He's retired from being the

Prince of Queensland in Australia area.

Yeah, we've had him on the program.

Yep, he's

an introduction, and

maybe this

is where I can

mention this.

We announced an agreement with Puritan

Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to serve as a doctoral study center

for them, and Dr.

Grimm is with us in writing.

Yeah, yes, I've known Dr. Beeky

going all the way back to the early 1990s, I've interviewed him many times, and in fact I was

one of the key people that first got Dr. Beeky on the radio

when he began to co -sponsor the Voice of Sovereign Grace, which is a radio program that I developed,

and he also launched the Gospel Trumpet, I believe it was called.

But yeah, I have really enjoyed his friendship and benefiting from his ministry for a long time.

Yep.

Another man that Ian

is a credentialed

scientist, highly regarded in theohydromorphology.

Ian is an elder in a Reformed Baptist church, he's committed to our confession of faith, and he'll be coming in and teaching a

course to pastors on how to respond to supposed scientific objections.

I'm really excited about that.

Would that include responding to objections made by old earth creationists?

Yeah, I'm on the scientific

side, and

also teaching,

I think, our

eschatol to one another

in the

work that we're

working on.

A

young man, pre -university

event

in Flagstaff,

Arizona,

for young people, I spoke at it a couple of years ago, my daughter

went to it last year, I highly recommend it,

and Ryan is a first -rate

youngster.

Tom Hicks, who is Fred

Malone's co pastor, in a sense he's Fred's follower of

primary responsibilities that Fred used to have.

Tom will be teaching for us.

Jason Montgomery, who you had recently on the program, in the

seminary, three classes.

I'm really pleased with that.

You could tell by your conversation with Jason what a personable guy he is.

He'll do very well teaching.

And then Raymond Perron from Quebec will teach a course in missions.

Ken Poles will teach a course in worship.

Ishwaran Mudliar will be our language teacher.

He has a Ph .D. from Johns Hopkins University, which is a

university -level degree.

He's really excellent.

And then a friend of mine, Mike Prada -Gallaudet, who has

a Ph .D. from Kenya,

besides his Ph .D., so he will

lead a church for us.

That's most of the names.

We have a couple others.

There's another man who recently has been nominated, but I'm not sure

what we're doing,

Chris.

We're trying to have some conferences where they will be

featured speakers.

The first one is going to be in London next week, April 21st, at the Barbican Center,

a Primo venue.

It would be like we're holding a

conference there in England.

And Matt Bingham, who just finished his Ph .D. under Crawford Gribbon, and I will be speaking

there.

And then we have planned a conference in Sydney, Australia, where Mike

Prada -Gallaudet and Mike

will speak, Sam will

be there, and

then I'll be there too to speak.

And then the next week, I'll be in Auckland, New Zealand, July 14th.

We're going to do it over again, but this time with Richard Barcelos, who will be in New Zealand

teaching a class, and Daphis Hughes

doing a conference on July 14th.

So we're an excellent

faculty.

It's exciting to look at these names and think of the skills that they will bring to our students.

But we want to give them more prominence, and part of the idea of these conferences is to

promote the seminary and put some of our men before people.

And in fact, you should tell your faculty member in

Belfast that our mutual friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, will be there in

the not -so -distant future debating a Roman Catholic apologist named Peter D. Williams on

indulgences.

And I don't have the exact date, but if anybody wants to find out about that debate in Belfast, Northern Ireland, you can go to

aomin .org, aomin .org for Alpha Omega Ministries.

But we have to go to our final break.

It's going to be a very brief break.

And before we go to that break, I want to read a question to you from Gordie in

Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

I thought it would be good for you to hear the question first because it's kind of an interesting question.

It involves some speculation on your part.

But Gordie asks, in your opinion, how would the likes of John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, et cetera,

view the majority of seminaries in the United States today?

And what would be their greatest concern, in your opinion?

Obviously, I said you would have to speculate about that.

But we'll have you respond to Gordie in Mechanicsburg when we come back from our final break.

If anybody else wants to join Gordie and some of the other people waiting to have their questions asked and

answered, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with more of Dr. James M. Renahan.

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We are now back with the final 18 minutes or so of our discussion with Dr. James M. Renahan

of IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

And before the break, Gordy in Mechanicsburg asked the question, in your

opinion, how would the likes of John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, etc., view the majority of seminaries in the

United States today, and what would be their greatest concern?

Oh yeah.

And I'd be glad to hear that, but that's just from what I know.

Thanks for the great question, Gordy.

We have Joe in Slovenia who asks, Dear Brother Chris, thanks

for blessing us again with Dr. Renahan.

Dr. Renahan, will IRBS Theological Seminary teach social

activism as being gospel issues?

Why or why not?

Please elaborate.

Actually, emailed in,

not called in.

Well, emailed in, yeah, yeah.

I hope someday to meet you.

And he does have a daughter in Georgia in the United States,

not the Georgia near Ukraine, Georgia here in the United States, and he visits, I think, at least once

a year, so who knows?

We don't want to get caught up

in the, in five

years, it'll be something.

I think that when

one of them is to keep up with the trends, we want to provide to our

students, really, a classical, not a trendy.

Hopefully, whatever the current subject

is, I believe

that the

issues

that

aren't enough to have appeared throughout the history of the Church, then it's important enough for us to think about.

But yesterday's issues and tomorrow's issues are not the things.

That ought to drive what our curriculum is.

Well, thank you, Joe, in Slovenia.

Keep listening to the program and spreading the word about it in Slovenia and beyond.

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who asks,

how do you respond to pastors and perhaps even members of churches

where the pastor is not seminary educated but has been doing a remarkably fine job for

decades, and some might think that he will now be looked down upon

after hearing of the importance of a.

Seminary education?

Yeah, that's a really good question, and there

are a lot of men

who have

been wise

enough to

know what

I would

say.

Amen.

We have, let's

see,.

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, would it not be ideal if churches

began to select people from among them who are very qualified,

aspiring pastors and send them to a seminary such as yourselves so that they can

return to one day either become associates to the pastor already there or to

take over the pastoral position when that pastor retires, since you will have a man who has

actually grown from amongst the flock there and then returns as even

more fully equipped to help shepherd and teach the brethren in that congregation.

I wonder if we can hire Arnie to do promotion.

Thank you,

Arnie,

for asking that question.

I'm with you wholeheartedly.

I do believe, and I think Arnie implies this, that churches need to

be more

active.

The admire

that they ought to have is

that they would indeed come back to the pastoral position

or be sent out from that.

It's that kind of thing that's going to be repeated

over and over again.

Amen.

Now, don't you think that one of the reasons why that's a good question is because it is not the normal thing for a pastor to come back to the pastoral position?

I mean, isn't it true, at least it's true.

From my own experience, from knowing pastors of churches and knowing

members of many different congregations all over the United States and different parts of the world, when they need a pastor, the

first thing they typically do is look outside for someone rather than

look within themselves.

It's almost as if a prophet is without honor in his own.

Home.

Oftentimes, a young man

comes up

and the

church can't afford to bring him on alongside of the older man.

In that case, maybe that man has to—you know, there are circumstances, but.

Arnie has hit the ideal right on.

We have an anonymous listener who asks, what do you say to

someone who really has a very strong desire and aspiration to become a minister

who has been told he has many of the gifts and character traits that are

vital for a pastoral ministry, and yet the person just simply cannot afford going to a

seminary such as yours?

Yeah, what do I say?

I say, and

that's because we believe that

it's—men not—second thing

that I would say, we

actually have

received—another

family

has

offered

to inquire and

see—.

We have John in Bangor, Maine, who asks, can you summarize what you think are the most vital

things that a person should view as a sign that

he is being called into the ministry?

The internal call—desires—one

of the words that Paul uses there

has to be a

drive on the inside, but the external call is really important as well, and that's where the church comes in.

The church needs to see that there is at least

the beginnings.

A man must have some level of ability.

That—if

they

don't—your inward desire is probably not the work of the Holy Spirit of

God, but something else.

And we have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks,

how far would you go in allowing a student to enroll at

IRBS Theological Seminary in regard to differences of theology?

Let's suppose even a Roman Catholic, or someone who has a seriously heretical

theology, perhaps even a denial of the historic gospel, would they be permitted to.

Attend?

We have time

for one more question.

An anonymous listener wants to know, can women enroll at

your seminary, even though you are complementarian?

Great.

Well, I would.

Like you to now spend about three minutes to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners.

Starting up this seminary and doing all the work that

the Great Commission

does, we

believe that

the world needs the

gospel,

that men

and women and boys and girls

know

Christ, that the

gospel—but

I'd ask your

listeners to pray for us,

to help us.

Well,

thank you so much, Dr. Renahan, for being a guest again.

I look forward to many return.

Visits as a guest to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

In fact, I'd love to interview more of your faculty as well.

And once again, I know that your website is irbsseminary .org,

irbsseminary .org.

Don't forget to put the two S's back -to -back in there.

I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

Mark down your calendar for tomorrow because we have Rev. Jack D. Kinnear

on the program.

He is a conservative Presbyterian within the PCA, but is on the faculty of the Reformed

Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He's also a thoroughly knowledgeable expert on the subject of Eastern Orthodoxy, and you don't

hear too many Protestants or Calvinists who know a lot about that issue.

So it's going to be fascinating, I am certain, tomorrow from 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern Time with

Jack D. Kinnear on Eastern Orthodoxy.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior

than you are a sinner.

We look forward to hearing from you tomorrow with questions for our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.