Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry

by Paul David Tripp

2) THEOLOGICAL SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS For students who have not been required to confess that it is easier to learn theology than to live it, it is tempting to think maturity is more a matter of knowing than a matter of living. They think that godliness is more a matter of what you intellectually grasp then a matter of how you live your life. So, puffed up with knowledge, they smugly think they are okay. 3) DYSFUNCTIONAL PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP TO THE WORD Somewhere in his theological education, the student loses his devotional relationship not only to the Word but also to the God of the Word. Study of the Word becomes more a world of correct ideas than a world of submission to the Lord, whom those ideas introduce and define. 4) LACK OF PERSONAL GOSPEL NEEDINESS Since the student has come to think of himself as more mature than he actually is because of the knowledge he has gained, he doesn’t approach God’s Word with a tenderness and neediness of heart. His study of the Word brings him again and again to his desk, but it seldom brings him to his knees.