The Pastor's Professor is Not The Pastor
Despite assumptions to the contrary, the pastoral office retains the burden of the church’s theological leadership, regardless of the vocational context of professional theologians and scholars. Or to say it again, the burden of maintaining the theological and ethical integrity of the people of God is inevitably linked to an office within the church, not to a group of people with intellectual gifting. Insofar as pastors bear the day-to-day burden of teaching and leading God’s people, they simply are the theological leaders of the church. As goes the pastoral community, so goes the church. Assuming sufficient tenure, show us a pastor with robust theological depth, and we’ll show you a local church with a corresponding theological depth. Likewise, show us a pastor who lacks the capacity to think meaningfully about the gospel, and we’ll show you a church that lacks the same. It doesn’t matter how theologically informed the pastor’s professor is. The theological integrity of a local church will not rise above that of its pastor. What is true for individual churches is true for the church as a whole.