Anti-Intellectual Movement in Church is Well and Alive

I find it increasing unable to breath and move among the circle of my friends. Besides one or two people I know, there is no one else from the professional world has entered full-ministry since the mid-1995. It's going to be three decades long soon without a single working professional giving up his job and entering into full-time ministry. Even in the late 1980s, we had a few qualified teachers after a few years of teaching, gave up the teaching profession which is one of most secured government jobs with good pension, and then they had entered into ministry in their late 20s or early 30s. But now there is none. There are two or three University graduates among our ranks but they had little to no working experience and having struggled to find a good job in the world they had entered full-time ministry. I can truly say that there is this anti-intellectual movement in church that is dominating the discussion and narrative about full-time ministry and becoming God's servants in general.

No wonder elders and deacons who have worldly qualifications and work experience pay scant respect to these pastors without any secular knowledge and even their biblical knowledge is not much greater than the average deacon since there is a dearth of biblical teaching in the Bible College. I still find it astonishing that a Seminary can calls itself a Bible or theological School with less than 10 percent biblical content of its entire curriculum. 

Teaching Greek is almost an afterthought, either the lecturers are not qualified to teach the subject or that there is not much motivation for students to come to grip with the biblical language except for a few words here and there which they quote in their sermons. 

But in the end-time, the book of Daniel must be our example. Daniel and his three friends are knowledgable in many areas of the study and in many fields and when they went to Babylon they were taught the Chaldean language and its literature in order to stand and serve before the King. Now we have a greater King. We have our Bible written in Hebrew and Greek. Surely, we must spend some effort in getting a measure of proficiency in those languages. 

And knowing that the apostles quoted the Septuagint 80% of the time, is it not important to learn Greek, not just to read the New Testament but also to understand its primary source in the Old Testament translated into Greek called the Septuagint (LXX)? 

I pray that one day and only if visionary leaders are elected into office and put into rightful authority, perhaps in 20 years' time, we could have 20% of the clergy coming from the ranks of professionals or former professionals or if not 20%, even 10% would be an admirable achievement and if that happens, it will surely transform the Church to be one that is ready to take its mission into the world and impacting society at large.