Ch 3 The Faith of the Theological Academy

“Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom…but let those who boast boast in this,

The faith of the theological academy is not an independent variable, which can be examined in and of itself without taking into account the intervening influences of (1) the faith of individuals occupying the academy, as well as (2) the faith of the church(es) determining, operating or in some other way shaping it. The overlapping interaction between the faith of these three is ongoing, such that the faith of the academy never stands alone as an independent variable. Rather, the academy’s faith becomes a dependent variable explicitly supported or implicitly upheld by the faith of the other two intervening variables. This is the faith equation that must be examined now in order to have a clarifying explanation, a correcting solution and a convicting outcome for the academy’s faith.

On the other hand, theological academies appear to exist and operate as if there is no need for clarification, correction and conviction, notably from other sources including the Spirit. This independence by the academy has evolved from the beginning to define its identity and determine its function, thereby serving as if the academy is the main source for explaining Christian faith and describing faith practice. After all, they are the training ground for church leaders. These stories about the academy need to be told and confronted when necessary.

To know God and then to believe in God were basic questions and issues that stirred up the need for theological education ever since Old Testament times. This need increasingly precipitated the formation of theological education and the formalization of the theological academy. The educational process unfolded initially as God directed specific persons to teach God’s people what God communicated for their faith (e.g. Ex 19:5-6; Lev 10:11; 1 Kgs 8:36). But, theological education became diluted and revolved around outward identity markers (such as the Sabbath, the Torah as a code of ethics, and the Temple)—compare with Sunday, the Bible and the church building for today—to construct faith for God’s people to have, not live. Thus, theological education shifted from God’s relational terms to reduced information merely about God. For this reason, God confronted them about the shallowness of its educators (as stated above, Jer 9:23-24). And the consequences of theological education were also clarified (Eccl 1:18; 12:12).

As this educational process evolved, Jesus had ongoing tension and conflict with the existing theological education and educators of God’s people throughout his earthly ministry. Most notable was the story of Nicodemus’ query of Jesus; this top-level educator of God’s people was confronted about his knowledge when Jesus exposed his shallow thinking with the rhetorical question, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things I say?” (Jn 3:10).

This variable beginning has become a recycling narrative for the academy and its educators. How so?

As I engaged in theological study, I was drawn to a philosophical mindset and became enamored with the philosophy I read and heard, along with the knowledge-filled presentations by educators, as well as the logical arguments of various theological positions. I ongoingly felt challenged to quantify my knowledge and enhance my logic on the limited basis of a reduced theological education. I didn’t realize at that time how my knowledge and understanding of God were being diluted, and how I became boastful both of the quantitative composition of the academy and its educators (only a few), not to mention highlighting the shallow results of my theological education. The outer in of my mind prevailed over the inner out of my heart, the heart which composed my initial faith. But, this won’t be surprising to others. My wife knows of seminary students who felt that they lost their initial child-like faith and excitement about Jesus while at seminary. And she has heard “jokes” in sermons/talks that refer to seminary as “cemetery,” where faith dies. Thankfully, the Spirit eventually clarified, corrected and convicted me of what I was constructing in my faith.

What’s your story about theological education, and are you aware of any stories about the academy or its educators?

I mentioned earlier how my new Christian faith involved intimately experiencing my relationship with Jesus, and how this intimate relationship became increasingly elusive as I became involved with the church and theological studies. This shift should not be surprising, even though my eventual dissatisfaction was surprising for me. These results reflect the faith of churches and the academy that they merely have and act, while living the action of faith was obscured in a theological fog. Thus, the academy’s narrative needs to be closely examined in order to get to the integral depth necessary for theological education to be distinguished significant and essential for Christian faith.

What can be expected from the variables the academy and its educators depend on to define and determine the composition of theological education?

The results from the following variable may be surprising to older Christians, but their sum is likely anticipated by younger generations. This would explain why fewer and fewer younger Christians have been attending the theological academy, which has led to the closure of a number of Christian academies, both graduate and undergraduate.

Perhaps most surprising (even for younger Christians) is the initial variable needing to be understood, because it underlies the other variables to widely affect the faith not only of the academy and its educators but also the church, its leaders and individuals, as well as all Christians. This initial variable centers on language and revolves on the language used.

Obviously, in order for individuals or groups to have any mutual exchange and further interaction, they must share the same language. This shared language can be verbal and/or nonverbal (as in body language), with expressions and signs common to each other in order to have that exchange and interaction. However, even persons or groups who share the same language can have difficulty exchanging, interacting and being on the same level of understanding.

In the Bible we can observe similar difficulty and challenges with language, as well as give testimony of our similar personal experiences with the Word. Perhaps, not surprisingly, you may feel that you and the Word don’t share the same language, and there may be more truth to that than is apparent. To highlight this reality, consider that the Jewish Jesus said directly to Jewish believers these words, “Why is my language not clear to you?” (Jn 8:43) Certainly his words were not foreign to them, but the meaning of his language was uncommon to them. In other words, though they shared the same language expressions, they didn’t share the same language signs. And what is underlying this difficulty is the factual reality that essentially they didn’t have the same language as the Word to “know the Truth” (Jn 8:32). This paradoxical linguistic contrast led to their interpretation conflict in misunderstanding the Word (8:33-41). Critical to this process, what underlies interpretation conflicts with the Word are language barriers generated, erected and sustained by reductionism (8:42-47).

The text of the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, yet this literary fact does not necessarily define the composition of Scripture and the language distinguished by the Word. An abundance of exegesis and word studies of the biblical languages, not to mention critical studies, have accumulated a wealth of data (cf. Eccl 12:12) that have not progressed biblical studies with the significance to answer Jesus’ above question. This is the type of learning and education that Paul cautioned Timothy

not to be misled and shaped by (2 Tim 3:7). The problem yet to be adequately resolved by churches and the academy is twofold: (1) understanding the nature of the Word’s language, and (2) addressing the reductionism that is the barrier to this understanding.

The biblical text is expressed in various genres, which is helpful to know for discerning what is being expressed. This knowledge, however, neither accesses the original-original composition of the Word nor insures an understanding of the composition in its original language—that is, beyond and deeper than its Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek wording. The specific composition of the Word doesn’t clearly emerge and fully unfold from its general expression unless that composition is perceived (read and listened to) in what is truly its original language. Stated briefly: The original language antecedes the biblical languages and gets us to the nature of the Word’s language, which is essential for understanding the depth of the Word.

Jesus used parables to express various ideas, yet his thoughts behind them unfolded only in the nature of his language. This was problematic for those who heard him, even for his disciples. When the disciples asked him what a particular parable meant, he told them to their surprise: “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that in spite of ‘looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand’” (Lk 8:9-10). Jesus’ words didn’t guarantee that the disciples understood him; on the contrary, they frequently didn’t understand the words from Jesus. For example, after his imperative to “Let these words sink into your ears,” he revealed vulnerably what was to happen to him. “But they did not understand his words; its meaning was concealed from them, so they could not perceive it” (Lk 9:44-45). Given how Jesus distinguished the perception of his disciples moments earlier, in contrast to others’ lack, how do we explain the disciples lack and thus loss?

The Word’s language is not readily apparent from these interactions. The clarity of the Word is illuminated when the Word’s original language is distinguished “In the beginning” (Jn 1:1; Gen 1:1), which isn’t the context paid attention to commonly in biblical interpretations. John’s Gospel is crucial for defining the Word’s horizon (main context) in complete context, so that the gospel is whole and neither reduced nor fragmented by a Word out of context.

First of all, the nature of the language expressing God’s words was changed from the relational language originally used to communicate to an alternate language used merely to inform (Gen 3:4-5). The shift to the primary focus on transmitting information over communicating relationship then opened the door to two major linguistic shifts of the words from God:

These major shifts transposed ‘the words from God in relational language’ to ‘the words of God in referential language’, and thereby altered the nature of the Word’s original language. The consequence for this beginning that still prevails today is:

The use of referential language that is unable to compose relational terms in order to communicate but is limited only to inform—the narrow transmission of information—therefore a language that cannot understand the composition of the words from Word no matter the wealth of information (even about “good and evil”) processing the words of God it can transmit to speak for God (as if “like God”).

The use of relational terms and its composing relational language function for the primary purpose of communication in relationship. In contrast, and often in conflict, the use of referential terms and its composing referential language function for the purpose of transmitting information, which is only secondary at best to the primary function and purpose of relationship. Essentially, on the one hand, it can be said that referential language was not “designed” for the further development of qualitative communication in relationship but, on the other hand, in reality it purposely went in the opposite direction that takes us away from qualitative relational connection. Historically, the referential language of prose evolved after poetry, and early poetry was sung, the qualitative significance of which was basic to communication in relationship and not the mere transmission of information.^{^[1]} For further consideration, Iain McGilchrist locates this qualitative process in the function of the right brain hemisphere. This qualitative function of the right hemisphere, and its related view of the world, is in contrast to the quantitative reduction of words to the referential language of prose by the left brain hemisphere for its function not of communication in relationship but to merely make discourse about something.^{^[2]}

In the nature of God’s relational language, the only purpose that God has, enacts, and fulfills is to communicate with persons for relationship together, not for their information to conform to, and therefore for their inner-out involvement in the primacy of vulnerable relationship together—reciprocal relationship together face to face, person to person. Moreover, this primacy of relationship is constituted by persons not subtly defined and determined from outer in like those in reduced ontology and function; rather, the primacy of reciprocal relationship is involved only vulnerably with persons from inner out constituted in whole ontology and function. When the nature of the language in use has lost its relational integrity, that language has compromised its purpose for the persons engaged. The unavoidable consequence is that that language either has no significant purpose or is simply used as an end in itself. Referential language fulfills either consequence in its assumed purpose; but then, that is the nature of referential language as conjointly composed by reductionism and propagated by its counter-relational workings (as Jesus clarified and corrected, Jn 8:44-45).

If we understand the nature of language, then whatever way we read the Bible, engage Scripture, or listen to the Word should always evoke our concern for the purpose of the language before us. Is this language to inform me, or to communicate with me? Is God merely engaged in theological discourse, or deeply involved to make relational connection with me? How we define this purpose is contingent on the language God uses. Accordingly, our understanding of the language composing the Word will determine whether we have been merely informed by the words of God, or we have been relationally communicated with by the words from God. The referential or relational outcome we will take away from this vital concern is the extent of knowing and understanding God, or at least what we think we know and understand about God.

This language variable has had a notably widespread effect on the academy, its educators and theological education. The effect is also directly related to the hermeneutic lens and epistemic field used for the language and outcome. The issue for our hermeneutic lens is when our view of God becomes “nearsighted,” which disables us from seeing God’s whole big picture; the consequence of this limited lens reduces our view of God and also likely focuses us on fragments of God that interest or concern us. The issue for our epistemic field is when it gets narrowed down notably to the quantitative at the expense of the qualitative, thereby skewing any knowledge of God and biasing the understanding of the Word.

In the realm of connection embodied by the Word, the person presented by Jesus always had to be clarified and corrected throughout the incarnation. That is, the Word’s clarification and correction were necessary in order for his whole person to be rightly and fully perceived, received, known, understood, and responded to in the primacy of reciprocal relationship compatible to the whole-ly God. And throughout Scripture the words from God also clarify and correct for this specific relational purpose and outcome. This integral process is epistemic, hermeneutic and relational, not to mention ontological, and it only unfolds in the breadth and depth of God’s realm of connection. To distinguish God’s uncommon theological trajectory along with the Word’s vulnerable relational path, each dimension of this process is necessary for the outcome to be whole; this means uncommon by nature to the surrounding common that is influential in shaping the prevailing epistemic field and hermeneutic lens. The critical issue is and remains: Whose epistemic source, hermeneutic routine, and relational terms constitute the realm of connection for engaging the Bible?

The shift to referential language opened the door to shape, redefine or reconstruct the information transmitted by God to narrowed-down interpretation (what God really meant by that, “your eyes will be opened”), that is, to reduced referential terms that implies speaking for God on our own terms (signified in “to make one wise”). When referential language is the prevailing interpretive framework for our perceptual-interpretive lens, then this shapes the way we see God’s revelation and the way we think about God’s words—as modern science is rediscovering about language. Conjointly and inseparably, referential language also puts a constraint on our lens, thereby restricting what we see of God’s revelation and limiting how we think about God’s words (“you will not…”). This dynamic from referential language obviously redefines the subject matter in the theological task, and certainly continues to constrain its theological engagement, most notably and consequentially for theological anthropology. Any explanations and conclusions that emerge from the theological task in referential terms merely are the theological reflections of referential language. Any such theological statements have no theological significance; they only attempt to speak for God—most prominently with the illusion or simulations from reductionism (“you will be like God”).

The other variables facing us are not new but simply, yet critically, also emerged from the beginning and evolve from there. The next of two inseparable variables emerges from God’s creation of the first individual humans, which composes the basic and essential theological anthropology for theological education.

As previously discussed, in the beginning the Creator constituted the persons (no matter the gender) in the primordial garden with an irreducible ontology, an irreplaceable epistemology and a nonnegotiable relationship, the function of which distinguished the image and likeness of the whole of God (integrally incorporating the Word and the Spirit). Those defining words from the Creator (Gen 1:28-30; 2:16-17), expressed in an historical or allegorical context, were either given to human persons to inform them of the parameters of their human function; or they were shared with those persons to communicate distinctly the terms for the relationship between them and the Creator. If the words communicated the terms for relationship together, then these relational terms could only be distinguished when composed in relational language. Anything less than relational language would be ambiguous, elusive, and simply open to variable interpretation of those relational terms; the consequence would be to substitute the Word’s relational terms with other (notably human) terms to define the relationship.

The terms for most relationships are open for negotiation, at least in theory. The Word’s relational terms, however, are nonnegotiable, and this truth has been ignored, denied or simply not understood by God’s people since this beginning—with Christians having assumed the most negotiating posture in their practice of faith, though not openly stated in terms quantifying a Rule of Faith (like Law)..

It is crucial for our theological anthropology in particular and theology in general to understand a distinction that is not interchangeable. Despite the indispensable place of the creation context to complete the context composing the narrative for human beings, it is insufficient, inadequate and incorrect for theological anthropology simply to reference the context of the Creator. As Subject, the Creator’s context is not a referential context; and Creator-Subject’s creative and communicative actions (as well as salvific) are only enacted in relational terms, never referential terms that diminish, minimalize or make secondary the primacy of God’s relational design, purpose and function. In other words, God acts simply in relational terms, which we quite simply often overlook or ignore. There is a basis for this.

The relational terms composing these relational actions can only be distinguished in Creator-Subject’s relational context, and not a referential context in which this relational significance becomes elusive, gets obscured or is lost. This critically points to the language used in theological education and the need for the academy to account for it..

In theological education, theological anthropology in God’s relational language readily gets transposed to referential language to quantify information about God and humans; this has been widely documented for the resourcefulness of the academy and its educators. This pursuit of theological significance that was put into motion in the primordial garden critically needs to be accounted for in theological anthropology discourse. In referential language, theology’s subject matter is narrowed down to terms that are disembodied (de-relationalized), fragmentary or elusive, without distinguishing the whole Subject, and therefore the whole human person. This is the designed purpose of referential language, and its use in the theological task has unavoidable consequences epistemologically, hermeneutically, ontologically and relationally. Thus, the theological anthropology they depend on has clouded their identity and function having shifted from the inner-out primacy of the heart to the outer-in distinctions quantified by the mind.

It is important to understand in theological anthropology, and give account for theological anthropology discourse, that language and thought are interrelated in a reflexive dynamic, whereby one leads to the other and the converse of the other leading to the one. For example, the language of personhood leads to the thought of person-consciousness—assuming that it is relational language—and the thought of person-consciousness leads to the language of personhood made functional in personness, whereas referential language leads to self-consciousness. That is, the thought or thinking we have before language formation involves human consciousness; and that consciousness (person-consciousness or self-consciousness) emerges in function through language (relational or referential). This reflexive dynamic illuminates how crucial it is for theological anthropology to understand the non-interchangeable distinction of language and to account for the language it uses to distinguish God, define God’s revelation, and determine the language that composes the human narrative.

This critical and pivotal issue is the interrelated reflexive dynamic unfolding in the primordial garden of the creation narrative. The composition which unfolds in this narrative is contingent on the language used, which will be in either relational terms or referential terms leading only to a relational or referential outcome respectively. While language and thought are inseparably interrelated, the distinction of language and its terms is non-interchangeable. For theological anthropology, therefore, the type of human consciousness that becomes functional for human beings depends on the language used to express it. Person-consciousness emerged clearly from inner out and unfolded in relational language (“naked and without shame”). Reductionism influenced the shift to outer in and to the referential language that focused on information and its transmission. Information, for example, about someone is a fragmentary account of someone who has been disembodied (or “dismembered” into parts, not de-physicalized) as a subject and de-relationalized down to those bits of information about them as some object. These referential terms of information about someone, no matter its quantity, render such human beings without the significance to be whole as well as relationally connected, and thus unable to be known and understood in the wholeness of relationship together. Again in contrast and even conflict, relational language involves the communication of someone not as an object but distinguished only as subject in order that relational connection takes place for the relational outcome of knowing and understanding the subject; and this relational process further involves reciprocal relationship together for mutually knowing and understanding each other in primary relational terms, not secondary referential terms.

Accordingly from the beginning, we are challenged by and accountable for this simple yet vulnerable reality:

theological anthropology is not about subject matter but involves embodied subjects connected to each other;

And any discussion on theological anthropology must be lived first in the faith of those presenting it; indeed, theological anthropology requires being lived experientially by its proponents, such that theological anthropology is not conceptual or theoretical but being the person God created in ontology and function, who is distinguished whole-ly by the image and likeness of Subject-Creator.

Consequently, it is inadequate for theological anthropology to inform our minds, particularly with referential information about human beings and on the nature of the person in referential terms. Nor is theological anthropology sufficient merely to reform our thinking on human being and being human, and thereby only signify who and what form the person in likely referential language. By its intrinsic nature, theological anthropology must transform our persons from inner out, without fragmenting the person into parts, for the sole outcome of whole ontology and function necessary ongoingly to constitute the person and persons connected in relationship together. Nothing less and no substitutes from theological anthropology can transform, though it may reform and likely inform.

Therefore, the theological education of the academy’s or the church’s and any individual’s variable theological anthropology should not be surprising because of the next variable inseparable from this dependent variable. The academy’s subtle shift from inner out to outer in points them directly back to the sin evolved from the beginning. The issue, however, is its theological view of sin constructing its faith and composing its belief system, which directly leads to its faith practice in theological education. In other words (in relational language, not referential), the measure of sin it uses is the measure of what it gets.

In referential language, the academy’s view of sin is limited or diluted to measures insufficient to hold it accountable for its variable theological anthropology—a TA reduced or fragmented, not whole. In God’s relational language, sin must by its nature encompass the breadth of sin as reductionism countering the whole of God and God’s created wholeness. The former is a weak view of sin, and the latter is the strong view of sin that is invariable to anything less and any substitutes for God’s relational terms composed in relational language for relationship together in the image and likeness of the Trinity—the whole theological anthropology created by God.

In the counter relational workings of sin as reductionism, the awareness of what kind of theological anthropology defines the identity and determines the function of those in the academy is not apparent in their mindset. Lacking this awareness is not surprising for minds preoccupied with referential information about God that in their faith they have an obligation to teach others. Nevertheless, a reduced theological anthropology is palpable to the heart whenever it is paid attention to over the mind; and this awareness or sensitivity is contingent on a strong view of sin addressing the presence, influence and effects of reductionism. A weak view of sin maintains a relational distance or disconnection with God, even while possessing a quantity of information about God signifying the secondary in a referential outcome, not a relational outcome. While the academy could boast of this possession, the essential issue is the relational outcome of “knowing and understanding God” (Jer 9:23-24). Is this relational consequence the norm or the exception for theological education, the academy and its educators?

The academy has not been unaware of the need to nurture knowing and understanding God on a deeper level than referential knowledge—or at least deeper than the information it teaches. Its approaches to address the need revolve around spirituality and spiritual formation for it students, without addressing an underlying reduced theological anthropology and weak view of sin. Yet, even with its limited acknowledgements, the outcomes are revealing, as two prominent theological educators have realized.

In an honest memoir, Lewis Smedes revealed his plans after retiring from Fuller Seminary; his story is notable for any and all in the academy:

I told them that I was going to develop a closer friendship with God. They usually chuckled. But I was serious. Abraham was God’s friend. Jesus made friends of his disciples. In all honesty, I had never known God as a friend, not the way I know my other friends. Now, after seven years into retirement, God and I are still not what you would call close friends. What is taking us so long?

For one thing, good friends like each other…it has to be reciprocal. If I like you but you don’t like me, we are not likely to be friends. So if God is to be my friend, he must like me, which is just what is hard to believe. For years—most of my life in fact—I have not found it easy to think that God could like me.

…Here is something else that makes it hard to be God’s friend: He never, well almost never, talks to me. From what they tell me, I gather that he talks to other people.

…I walk and talk [with God], but God hardly ever says a word to me…when I am with God, I do all the talking. Most of the time.

…Maybe the highest obstacle that, for far too long, kept me even from thinking about God—or Jesus—as my friend was this: good friends admire each other. …But the admiration has to be reciprocated.

…There is ever so much about God to admire and there is nothing about him not to admire. But is there anything about me that he can admire? As a child and for years beyond, I believed that there was nothing in me that anyone, certainly not God, could admire. Today, in my old age, I have begun to believe that I am someone whom God does admire.

…I am still more comfortable kneeling before the Lord my Maker than I am looking him straight in the eye and calling him my friend.

…Growing old has not brought me much closer to God or much wiser in his ways. I once thought that when I retired from a regular job and had no pressure to go here and there and do this and that, I would spend much more time with him. Hasn’t happened. And I thought that, with more time to think about him, I would come to understand him better. Here, I think, I have made some progress—not much maybe, but enough to nudge me to work at it some more.^{^[3]}

It appears that he experienced the reality of “Those who increase knowledge increase sorrow” (Eccl 1:18)—that is, the outcome of referential knowledge in referential language.

Smedes’ story evolved sadly but not surprisingly. His thinking signifies the cerebral activity and acting of his faith evolving outer in from his mind; and his mind was buried under his referential knowledge in a theological fog, thereby not truly understanding and knowing God. While Smedes had the cerebral nexus to this referential outcome with his mind, he didn’t have the relational connection necessary from his heart for the relational outcome missing in his faith.

Smedes wanted to experience the relational outcome composed in the primacy of relationship together after all his years serving faithfully in the secondary for a referential outcome. He labored in a comparative process under the ontological lie of a deficit model making him ‘less’ and not under the Word in relational language and reciprocal relationship with the Spirit; yet his practice signified his congruence with Fuller’s purpose and curriculum “under the authority of Scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, there was no apparent epistemological clarification and hermeneutical correction to challenge his assumptions most notably of both a fragmentary theological anthropology defining him and determining relationships from the outer in, and a weak view of sin not addressing his and his context’s reductionism. Consequently, the gospel and the human condition were inevitably narrowed down, the former without its depth and the latter without its breadth.

The second story is from the late Diogenes Allen (professor of philosophy at Princeton Theological Seminary) who, like Smedes, struggled with the realization that he wasn’t experiencing God’s presence and involvement, indeed to have a close relationship with God. Allen admits that although he was a pastor and “successful teacher of philosophy and theology…[he was] very much at a loss concerning spiritual matters.”[4]

“I found myself wondering again and again what it would be like actually to live every moment of one’s life with an awareness of God. I do not mean that I actually wanted to live that way, because it would be quite daunting—this constant awareness of being in God’s presence. Still, I was troubled by my ignorance. In spite of my religious faith, the ability to preach sermons and to give lectures…most of the time God seemed remote. Although I had a doctorate in philosophy and theology, and had read a lot of books, I did not really know what it meant to have an awareness of God in daily life, or how one went about achieving it. How was it that in all my church attendance and advanced education I had not learned such an elementary matter?”[5]

“Both biblical study and theology were cluttered with so many options and so many issues that conversation in the seminary and other academic gatherings resembled the plight of people after the disaster of the tower of Babel rather than the deep communion brought by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.”[6]

“questions that are extrinsic rather than intrinsic to theology. Intrinsic questions arise from the nature of God and of ourselves in relation to God. Extrinsic questions arise from somewhere else: what we have learned, or think we have learned, from fields of inquiry other than religion….”[7]

This demonstrates the referential nature of the Word used to define theological education’s primary purpose, which is so critical to understand and address. This limited Word is contrary to Paul’s relational imperative for the Word embodied in relational terms to vulnerably engage us whole-ly in relationship as we teach and contend with reductionism in each other.

From both their hermeneutic lens focused on and epistemic field narrowed down to the referential, Smedes and Allen weren’t able to boast in understanding and knowing God, though they were able to boast about his wisdom and resources (the primacy of Jer 9:23-24). What Smedes and Allen were unable to boast, thus, must be defining for the primary purpose of theological education and determining of its curriculum. That is to say, the what of theological education is distinguished only by knowing and understanding the whole of God in relational terms and, therefore, by its relational nature converges with the what, who and how of God vulnerably present and intimately involved in reciprocal relationship in order to be known and understood. This good news makes this boast a simple reality, yet its experiential reality is made difficult by competing boasts commonly expressed explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, in the academy: boasts of knowledge, insights, theories, abilities and resources.

This boast also includes the spiritual disciplines and spiritual formation in theological education. Many Christians besides those in the academy have turned to spiritual formation in order to experience more in their faith. But, this focus has become a referential outcome instead of the relational outcome needed and desired. Consequently, spiritual formation has become an end in itself for the faith of many rather than the means to deeper connection with God.

Richard Foster, a leading advocate and teacher of the spiritual disciplines for spiritual formation, has certainly been among the first to warn against making the spiritual disciplines a mere activity of faith. But, listen to his story:

“When I wrote the book on prayer [Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home], of course, it was a really intensive time. And I remember I wrote the last sentence on New Year’s Eve. I got up the next morning, and I didn’t want to pray. I was sick of it.”[8]

Foster shared further that he had to admit this to his spiritual formation group: “I don’t want to pray.” Such statements need to be put into the deeper relational context, beyond the mere situation that reflected Foster’s need. For example, in relational terms, his statements would be equivalent to saying about communicating with his wife, “I’m sick of being involved with my wife.” Yet, surely he wouldn’t say that about his wife because communicating is not about an “it” but only about the other person in relationship. It appears, then, that what Foster is unknowingly and unintentionally expressing is that functionally prayer is more of an activity than involvement with God in God’s relational context and with the trinitarian relational process of intimacy in reciprocal relationship together. Thus, Foster must critically examine what he taught.

No matter what the purpose and curriculum of theological education are, if they are not congruent with what, who and how God is embodied by Jesus’ theological trajectory and relational path, then its what does not signify knowing and understanding the whole of God in relational terms. There are likely other referential outcomes about which to boast but not this relational outcome. This uncommon boast is composed entirely from the primacy of vulnerable involvement with the Word in relational language. Contrary to the relational outcome of knowing and understanding God as distinguished only in relational terms by the Word are the common boasts resulting from the referentialization of the Word. Understanding the nature of the Word has been problematic for defining the primary purpose of theological education, and knowing the identity of the Word has been elusive for determining its curriculum.

Examining next the variables of the academy’s purpose and curriculum for theological education needs to be with a hermeneutic of suspicion on the basis of the invariable strong view of sin and whole theological anthropology. These invariable variables will unequivocally help clarify, correct and convict the academy of the referential outcome of its purpose and curriculum.

The stated purpose of the academy could be an image of its activities, a script for its act, or an action to be lived in its faith and practice. Examine the following statement of purpose from a major Western seminary:

Fuller Theological Seminary is dedicated to the mission of equipping men and women for the manifold ministries of Christ and his Church. Under the authority of Scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit, Fuller pursues this mission by providing

It goes on to define “its unique character and distinctive contribution” by listing academic excellence, thoughtful evangelicalism and its two schools, multiple centers, institutes, and initiatives for its creative engagement with church and culture and for its regional and global influence.

In all its boasts there is no mention of knowing and understanding God. This absence is a critical matter that cannot be assumed or implied in its above statement. Given this, we can only conclude that its purpose and subsequent curriculum have shifted from the primary of God’s relational terms to the secondary in referential terms. Furthermore, since it claims to pursue its purpose “under the authority of Scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit,” their focus and emphasis would indicate the referentialization of the Word and an immature pneumatology assuming the Spirit’s unilateral work. Such engagement cannot have the relational outcome of knowing and understanding God in the primacy of reciprocal relationship together but only its substitutes signified by the secondary in a referential outcome.

A previous dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (moved this year to Canada for its survival), Tite Tienou, identifies knowing God as basic to their core values: “there is no possible doubt that we must have recourse to the Bible if we want to know God.” He adds, “At Trinity we believe that knowing God is essential for all aspects of life” (Trinity Magazine, Fall, 2012, 10). Yet there is no indication in their focus that this is distinguished from merely knowing information about God in referential terms, however personal, as a substitute for the primacy of knowing God in reciprocal relationship together. Unless clearly distinguished, a hermeneutic of suspicion would conclude that their focus is not distinguished by the relational outcome of God’s communication recorded in the Bible—composed only by relational language, not referential language.

The variable purpose stated in referential language by academies becomes reducible and negotiable on the basis of their weak view of sin and reduced theological anthropology. In the relational language composing the invariable strong view of sin and whole theological anthropology, however, the purpose of the academy is irreducible and nonnegotiable to anything less and any substitutes.

On this relational basis, Paul’s ecclesiology for the church’s wholeness becomes a needed hermeneutic of suspicion for any purpose statement like “the mission of equipping men and women for the manifold ministries of Christ and his church.” Church leaders are given the relational means for the purpose “to equip the saints” (katartismos from katartizo, to put into proper condition, to restore to former condition, make complete, Eph 4:12). This directly points to the dynamic of transformed persons reconciled and relationally involved in transformed relationships together in relational likeness to God, and integrated in interdependence of the various church functions (“work of ministry”) necessary for the dynamic embodying (4:12) of the church’s whole ontology and function of “the fullness of Christ” (4:13).

This means unequivocally: For church leaders to be of ontological significance, their persons must be defined by the wholeness of the new creation in the qualitative image of God from inner out, not defined by their gifts, resources or the roles and titles they have which reduce their persons to outer in; and for their leadership to be relationally significant as transformed persons, their function must be determined by agape relational involvement in transformed relationships together (both equalized and intimate) as God’s new creation family in the relational likeness of the whole of God, not determined by the titles and roles they perform (even with sacrifice) that make distinctions, intentionally or unintentionally, creating distance and stratification in relationships together. The latter practices by church leaders renegotiate ecclesiology from bottom-up based on a theological anthropology from outer in, which also apply to the practices of the academy.

Paul’s relational imperative of the Word in relational language is integrated with his relational imperative for ‘the wholeness of Christ’ to be our only determinant from inner out (Col 3:15). Only the nature of the Word in whole ontology and function can constitute both “the manifold ministries of Christ and his church,” as well as the “recourse to the Bible,” and thereby compose theological education’s “mission of equipping” us “for all aspects of life” to be and live whole as God’s new creation family and to extend the depth of the whole gospel to make whole the breadth of the human condition. Anything less and any substitutes are fragmentary, incapable of wholeness, and rendered to reduced ontology and function.

This examination leads directly to the academy’s curriculum. It would reasonable to assume by the general Christian sector, or even the secular sector, that the academy’s curriculum is for the sake of its theological education. Though this may be its secondary purpose, the Western theological academy (namely in the U.S.) has shifted its concern first and foremost to becoming accredited by authorized educational councils/committees to have formal status as an approved source of education. But, this accredited status is achieved not on a theological basis but on the basis of its epistemological research and expertise in quantitative terms. Thus, to achieve this accredited status the theological academy has had to evolve into a secular education likeness, with its curriculum formed by the currents of its counterparts.

One of the consequences evolved from the Western academy’s accredited status is the imposition of its so-called superior (or elite) theology onto the theological education of the rest of the world, notably the global South. Surprisingly or not, the Western colonialization of theological education keeps evolving from its historical roots. When the Christian church first emerged, its Jewish majority constituency imposed their religious culture on Gentile converts. Aside from fighting theological heresy among Christians, subsequent dominant groups in the church have imposed their particular Christian practice on the others in the church throughout its history. Christendom evolved, with colonial Christianity notably imposing its culture on the expansion of Christianity in different parts of the world. However, the recent expansion of Christianity has reconfigured the Christian majority from its Western roots in the global North (or Minority World) to now be occupied by those rooted in the global South (or Majority World). Increasingly, a diverse segment of global Christianity is evolving in post-colonial Christianity, which then is asserting its will to impose the diversity of cultures on their practice

When the details of these historical developments are examined, a common thread can be located that has been a recurring theme through church history. Besides the gospel and its mission, what consistently has characterized Christians and churches in their faith practice is directly contingent on two underlying theological issues:

2. Their working (not ideal) theological anthropology (TA) that is the basis for

Accordingly, theological education by ongoing necessity has to account for its view of sin and working TA, in order for its curriculum to be validated by the integrity integral for each of them.

Beyond the initial burden of accreditation, the academy is faced with forming its curriculum to be congruent with its purpose. And both its curriculum and purpose need to be accredited by God in relational language composing the relational terms of its curriculum with a strong view of sin and whole TA.

Any curriculum established in the academy projects a theological trajectory for theological education. The ongoing critical question that its curriculum needs to account for is “How compatible is the curriculum with the theological trajectory of God’s revelation communicated Face to face and most vulnerably embodied by the theological trajectory of Jesus?” In addition, the academy must account for its curriculum variable even more deeply because Jesus’ theological trajectory was integrated with and in his invariable relational path involved heart to heart. Moreover, Jesus’ relational path constitutes for his followers serving him (including for the academy) the discipleship essential to “be where I am” (Jn 12:26).

Therefore, the academy’s curriculum cannot be varied on a parallel path and expect to be compatible with Jesus’ theological trajectory, much less congruent with his relational path. The issue for the academy directly questions how complete is the Christology used in its theological education.[10] Any incomplete Christology is insufficient to be on the same trajectory and path as Jesus, and thereby teaches a renegotiated discipleship reduced to referential terms. This is basic to examining with hermeneutic suspicion.

Consider statements made by presidents (former and present) of seminaries—plus another from Diogenes Allen—whose role would be at the forefront of ensuring that their curriculum fulfilled its purpose for theological education.

“Genuine theological education should aim for transformation, not the mere transfer of cognitive data from one mind to another. We can be satisfied with neither rigid intellectualism on the one hand nor unreflective sentimentalism on the other. Our aim ought to be rather head and heart together, puritanism and pietism, both together at their best. As Thomas Aquinas, echoing Augustine, put it, ‘Theology is taught by God, teaches God, and takes us to God.’”

“Theological education over the next decades of the twenty-first century will need to be increasingly personal, incarnational, global, and gospel centered.”^{^[11]}

“A divorce between intellectual inquiry and spiritual formation occurs when intellectual inquiry is not concerned with movement toward God, and it happens quite easily because spiritual growth is not a prerequisite for discussing doctrines. Doctrines themselves do not include our response, whereas our response is the focus of devotion.”[12]

Yet, this goal will not bring significant difference from the past unless (1) it counters the underpinning shift of human interpretation and its challenging shift to referential language, and (2) returns to the relational language taught by God (not others speaking for God), teaching the words communicated from God (not about the informative words of God), and takes us to God for the relational connection to know and understand the whole-ly God. Furthermore, the academy’s future will not experience the redemptive change of the old dying so the new can rise until (1) it confronts sin as reductionism in its midst and thus in its theology and practice, and (2) transforms its theological anthropology from reduced ontology and function to whole ontology and function. Without confronting these critical underlying issues in all theology and practice, both past and present, the status quo keeps evolving. When theological education and learning have their determinant distinctly shifted from the common to the uncommon, then they will no longer simply keep recycling changes from the old but will indeed experience the new.

In his comments for a hopeful future in theological education, David Dockery seems to opt for a previous phase of the status quo:

“We need institutions of theological education to recommit themselves to academic excellence in teaching and scholarship, in research and service, as well as in personal discipleship and churchmanship. At the same time, we must lay hold of the best of the Christian theological tradition and carry it forward to engage the culture and the academy.”^{^[13]}

What is the best of Christian theological tradition? Nothing really changes from the past to the future when we are on a different trajectory and path than what are incarnated by the Word—the whole-ly Word incarnated further, deeper and more significantly than the prominent evangelical Word of today. Moreover, in his renewal of the academy’s curriculum, Dockery assumes that the academy has already attained a complete Christology in its scholarship and research to be on the same theological trajectory as the embodied Word; and, thus, he assumes its service and discipleship will be on the same relational path as Jesus in relational connection “where I am.”

The theology possessed in the faith of the academy’s activities and acting still seem to be in a theological fog in the above statements, which reinforces all of the dependent variables for theological education. Until the academy gives these variables its undivided attention and turns around from the secondary to the primary distinguished by the Word, this pervasive and persistent fog will not be cleared away. And any and all of its referential outcomes will continue to confront the academy with “Where is your faith?”

In a fog or not, the academy is not only faced with waking up to the who and the what of its theological education, but it also unavoidably faces the how its theological education operates in general and functions in particular. The how of the academy’s theological education centers on, revolves around and unfolds from its pedagogy.

For the academy to face up to its sustaining variable will not only be challenging but confronting, because it can only be faced directly face to face and then heart to heart. The theological education embodied by Jesus’ theological trajectory and lived by his relational path unfolds from his vulnerable relational involvement face to face and heart to heart, all of which signified his pedagogy distinguished in his teaching. His theological education throughout the incarnation illuminated his pedagogy, ongoingly intensified it, and kept it sustained by just his relational terms. That’s why face to face initially is essential and imperative for the academy to face up to, if not wake up. Keep this in focus as the academy is urgently faced with its own pedagogy.

Perhaps the most subtle inflection point constructing the faith Christians have (most notably the academy) is the shift from following Jesus’ whole person to simply his teachings. Consequently, Jesus’ person is reduced from a Subject to an object, which referentializes him merely as the object of faith possessed. On this reduced basis, what Jesus taught is transposed from his relational language communicating from God to share the heart of God openly Face to face to referential language only transmitting information about God. Consequently, Jesus is not only referentialized but also derelationalized.

The former communicates the words of God—as revealed in the literary Word and shared by the embodied Word—not first and foremost as teachings but personal words sharing directly the heart of God’s vulnerable presence and relational involvement with us, thus not only face to face but integrally heart to heart. In contrast and in conflict with the Word’s personal communication, the latter constructs the faith Christians have from the primary teaching of the academy, whose theological education propagates a faith effectively in its likeness, if not in its image.

Recently in the academy there has been a paradigm shift in the perceptual-interpretive framework of some biblical scholars to a more relational dimension by the use of prosopological
exegesis.^{^[14]} In Greek prosopon means “face” or “person” (in Hebrew, paneh), which then forms an exegesis with more relational awareness. Biblical scholar Scot McKnight discusses the need for this framework also for theologians in order to understand the Bible as the context for communication by the Word to humans who can communicate with God.^{^[15]} This is certainly a step in the right direction for theological education to be of deeper significance. However, it doesn’t go deep enough to develop the qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness to connect with God vulnerably for the intimate involvement heart to heart (not just face to face) to listen fully to God’s communication. Only at this depth will our person(s) receive the experiential truth and relational reality of the relational outcome of knowing and understanding the whole-ly God. And it is only in this relational outcome will we no longer hear “I have been with you all this time and you still do not know me.”

If it has not become apparent, what the academy teaches is inseparably integrated with how it teaches to sustain theological education. Another major assumption made in theological education is an implied approach that learning takes place however the pedagogical process is engaged. There is a benign neglect of how teachers teach and students learn, operating on the assumption that teachers teach and students learn. The apparent thinking is that teaching and learning are achieved by the transmission of and exposure to a high academic level of content—and the higher the level the better the achievement (cf. Dockery’s statement).^{^[16]} This is a pedagogical model composed in referential terms by the wise and learned that Jesus exposed as incompatible to know and understand God (Lk 10:21-22), and that Paul identified as being embedded in an endless process of learning without knowing the truth (2 Tim 3:7), that is, the incarnated Truth as Subject-person who frees us from such referential constraints (Jn 8:31-32).

If the truth of theological education is the incarnated Truth (beyond a proposition) and the primary purpose of theological education is to know and understand God according to the Truth in relational language, then theological education can no longer adhere to the referentialization of the Word and depend on (even by default) a referential pedagogical model for its teaching and learning. The how of theological education is not optional on the agenda of the academy or church but integral for the irreducible and nonnegotiable relational outcome of knowing and understanding the whole-ly Trinity in compatible theology and congruent practice. This outcome may seem relatively routine in referential terms, but its reality as the relational outcome involves a vulnerable resolve in relational terms—which can be discomforting and threatening.

The cerebral pedagogy of the mind produces pictures (or snapshots of God to effectively portray a 2-Dimensional view of God, thereby teaching only portraits of God’s still-life profile; these portraits have been collectively posted analogously to a photo album. The affective pedagogy of the heart embraces the life of God in 3-D to bring alive the teaching of God’s life in living relational reality Face to face.

Of course, academies boast about the photo album composing their theological education, albums which they label “theology”; and these so-called theology photo albums also add to the competition between them. In addition, academies display their photo albums on social media platforms to promote their survival by virtual theological education on the internet.

By contrast in 3-D, the Word incarnated all this for us to be incarnated. Besides the Sermon on the Mount, the Word’s manifesto for all his disciples and their discipleship, the incarnated Word enacted his most significant education and learning for his disciples when he vulnerably washed their feet (Jn 13:1-17). In order for his action to be lived, he subordinated his identity as “Teacher and Lord,” not letting that role and title determine his function and thus how he would be involved with them. He thereby made his whole person vulnerable to them face to face as never before, penetrating heart to heart in the relational outcome that Jesus’ footwashing gave them the experiential truth and relational reality of knowing and understanding the whole-ly Trinity. This incarnates the knowing and understanding without any veil (or mask) that creates a relational barrier or relational distance. The presence of any veil (e.g. role and title) prevents this relational connection and thus precludes this relational outcome.

Knowing and understanding the whole-ly (whole and uncommon) Trinity in 3-D are primary to God’s presence and involvement Face to face, and this primacy is the heart of theological education and learning. Therefore, what is essential for and thus in our education and learning is the relational connection, involvement and outcome signified in footwashing—not as an activity or acting, but action lived by love.

It was no mere event of transcendence when the Father communicated directly to Jesus’ followers: “Listen to my Son” (Mt 17:5). The Father’s relational imperative clearly illuminated the nature and identity of the Word entirely in relational language, and the Trinity’s relational terms set in motion the final phase of the relational epistemic process that distinguishes theological education in the Trinity’s whole-ly ontology and function. To be so distinguished, theological education must compatibly engage this relational epistemic process and be congruent with the Word’s improbable-uncommon (not probable-common) theological trajectory and vulnerable relational path for its pedagogical model of teaching and learning. For this reason, Jesus extends the Father’s relational imperative with two interrelated relational imperatives: “pay attention to how you listen” (Lk 8:18), and “pay attention to what you hear” (Mk 4:24) because “the pedagogical model you use will determine the teaching and learning you get.” Of course, as Peter would testify, our hermeneutic lens and epistemic field will determine what we pay attention to and ignore, what we make primary and only secondary, thereby both determining our pedagogical approach and composing our teaching and learning.

Jesus incarnated what to pay attention to for the how of theological education to be integrally (1) determined by the primary over the secondary, and thus (2) distinguished by the qualitative in whole relational terms, and not the quantitative in fragmentary referential terms. When the core of theological education returns to the incarnated Word unfolded whole and uncommon (cf. Rev 2:4-5), it is face to Face with the whole-ly Word who, by the nature of the Word, must be taught invariably in his relational language with relational words by his relational process. Teaching in only his relational terms and not referential terms challenges the prevailing pedagogy in higher education and, more specifically, confronts how theological education is normally engaged (even with innovations under the assumption as the new normal). Therefore, theological education also needs to turn to Jesus for how to teach its innermost core—but turning to the uncommon Jesus heart to heart who is not commonly perceived, listened to and connected with notably in most of the Christologies used in theological education.

Given the pedagogical footprints visible on Jesus’ theological trajectory and relational path, the academy is now inescapably faced to be accountable face to face for Jesus’ pedagogy heart to heart.

On the basis of his footwashing pedagogical model, the whole and uncommon incarnated by Jesus were clearly distinguished first in how he taught and then in what he taught. Jesus’ approach to teaching the whole-ly was not about revealing key knowledge and critical information in referential terms, because the relational content (qualifying word-content) distinguishing God’s whole basis in wholeness involved only the whole person in relationship. What this involved for Jesus is vital for us to understand both to more deeply experience his incarnated whole and to further extend God’s whole basis to others within the church and in the world, the antecedent of which emerges from the quality of theological education and not its quantity. Jesus’ pedagogical approach to teaching and learning was integrated into the relational progression of discipleship in his theological trajectory and relational path, not merely to inform and reform theological education in the academy and all levels of Christian education in the church, but to transform them. This is essential for the status quo not to be recycled or to evolve with further adaptations, no matter how innovative.

When Jesus told the Father that he disclosed him to the disciples (Jn 17:6), he used the word phaneroo, which refers to those to whom the revelation is made, and not apokalypto, which refers only to the object revealed. This is not an artificial distinction to make but a critical one to distinguish God’s revelation as Subject engaged in relationship, in contrast to only the Object to be observed. Phaneroo signifies the essential context and process needed for his disclosure of the whole-ly God and God’s whole basis in wholeness, whose relational content would not be sufficient to understand merely as apokalypto of the Object observed in referential terms. How did Jesus constitute this key context and process to fully disclose this uncommon wholeness?

John’s Gospel provides the initial overview of Jesus’ pedagogy, which is the functionally integral framework for the qualitative significance of his disclosures. In the narrative of a wedding at Cana attended by Jesus and his disciples, Jesus used this situation to teach his disciples about himself (Jn 2:1-11). This initially evidenced the three dynamic dimensions basic to his approach to pedagogy.

As a guest, Jesus participated in the sociocultural context of the wedding (an event lasting days). In response to his mother’s request, Jesus appeared reluctant yet involved himself even further than as guest. In what seems like an uneventful account of Jesus’ first miracle unrelated to his function and purpose, John’s Gospel also provides us with the bigger picture illuminated in his introduction (Jn 1:14). John’s is the only Gospel to record this interaction, and the evangelist uses it to establish a pattern incarnated for Jesus’ ministry. The miracle was ostensibly about the wine but its significance was to teach his disciples. Both how and what he taught are vital for the wholeness of theological education.

When Jesus responded to his mother and got further involved, he made the whole of his person accessible to his disciples. Jesus was not just approachable but vulnerably accessible. To be specific, this involved more than the quantitative notions of accessible language or words in teaching, or of making accessible one’s resources. This deeply involved making directly accessible the whole of his person from inner out and thus the qualitative significance of who, what and how he was. What unfolded from his person was his vulnerable resolve in relational terms. In this social context Jesus did not merely reveal (apokalypto) his resources, but most important, he vulnerably disclosed (phaneroo) his functional glory to his disciples, not a mere theological glory lacking functional significance (Jn 2:11, cf. 2 Cor 4:6).

The first aspect of his glory that Jesus made accessible to them was God’s being, the innermost of God signified by the primacy of the heart. It was Jesus’ heart, composing his whole person, whom he made accessible to them. The whole person, composed by the function of the heart, distinguishes clearly the depth level of significance necessary to be accessible in Jesus’ pedagogy. Anything less and any substitutes are inadequate for this accessible-level to teach the whole further and deeper than referential terms that distinctly common-izes what is uncommon. A turn from the heart or veiling the heart are consequential for the qualitative engagement needed to be accessible. It is incongruent to be helping others understand wholeness while one is not functioning to be whole in the process. Therefore, Accessible (A) is the first dynamic dimension in Jesus’ pedagogy necessary by its nature to be whole-ly in order to teach the whole-ly.

Phaneroo illuminates the irreplaceable context and process for making his whole person accessible. The miracle, person-disclosure, and being accessible, all are not ends in themselves but in Jesus’ purpose and function (even in this apparent secondary situation) are always and only for relationship. More specifically then, phaneroo distinguishes the integral relational context and process involved in his teaching. When Jesus disclosed his glory, he did not end with making accessible God’s being, the heart of God.

The second aspect of his glory involved God’s nature, God’s intimate relational nature, witnessed initially between the Trinitarian persons during his baptism and later at the transfiguration. In this teaching moment, Jesus disclosed his whole person to his disciples for the primary purpose of relationship together, thereby disclosing the intimate relational nature of God. That is, his functional glory, in his heart and relational nature, communicated in the innermost to make relational connection with their human ontology as whole persons—the persons created in the image of the heart of God for relationships together in likeness of the relational nature of the Trinity (as in Jn 1:14). This also provides further understanding of the relational context and process of God’s thematic relational response to the human condition and what is involved in that connection, which integrally composes the innermost core of theological education.

In this seemingly insignificant social context, Jesus qualitatively engaged and relationally involved his whole person with his disciples in the most significant human function: the primacy of reciprocal relationship together in wholeness in order not “to be apart.” As he made his whole person accessible in this relational context and process, his disciples responded back to his glory by relationally “putting their trust in him” (2:11), thereby living their faith even if only in this moment. Their response was not merely to a miracle, or placing their belief in his teaching, example or resources—in other words, a mere response to the Object observed. The context of his teaching was relational in the process of making accessible his person to their person, thus deeply connecting with the heart of their person and evoking a compatible relational response to be whole in reciprocal relationship together Subject to subject, Face to face, heart to heart.

This relational process also illuminates the intrusive relational path of Jesus’ ‘relationship together involving the whole person’, which anticipates his improbable theological trajectory to remove the veil for intimate relationship with the whole-ly God. If his teaching content were only cognitive, this qualitative relational connection would not have been made. Anything less and any substitute from Jesus would not have composed the relational context and process necessary to qualitatively engage and relationally involve his whole person for relationship together to be whole, consequently not fulfilling God’s thematic action in relational response to the human relational condition—nor fulfilling God’s definitive blessing of bringing new relationship (siym) together in wholeness (shalom, Num 6:24-26). Therefore, Relational (R) is the second dynamic dimension in Jesus’ pedagogy necessary by its uncommon nature to live whole in relationships in order to teach the whole, only God’s relational whole.

When Jesus turned water into wine in this secondary social situation, he did not diminish the significance of his miracle or his glory. His disclosure was made not merely to impart knowledge and information about him for the disciples to assimilate. Who he presented and what he communicated are major issues for his pedagogy. His disclosure was made in this experiential situation (albeit secondary) for his disciples to experience him living whole-ly in this and any life context, thus not in social isolation or a conceptual vacuum that a theology divided from function signifies.

For Jesus, for example, merely giving a lecture/sermon would not constitute teaching—nor would listening to such constitute learning. That is to say, his teaching was experiential for their whole person (signified by heart function) to experience in relationship. For this experience to be a reality in relationship, the whole person must be vulnerably involved. This involved the third unavoidable issue of the depth level he engaged in relationships; the first issue being the presentation of his person and the second centers on the integrity and quality of his communication. When Jesus made his heart accessible to be relational with his disciples, he also disclosed the third aspect of his glory involving God’s presence, God’s vulnerable presence. In the strategic shift of God’s thematic relational action, the whole-ly Jesus incarnated God’s vulnerable presence for intimate involvement in relationship together, therefore disclosing God’s glory for his followers to experience and relationally respond back to “put their trust in him”—not merely a belief for the Rule of Faith but the relational involvement of the whole person. Accordingly to the Word, the incarnated Truth is experiential truth vulnerably present and involved for the experiential reality of the whole Life in the Way’s relationship together. If this is not the qualitative relational significance of the gospel at the heart of theological education, its core is not in the innermost of “the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Human experience is variable and relative. For experience to be whole, however, it needs to involve whole persons accessible to each other in relationship by vulnerable involvement together heart to heart, which in the human context is uncommon (as social media today demonstrates). For this relational dynamic to be a functional reality, it must be the relational outcome of Jesus’ theological trajectory that removed the veil in relationship together (as in Eph 2:14-18), and of the relational path of his footwashing. This was Jesus’ purpose in his teaching and his pedagogical approach, which also was intrusive with ‘relationship together involving the whole person intimately equalized’. This was who, what, and how Jesus was ongoingly in his glory: who, as his whole person signified by the qualitative function of his heart; what, only by his intimate relational nature; and thus how, with vulnerable involvement of love only for relationship together to be God’s uncommon whole.

The reality of relationally knowing (not referential knowledge about) the whole-ly God and relationally participating in God’s uncommon whole only emerges as experiential truth. Jesus’ teaching remains incomplete, and our learning is also not complete, unless it is experiential beyond the virtual. Therefore, to complete the three-dimensional approach, Experiential (E) is the third dynamic dimension in Jesus’ pedagogy necessary by its nature to integrate the other two dimensions of Accessible and Relational for the qualitative depth of the uncommon whole in order to teach the experiential Truth of the whole Life for its experiential reality in the Way’s new relationship together in wholeness.

The three AREs of Jesus’ pedagogy incarnate the definitive three-dimensional paradigm to be whole and to live whole in order to teach the experiential truth (not merely a propositional truth) of the uncommon whole. That is, incarnating this three-dimensional paradigm involves vulnerably teaching the whole as God’s relational whole on God’s qualitative relational terms, just as Jesus vulnerably incarnated, relationally disclosed and intimately involved his whole person with other persons. From this overview and with his vulnerable resolve, Jesus ongoingly demonstrated his three-dimensional pedagogical approach. His most notable teaching involvement unfolded in the last table fellowship he had with his disciples (discussed earlier, Jn 13:1-17).

As the Master Teacher (13:13-14), Jesus took his pedagogical approach to a whole new level. His footwashing (as noted above) is commonly narrowed down to serving, thus fragmenting Jesus’ whole person to a part (in this case a secondary act) that is perceived with the mindset of a theological anthropology in reduced ontology and function. This is the nearsighted hermeneutic lens and narrowed-down epistemic field Peter had in this key interaction, which contrasted and conflicted with the pedagogical approach Jesus relationally incarnated—that is, who vulnerably intruded on traditional and conventional pedagogy. Beyond the norm and what would be considered reasonable (notably in the academy), Jesus made his whole person vulnerably accessible to them without the veil of his title and role in order to reach the depths of agape involvement (“the full extent of his love”) for the relational connection necessary for them to experience the intimate reality of relationship together in wholeness.

Since Peter defined his person from outer in focused on secondary matter, he defined Jesus’ person by imposing the veil of the title and function of Master Teacher. Consequently, reduced ontology and function prevented Peter from learning experientially the primacy of whole relationship together incarnated by his Master Teacher’s vulnerable relational path in whole ontology and function. And Peter’s fragmentation should not be ignored in theological education since the limits in his theology and practice were consequential for the fragmentary formation of the early church (Acts 10:14-15,34; Gal 2:11-14). Nor should it be ignored by the educators and students occupying theological education if they want to progress in what’s primary.

Jesus’ pedagogy conflicted with the prevailing teaching practices in the ancient Mediterranean world; it was by its nature counter-cultural. Accordingly, his pedagogy conflicts with any reductionist teaching approaches, notably in the modern Western world with its primary focus on referential knowledge and rationalized understanding through the narrowed-down quantitative lens from reductionism (predating the Enlightenment)—further exposing a theological anthropology of reduced ontology and function. The learning process of Jesus’ pedagogy necessarily involves whole knowledge and understanding (the synesis of Col 2:12), which engages the primacy of the qualitative and the relational for the outcome of whole ontology and function, and thereby requires the critical cultural shift.

Therefore, Jesus’ teaching of whole-ly God’s uncommon whole involves redemptive change and transformation to the new—not only for the whole person to experience as an individual but most importantly to experience in relationship together to be the whole-ly Trinity’s family. God’s relational whole on only God’s qualitative relational terms is this new creation family ‘already’—the new wine communion with no veil, intimately equalized without relational distance or barriers—relationally progressing to its ultimate relational communion together ‘not yet’, which Jesus made imperative to be taught after he discussed a series of parables about the kingdom of God and the last things (Mt 13:52). Anything less and any substitutes of this new as whole-ly constrain the flow of the new wine and reduce the planting, cultivating, growth and taste of the new wine in its full qualitative relational significance, whereby the status quo is maintained (Lk 5:36-39).

John’s Gospel gives us this whole picture from the beginning, in which the incarnated Word ongoingly functioned in his theological trajectory while remaining vulnerably involved in his relational path for intimate relationship together. The whole-ly Word’s teaching only had significance in this definitive relational progression for this relational outcome ‘already’ and relational conclusion ‘not yet’. And this is how any teaching of the whole-ly Trinity’s family needs to be theologically and functionally contextualized (counter to common-ized)—and all the “trees” of life put into the “forest” of God’s thematic relational action for the eschatological big picture and the ultimate relational communion together, just as Paul composed in his theological forest and systemic framework. For Jesus, and Jesus into Paul, the only incarnating of theology that has qualitative relational significance is nothing less and no substitutes for the uncommon whole. To incarnate God’s whole basis in wholeness, therefore, any theological enterprise by necessity functions in the uncommon complete fullness of God’s improbable theological trajectory and intrusive relational path (Col 1:19-20; Eph 1:22-23); and this trajectory and path involve irreplaceably the primacy of the qualitative and relational needed to be the Trinity’s new family together intimately equalized in wholeness with no veil—the fulfillment of God’s definitive blessing that incarnates the change of relationships for their wholeness together Face to face (Num 6:26).

Both Jesus and Paul intrude on theological education today to challenge integrally what composes its core and how it teaches this core.^{^[17]} To teach God’s relational whole integrally constituted by uncommon wholeness and composed in the relational language, this engagement must involve the vulnerable resolve of the three AREs of Jesus’ pedagogy to be compatible with the Trinitarian relational context of family and to be congruent with the Trinitarian relational process of family love that incarnate the new creation family as the intimate equalizer. At the heart of this whole-ly relational context and process is ‘reciprocal relationship together involving the whole of persons’, and this clearly involves both teachers and students being accountable for our whole ontology and function with the veil removed. The new wine is composed by and is contained in only this whole ontology and function, whereby to counter the reduced ontology and function in our theology and practice as well as the status quo in our education and learning.

Yes indeed, what is essential for and thus in our education and learning is footwashing. Footwashing education and learning unmistakably distinguish for us and in us the uncommon from the common, the whole from the reduced or fragmentary, the primary from the secondary. Moreover, footwashing holds both those who educate and those who learn accountable for each of the former, even if any of the latter needs to be confronted (as Peter would testify), and even if their perception and interpretation of the former needs to be corrected.. In the distinctly whole-ly relational context and process of footwashing, those involved integrally incarnate the whole of who, what and how they are in the image and likeness of the Trinity—with nothing less and no substitutes, just as the whole-ly Word incarnated for us to be incarnated.

Therefore, only the relational outcome from the three AREs of Jesus’ pedagogy brings the academy face to face in the face of heart to heart.

While the human context and secular education have entered a 5G revolution—the 5^th generation of fiber optics in wireless telecommunication technology that is 100 times faster than previous 4G and allows for billions of simultaneous connections—the theological academy has not progressed very far (if at all) in connecting with the Word on his theological trajectory and relational path. Its theological education remains distant from the relational progression Jesus constituted for the heart of his followers face to face, thereby keeping his relational outcome in a theological fog. And based on its available data, even AI will never be able to make any connection to Jesus’ relational outcome.

The referential outcomes and consequences examined will continue to evolve for the academy until its faith constructed cerebrally is deconstructed, in order for the academy to undergo redemptive change so that the heart of its faith will be transformed to healthy living.

Transformed to heart healthy living must not be confused with the reformed and innovative activity that has recycled in theological education’s history. The ancient poets illuminated the primary for theological education. Psalm 67:1-2 is the summary text of the primary: The whole of God’s thematic relational response to the human condition in the innermost of the global picture for the primacy of new relationship together in wholeness—the relational outcome of the Face’s definitive blessing from the beginning. Psalm 46:10 is the functional key to theological education:

“Be still, and know that I am God,” which in the context of Psalm 46 is to stop and cease preoccupation with the secondary, relax the hands of human effort in self-determination and don’t allow the influence of our human contexts to define and determine who we are in God’s image and likeness and whose we are as God’s whole family, thus being freed from referential constraints so that we know and understand God in relational terms.

This opens up the pedagogical process beyond innovations in a conventional epistemic process to the vulnerable reciprocal response in the relational epistemic process with the Spirit. Simply stated in relational language, this reciprocal response is the relational function of “Pay close attention, O my people, to my teaching in relational language; open wide your ears from inner out to the relational words of my mouth, not merely a text” (Ps 78:1).

This relational dynamic, however, has extensive competition in theological education (as witnessed in Judaism’s history) that fragments God’s integral thematic response, that diverts us to the secondary embedded in a self-determining process, and that limits the pedagogical process to variations of the ‘old’ or the status quo. In this competing dynamic, anything more that goes beyond our cognitive understanding and/or what we can control is suspect or threatening, and consequently met with resistance in one way or another. Peter demonstrated his resistance, reflecting a competing dynamic in his theological education that limited his pedagogical process to the templates of the old, all of which are confronted by the Word’s declaration “Come to me, listen with your heart so that you may live” (Isa 55:3).

Transformation gets to the heart of the who, what and how of the academy, as well as the church and the individual. From inner out, the old is redeemed and changed to the new to restore the heart of the who, what and how to healthy living in wholeness (as Paul made definitive, Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17) only in the Trinity’s likeness (2 Cor 3:18). This heart healthy living is the relational outcome intensely facing the academy face to face

It is unlikely that Jesus and Paul would survive in the prevailing framework of education today in churches and the academy. Though both of them taught in the temple-synagogue contexts, they were in ongoing conflict in those contexts. Their conflict was not with the faith they had in common, but with the prevailing hermeneutic lens and epistemic field, along with a reduced ontology and function. In the primacy of “qualitative life and wholeness” (Rom 8:5-6), therefore, Jesus and Paul intruded on those engaged in self-determination and shaping of relationships, and they would also intrude on and likely threaten theological education today. For Jesus and Paul, even well-meaning intentions in those contexts are insufficient to compose theological education, and inadequate to clearly distinguish its qualitative-relational function and ongoingly sustain its practice—as evidenced in the churches Jesus critiqued in post-ascension (Rev 2-3).

The divide between theology and function and the increasing fragmentation of theological education into multiple theological disciplines are normative for the academy today, lacking a sense of the whole even when stated intentions seek coherence. Theology and function were inseparable for Paul, with function the priority from which his theology emerged. Function without theology does not determine whole function. Theology without function cannot constitute whole ontology. For Paul, wholeness in theology, ontology and function are determined only by the primacy of the relational Word both indwelling and inhabiting us at the heart level from inner out with his qualitative presence and relational involvement (Col 2:9-10; 3:16). Anything less than the innermost and any substitute for it in theological education would no longer have the wholeness of Christ as its primary determinant (Col 3:15); nor would it have the whole of God holding it, the academy, church and the universe together in the innermost (Col 1:17; Eph 1:23).

Therefore, any and all accountable deconstruction of the academy’s faith by necessity transforms referential outcomes to the relational outcome from the Word’s theological trajectory and relational path. Nothing less and no substitutes can constitute the academy and its theological education in the action of faith lived heart healthy.

Take heed, academy, and “wake up” to the “knocking on your door” by “your first love” (Rev 2-3) facing you Face to face for the beat of your heart!

[1] See Oliver Sacks for a discussion on perfect pitch, tonal communication and protolanguage, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brian (New York: Vintage Books, 2008); see also Edward Foley, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1991), 9.

[2] Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 105.

[3] Lewis B. Smedes, My God and I: A Spiritual Memoir (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 160-65.

[4] Diogenes Allen, Spiritual Theology: the Theology of Yesterday for Spiritual Help Today (Cambridge, MT: Cowley Publications, 1997), 1.

[5] Allen, 2.

[6] Allen, 4.

[7] Allen, 154-55.

[8] In an interview by Mark Galli, “A Life Formed in the Spirit,” Christianity Today, (September, 2008), 45.

[9] Taken from a document describing Fuller’s search for a new president in 2013, “The Fuller Presidency: Opportunity Profile,” 2-3.

[10] For a full discussion on Christology, see my study Sanctified Christology: A Theological and Functional Study of the Whole of Jesus (Christology Study, 2008), online at https://www.4X12.org.

[11] Quoted from the Forward in David S. Dockery, ed., Theology, Church and Ministry: A Handbook for Theological Education ((Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2017), xii-xiii.

[12] Allen, 154.

[13] David S. Dockery, ed., Theology, Church, and Ministry: A Handbook for Theological Education, 20.

[14] See Matthew Bates, The Birth of the Trinity, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

[15] Scot McKnight, Five Things Biblical Scholars Wish Theologians Knew, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021).

[16] Michael S. Lawson challenges this mindset in The Professor’s Puzzle: Teaching in Christian Academics (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2015).

[17] For an in-depth study of the integration of Jesus and Paul, see Jesus into Paul: Embodying the Theology and Hermeneutic of the Whole Gospel (Integration Study, 2012). Online at https://www.4X12.org.