Christopher Chelpka

Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando has posted the three main lectures of the inaugural Paideia Center Conference on SoundCloud. I was blessed to attend this year 📷 and am glad they are making these recordings available.

In The Bible and the Trinity, Scott Swain showed from Revelation 4–5 how the doctrine of the Trinity is not some unformed, inchoate set of data or ideas in the Bible that needs to be made comprehensible by the church. Rather, the doctrine of the Trinity in the Bible is formed, normative, and eloquent. The Bible speaks of God masterfully and fluently; ecclesiastical expressions are just trying to catch up.

In Trinitarianism in the Fourth Century, D. Blair Smith connected the reading that was done ahead of the conference with some other writings by Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea to make some observations about the doctrine during this period. It’s my aim to become familiar with Gregory in the coming years. I’m looking forward to hearing and reading more from Dr. Smith on early Christianity.

In Reforming God?, Carl Trueman answers the question: How did the Reformers handle the doctrine of God in the Reformation; did they reform it? He employs and argues for some important methodological principles in historical theology. And he asks some very serious and provocative questions about ecumenicity among current “evangelicals”. His talk reminded me of this stunning and disconcerting assertion I read in D. A. Carson’s Pillar NT Commentary on John (p. 117) a few months back when I was preparing a sermon on John 1:1.

“In fact, if John had included the article, he would have been saying something quite untrue. He would have been so identifying the Word with God that no divine being could exist apart from the Word. In that case, it would be nonsense to say (in the words of the second clause of this verse) that the Word was with God.”

The discussion concerning some points Trueman made during the conference is continuing on and offline; it is worth following.

• Derek Rishmawy, Trueman Called It
• Carl Trueman, Some Thoughts on Systematic Theology as Poor Relation, Part One and Part Two

This morning, I sent the following letter (edited here) to my students taking New Testament Survey. Perhaps it will help you in whatever you are learning right now. Thanks to @readerjohn for sharing the blog post I link to below.

Dear Students,

For those who may be struggling with the writing assignments or class discussion, I’d like to encourage you with a few thoughts.

First of all, I know these things are hard. I’m asking challenging questions, and I’m asking for your best work. Second, I know that writing and classroom discussion tends to expose weaknesses in our thinking, which is humbling.

But remember: you are in a safe place. You are doing a good job and we are all learning together. It’s okay to make mistakes. Make mistakes! And if you really want a great experience from this class, it’s going to take humility.

You might think this something to avoid. But don’t. Because “when pride comes,” says Proverbs 11:2, “then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.”

So if you’re smart about it, the learning that humbles will be the learning that strengthens. So take courage! Lean into your assignments and you will enjoy the benefits. As Francis Bacon said, “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

I love learning with you, Pastor Chelpka

P. S. If you want to grow in your ability to read and write, and you liked that Bacon quote (not 🥓, but still…😋 ), check out J. Budziszewski’s advice on how to be full and exact and learn what you can.

It’s easy to get in a teaching rut and rely too much on what’s comfortable. But those who use a wider variety of teaching strategies and tailor them to their teaching objectives will tend to have more success in making the material stick.

One way to think through the available options is to consider a distinction Mark Strom makes in Lead with Wisdom between conversation and communication. As he uses these terms, conversation involves “creating shared meaning,” whereas communication involves “sharing created meaning”. He says:

I don’t want to be precious about this. At a certain level communication and conversation are synonyms. Yet the distinction is not just playing with words. The bigger picture is our assumptions about knowing and meaning.

In Strom’s distinction, conversation allows knowledge to come about inductively and the process tends to “be a doorway to new meaning and new knowledge” and the formation not only of a single mind, but a community.

Conversation tends to assume that knowledge and meaning take shape through interaction. Conversations highlight how meaning is tied to relationship.

Communication, on the other hand, is about “sharing created meaning”.

[Communication] suggests there already exists some knowledge that others need to know. We need to communicate: clearly, concisely, and relevantly. This is crucial in every kind of enterprise. Sometimes things are straightforward, and the last thing we need is a never-ending process of consultation that’s supposed to deliver consensus. Communication tends to assume that knowledge and meaning are things to be discovered and passed on.

When I apply this distinction to teaching, conversation maps onto a set of techniques and philosophies about learning often called “active-learning”. Simply put, in active-learning students to learn by doing, and conversation is often involved, which requires asking good questions in a way that is formative, and cultivating a classroom culture that is condusive to discusion.

As a heads-up, I’ll tell you that there are various misconceptions about what active-learning means, and it’s something of a buzzword. So be careful. And if you’re a pedagogy nerd, you might find it useful to learn about the constructivist ideas behind this term. For that, Virginia Richardson’s overview and evaluations of the constructivist movement is helpful. But for those who want to get going faster, Cynthia J. Brame’s executive summary on active-learning is a great place to start.

Sometimes, active-learning advocates speak too strongly, which makes people ask questions like “Is it ever OK to Lecture? The answer is, yes. Of course it’s okay to lecture.

In a classroom setting, lecturing is the predominant form of what Strom calls “communication.” Lectures are especially good at passing on information, i.e. sharing meaning with others.

Of course, for this to happen, lectures need to be engaging, and the students need to know how to learn. And I’m not talking about VARK learning styles, a pedagogy idea that “keeps getting debunked”.

Unsurprisingly, mixing these two modes—conversation and conversation—in various proportions is usually best. The precise proportions will depend on your educational objectives. Bloom’s Taxonomies of educational objectives can help you choose your objectives.

To know whether or now you are achieving your objectives or to get suggestions on how you might do it better, you’ll need evaluation tools for both assessing the learning and assessing your teaching. There are many options to choose from. Getting and giving good immediate feedback is one of the best ways to achieve better learning outcomes.

*I updated this article in April 2019 with some new links. And to improve its clarity, I made significant revisions to the whole post. I added some links about learning (from the students perspective) in May 2019 and, in August, a couple links related to asking good questions. In March 2020, I added an excellent guide to cultivating better classroom discussion from The Chronicle of Higher Education. In May 2021, I added a paragraph about getting and giving feedback.

Whenever I read Isaac Watts, I feel like I see in him the kind of pastoral disposition I want.

His heart is always evident, but he’s never effusive. He’s a careful scholar, but for a broad audience. He is creative in the theological connections he makes, but he’s never wild. A good example of this last one is the connection he makes between the Trinity and the office of deacon in his book on the Christian church. He says, in part,

let them remember and rejoice, that they represent the Character of our Lord Jesus, as he is intrusted with all Supplies from the Hands of the Father, and distributing unto the Church invisible.

In case you’re curious, here’s an outline of the rest of his sermon on deacons:

1. the office (the work of deacons, the reason for the office, the duration of the office, the way in which they become installed),
2. how they may perform their duties well,
3. encouragements in the task.

You may be familiar with Samuel Miller’s book on on the ruling elder. As far as I know he didn’t write a parallel work on deacons, but in 1869, such a work appeared, with a nod toward Miller’s work, written by James M. Wilson. It’s called The Deacon: An Inquiry into the Nature, Duties and Exercise of the Office of the Deacon, in the Christian Church. (Miller does address the distinction between elders and deacons in his book.)

I found a hard-copy of Wilson’s work this while perusing the shelves at RTS-Orlando. Yay for physical libraries! His book does as the title promises and includes tons of data from Reformed and Presbyterian history. He uses exegesis and historical examples to prove his points.

Here are a couple of things I noted:

Wilson is decidedly in favor of putting all the temporal needs of the church—both individual and corporate (my distinction, not his)—in the hands of the deacons, who are subject to the session. No trustees! But I wonder, does he really think that everything temporal belongs to the work of the deacons? This seems unscriptural and impractical. I don’t think I’m misreading him, but it’s hard to imagine he’d hold such an extreme position.

On the necessity of the diaconate, he says that ensuring that this ministry is completed well and according to the will of Christ is important and should not be neglected. Why? Because it “concerns, intimately, the activity and efficiency of the Christian church in the promotion of the great ends of her organization: the diffusion of the gospel in its purity; and the accomplishment of those works of charity and benevolence, by which she is to reflect before the world, and upon it, the image of the grace and compassion of her beneficent Redeemer.” (55)