
Our very own Norm Jeune worked through the book and offered some thoughts in a few recent posts:
1) Presuppositional Theology and Foundationalism
2) Considering a Fundamentalist Perspective on the Scriptures
But I would say that the front line is the local church. And there is a sense in which seminary is a back-up slot. The front line is the local church, and the first impetus towards ministry and towards stamping people for what ministry ought to be should be within in the context of the local church. And then a good seminary, a good theological college, helps to provide the kind of training and further exposure to more technical knowledge, a grasp of the languages, and this sort of thing. Virtually no local church can provide that, and yet it’s really important for those who teach in such places, nevertheless, to be pastors first, because if they think of themselves of teachers and scholars first, then they tend to produce teachers and scholars. So there’s a stamping, not simply from the course material, but from your own values, what you dream about, what you think about. So, at our seminary, we always want to hire a certain percentage of faculty who wish they were in the pastoral ministry, or else quite frankly, we don’t want them. Now, they have to be academically competent and all the rest, but we don’t want people who just want to be in a seminary. We want people who in many ways would prefer to be in the local church. So, that’s as close as I can come to explaining where I’m at.
since men have become sinners, they require, but by nature lack of sin, of conviction, and of repentance toward God. If anyone will ground all of his hopes on a correct interpretation of God's self-revelation in providence, they simply cannot hope to come to an understanding of Him, of how He is to be worshipped, or of how their lives might be framed so as to be pleasing to Him. Why? Because sin stands in the breach between them! No revelation which lacks the elements of conviction, repentance, or atonement can suffice for fallen man! Will any man attempt to forge a system by which the pagans have so ordered their lives by the light that they had as to obtain salvation? He has his work cut out indeed! Any number of such reasoning might be brought forward with no effect at all. (Biblical Theology, SDG, 55)
To ascertain fully the meaning of the present passage, we must examine more closely the design of Christ, the reason why, and the purpose for which these words were spoken. First, the comparison is undoubtedly intended by Christ to exhibit the magnitude of the grace bestowed on his disciples, in having specially received what was not given indiscriminately to all. If it is asked, why this privilege was peculiar to the apostles, the reason certainly will not be found in themselves, and Christ, by declaring that it was given to them, excludes all merit. Christ declares that there are certain and elect men, on whom God specially bestows this honor of revealing to them his secrets, and that others are deprived of this grace. No other reason will be found for this distinction, except that God calls to himself those whom he has gratuitously elected. (my italicizing)