An aspiring pastor writes in to ask, Pastor John, what would you look for in deciding on

a seminary?

Don't look for a building, don't look for a campus, don't look for a library, don't look

for a location, look for a faculty.

That's my advice.

And then if you ask me, okay, if I'm looking for a faculty, what am I looking for?

I would say, look for a faculty who reveres the Bible as God's inerrant word, which may

be easier to sniff out than whether they love God.

Loving God is a little more personal and abstract, but you can begin to detect in way

of person's teachers and rights as to whether their relationship with the Bible is one of

amazing, deep, controlling reverence for God's inerrant words.

Look for that.

Number two, look for rigor in their exegetical labors that they are drawing out truth from

the word more than they are drawing out truth from systems and from books.

When you go to their classes or when you read their books or when you talk to students

about them, are they biblically saturated?

Are they bent on proving their points, not by saying Luther said it or Wesley said it

or Calvin said it, but Paul said it and Jesus said it and here's the verse and here's

the logic of the verse and that's why we stand on it.

Are they that kind of Bible people rather than system people?

Third, look for a solid coherent biblical theology with the gospel at the center and the

sovereignty of God underneath and the glory of God at the top.

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