Sem Eye: How to fit a whole seminary into your pocket

Because you've always wanted to keep a favorite professor in your back pocket

Have you ever wondered whether there might be a better way to prepare yourself for ministry? As much as we love and adore our dear CTS, there are days when classes seem shallow, sun-starved skin turns sallow, and one can not help but speculate that the same education could be found somewhere else. Serious investigation, however, reveals that all seminaries offer similar days and Calvinism is simply better taught in a climate of gray skies and heart-stopping cold than in sunny Pasadena. It seems no matter where you go, student loans and years of eye-straining late nights where all those Hebrew vowels merge into one are inevitable.

Still, the thought remains: if all these professors are writing books, and if the books are really as good as they say they are, why do I need to get up at 6:30 in the morning to finish reading them before class? Why not just sleep in, mosey over to cozy coffee shop, and read at my own pace to my own level of intellectual fulfillment? Would any honest professor really miss reading through the same drab lectures year after year when he or should could be writing on a laptop somewhere on a beach instead?

It appears these questions finally occurred to the folks at Bethany House Publishing and the result is already creating quite a stir. In The Portable Seminary: A Master’s Level Overview in One Volume, editor David Horton brings together an all-star cast of scholars to free the frustrated future of church leadership everywhere from dull days locked in library cubicles. Students unite! For a mere $34.99, you can pack John Stott and Mark Noll in your briefcase and bring a four-year intensive master’s degree program with you wherever you go. 784 pages cover everything you need to know, whether you are called to captaincy of the next giga-church or itinerant street preaching.

Are you still skeptical that one volume can really qualify you for a lifetime of ministry? The Portable Seminary covers “Bible survey, theology, biblical languages, hermeneutics, church history, missions, apologetics, ethics and more, all in one volume, drawing on top experts in each field…what’s not to like?”

Act quickly if you want your copy of The Portable Seminary. Rumor has it that Calvin Seminary administration “representatives” have already been dispatched to raze the warehouses containing this potentially incendiary volume ever since rumors started of students dropping out. One second-year M.Div. student, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted “I’m just waiting to see if I can cancel my last tuition check before they cash it. I plan to use that money to buy my own Portable Seminary instead, and then take the leftover cash to start a church plant in Vegas!”

The Portable Seminary is available online at the Family Christian Stores website or for the reduced price (call it a scholarship) of $24.14 through Amazon.

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