Is a PhD helpful for pastoral ministry? Mark Dever Answers

Should a pastor have a PhD? Is it helpful? Is it necessary? Mark Dever addressed the topic “Why a PhD is Needed in the Pulpit” (mp3) but changed the title to “On Having a Doctorate in the Pastorate.” I outlined his brief remarks below and included some quotes from the questions and answers segment I found helpful.

Here’s the archive description: “Opening remarks and question/answer session conducted at the Feb. 27, 2002 meeting of the Graduate Club in the President’s Reception Room, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.”

Five Reasons a PhD May be Helpful for Pastoral Ministry

1. It may be helpful for the matter of what you study. If you pick something you’re edified by it can assist and help your ministry.

2. It may be helpful from the very form of the studies. Doctoral studies should improve your ability to research and at best your ability to think.

3. It may be helpful for the ministry you have while you’re in your doctoral studies.

4. It may be helpful for the connections you make through your studies. Consider the community and relationships you’ll build which may serve your ministry in the future.

5. It may be helpful for the credibility you may have with non-Christians and carnal Christians and Christians you don’t know very well.

A PhD is Certainly Unnecessary for Pastoral Ministry

1. Great learning can be ill-used.

   1. You can become prideful.

   2. You can do people little good – you may speak above people’s comprehension.

2. Little learning can be well-used

   1. John Owen on John Bunyan – “If I could possess that tinker’s abilities for preaching I would most gladly relinquish all my learning.”

Conclusion: “Involvement in a good church is unquestionably far more helpful in the pastorate than a doctorate. But a doctorate can be useful in the pastorate. To say less would be misleading, but to say more, any more, would be false.”

Questions and Answer highlights:

• Sibbes, the subject of Dever’s PhD studies, edified and affected Dever with his meditations and concerns.

• “There’s no question. If I had to weigh out my time in England between my involvement with the church and ministry or the doctoral work at Cambridge I learned far more from my time in the church and ministry than I did from doctoral studies. The doctoral studies were good. I don’t at all regret it. It was good. But yeah, it’s no contest.”

• Dever did a PhD because he planned to teach not be a senior pastor. If he knew he was going to be a senior pastor he probably would not have done a PhD.

• Not all pastors should get a PhD. Most shouldn’t. Some should. It depends on the person. And there are various recommendations in between.

• (12:05): “I don’t think you have to have an M.Div. to be a pastor. Now, do I think there are advantages to it, sure, particularly the original languages. And the kind of study of church history and systematic theology. But beyond that… [I suggest] we just close down certain parts of the seminary. It would be best to turn those things back over to the churches.”

• (16:23): “It’s not uncommon to have a pastor who writes, who’s an author. But to have a pastor as a scholar, to be able to keep up scholarly work, that is difficult.”

Here is a list of other answers I’ve found on PhD’s and pastoral ministry. One worth noting is Piper’s: Should Pastors get a PhD? Piper answers if you're prepping and get the right program to study the Bible better it can help, but if you're already a pastor just do serious self-study.