The Supremacy of Religious and Theological Education and Its Importance to Church Administrators

Abstract

The background to this paper is that in academics, religious studies is not given its due respect and many church administrators today see no reasonable ground for studying Theology; the belief is that Theology is not needed for ministerial competence either as Pastors, Prophets, Teachers, Evangelists etc. They operate with an erroneous motto: “You shall receive Power not a Theological College Certificate” which is a misinterpretation of Acts 1:8. This paper explored the importance of Theological Education to Church Administration in the context of the Scripture (Hos. 4:5). The methodology adopted a Reader Response Criticism approach and Historical-Critical method with emphasis on the exegesis of both Hosea 4:6. The results showed that many people are being misled under the umbrella of prophecy and direction of the Holy Spirit simply because of the lack of Theological Education. The paper concluded that since Jesus taught his disciples for about three and a half years before telling them to wait for the Power of the Holy Spirit, all Christian administrators should take Theological training seriously to avoid becoming blind guides to their members.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n7p161