Personal Thoughts on a PhD

BC asked me in the comments section if I’m thinking about doing a PhD. The answer is yes. But I’m a weird sort of PhD-seeker. I don’t want to be an academic first and foremost. I would love to be able to teach, but not on a full-time basis. My calling, I think, is to be a pastor, and I want to be a pastor of the type I’ve described thus far this week: an intellectual pastor, one who seeks to engage the thought and practices of the culture.

I can see great benefit to doing a PhD, and I’m currently thinking through where to aim in my prospect. For a wannabe pastor, a seminary education seems good, but a secular program may also be of use and benefit. Right now, my wife and I are doing a good deal of praying on this matter. Hopefully, in time, we’ll find a good path to travel.

So if anyone out there has wisdom on the matter, feel free to share it. What have your PhD experiences, sacred or secular, been like? What would you counself a young man to aim for–a seminary program or a secular program? I’ll be interested to read any answers that may come. Whether you write or not, I encourage you to join me in praying that God would call out a bunch of young men to rigorously train themselves not for the sake of man’s applause, but the furtherance of the gospel in our age.